1. In your opinion, how has the HR Tech landscape evolved over the years? What are some of the advantages of the current technological evolution?

It has been more than two decades in which the 1st wave of HR tech evolution took place. Let’s remember that during the late '90s Talent Acquisition portals make their appearance trying to administer the recruitment process, many changes had occurred since then, now there we are no more talking about administrate we talk about the future, profitability, productivity, diversity, inclusion, work-life balance and sustainability

More than two decades ago when we began to talk about technology applied to Human Resources processes, since then many things have changed, however, to get to where we are today it is necessary to understand what are the stages through which HR has gone through to systematize its processes. At the beginning of the '90s, international companies began to use the HRBP (Human Resources Business Partner) concept, which was intended to give strength to the Human Resources area so that it would no longer have a role focused on personnel administration and would be part of the business strategy, accompanying the main areas of the business such as sales, marketing, operations and finance. Since then, technology has been a strategic partner of the Human Resources area, since it has had to acquire the technological resources to support decision making based on key indicators, which led to the emergence of the Balanced Score Card trend applied to HR in the early 2000s. Taking the above into consideration the sum of technology and indicators

HR + Balance Score Card = Innovation and technological development.

How can strategies be transformed into actions? There is no doubt that the main protagonists in the development of HR technology were the CEOs of the organizations themselves when they demanded the use of data management technologies for decision making. This is when, in the mid-2000s, a boom in business development focused on HR technology was generated. 

It seems like a long time ago, but looking back, companies like PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP, among others have helped large companies to give a 100 percent strategic approach to the HR function, which has allowed us to evolve from basic recruiting systems to more complex models, talking today about "Employer Brands".

2. What according to you are some of the challenges plaguing the HR Tech landscape and how can they be effectively mitigated?

In my experience, technology will never cease to surprise us in terms of more advanced models of information management, portability, etc. However, what I expect in the future is to have systems that allow evaluating in the sum of all the information the deviations to the development of the culture of the organization and that is the real challenge to overcome. Today talking about organizational culture can mean different things depending on who wants to delve into the subject, the truth is that Organizational Culture as described by Daniel Denison is how things happen within organizations when no one is watching the person.

"Companies should focus their resources on designing and measuring the type of organizational culture they want to develop"

If we want to reach this point in which people share similar interests to the vision of the company, it will be necessary that technology accompanies us to identify and shape shared behaviors in work teams through the development of processes, values, competencies and approaches aligned to the needs of the business priorities.

3. Which are a few technological trends influencing HR Tech today? What are some of the best practices businesses should adopt today to steer ahead of competitors?

We cannot talk about companies without putting people first and we cannot talk about highly effective companies without talking about highly effective people, today as in the 90's people are the only resource that organizations must focus on to achieve their objectives (although this is not always the case). The new technological trends are being affected by the interests of the new generations where work and productivity must coexist simultaneously with the life balance and personal aspirations of everyone. Today, companies should focus their resources on designing and measuring the type of organizational culture they want to develop and for this, it will be necessary that technology accompanies us to develop systems that allow us to identify people with below-expected performance in order to create improvement plans based on the strengths of the subject and not on the criteria of their bosses. Companies should also develop systems that allow the use of flexible working hours to increase the productivity of people depending on their skills, interests, knowledge, and professional objectives.

4. Do you have any advice for industry veterans or budding entrepreneurs from the HR Tech space?

This is a great question since I am already part of the veterans, my recommendation goes more in favor of the new generations of HR directors or the young CEOs who have under their responsibility the task of leading current and future organizations. Do not procrastinate on HR processes, your agenda should have People, Culture and Development at #1, based on this you will be able to unleash your imagination to achieve goals and overcome obstacles. In HR there are no limits, there is not a best practice in the market, there are no strategies that work better than in other organizations, be authentic, do not try to imitate others just because what they do has worked well for them. By authentic and design what is best for your company. Develop and use technology to your advantage and to the interests of the new generations in such a way that your vision becomes the vision of all the people who are part of the work team.