Emerging HR Technologies For Small Businesses

Every company is looking to gain efficiency.  But for small businesses, gaining efficiencies can be key to survival when competing with larger companies who have more people and resources.  Human Resources is an area where there have been some recent technological advances that small businesses can leverage to help level the playing field.  Some of these tools are still in the infancy phase, so we’ll not only explore the potential benefits, but possible areas of caution as well.

Workforce Analysis:

HR professionals can harness analytics tools to predict turnover by analyzing historical data to identify employees at risk of leaving, enabling targeted retention efforts.  They can also be helpful for workforce planning by identifying trends in company growth, market conditions, and employee performance data to predict future hiring needs.

Employee Engagement:

AI Chat Bots can Provide Fundamental HR Self-service

Employee self-service portals allow employees to manage their data and information, so HR teams can shift their focus from administrative tasks to strategic initiatives.  With AI to help power an experience-driven HR service model, an organization can effectively balance efficiency, cost, technology, and employee engagement to deliver HR services.

Concerns with using this technology include ensuring the chat bot is well trained, so it provides correct information to employees on benefits or policies, particularly when benefits questions can sometimes be very situational, personal and complex.

Employee Experience Platforms (EXP)

Blending artificial intelligence and cloud technology, an employee experience platform (EXP) centralizes and streamlines the interactions between organizations and their employees throughout the employee life cycle.

Employees can view tailored content like performance goals, benefits, and learning opportunities in a centralized location.  Platforms can suggest personalized training and development opportunities based on individual goals, career aspirations and past activities.  They can serve as feedback mechanisms where employees can provide input and share concerns through integrated surveys, enabling continuous improvement.  Advanced EXP’s can even employ virtual reality and AI to provide real-time job coaching and feedback.

Remote Workforce Enablement

Remote or hybrid work is likely here to stay.  Utilizing cloud-based technology can enable your remote workers in multiple ways.  Cloud-based payroll applications can help you streamline salary processing and tax compliance, ensuring secure remote accessibility to make the process more convenient and efficient.

Employee portals allow employees to manage their data, benefits, and schedules from any location.  Collaboration tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams facilitate communication and project management among distributed teams.

Talent Acquisition:

Asynchronous Video Interviewing

Interviewing is often a time-consuming process, particularly for entry-level or high-volume roles where most of the applicants appear qualified on paper.  Even the process of scheduling the interview can be a time drain.  Tools such as HireVue, Spark Hire or Wedge can eliminate the time spent scheduling initial screening interviews, and reduce overall time spent interviewing.  That’s because these tools enable candidates to conduct a virtual interview at any time of day that works for them.  Then a recruiter or hiring manager can review that interview at a time that works with their schedule.

While asynchronous interviewing can be a huge timesaver, considerations for implementing should include the impact on candidate experience.  As a rule, interviews can be anxiety-inducing, uncomfortable experiences for candidates.  Trying to ‘communicate’ an effective response to a question while staring into a camera that doesn’t look back, can make this experience even more awkward.  As such, this type of interviewing tool should not be employed for executive level, highly technical or niche hiring.

Resume Scoring in Recruitment

Many applicant tracking systems and even some job boards, such as Indeed, offer resume scoring technology with the goal of guiding recruiters or hiring managers to candidates who appear to be the best match.  Unfortunately, while a version of this technology has been around for several years now, there are both immediate and long-term concerns presented with using machine learning to score resumes.

Unfortunately, these scoring algorithms are often built based on keywords within a job description, and as many recruiters can attest, job descriptions are often vague and varied, so the scoring systems can be off significantly.  When candidates receive a rejection within minutes of applying, they believe their resumes are being rejected by a faulty algorithm rather than a discriminating human, leading to a negative candidate experience.

The longer-term concern is, if organizations do start making hiring decisions using scoring systems based on machine learning, the ideal profile will become more and more narrow, and something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because with each hire the system will look for commonalities.  The scoring system will then bring those same characteristics to the top in the next batch of candidates.  This type of hiring is antithetical to all the research which proves diversity in hiring leads to greater business success.

What to Consider When Exploring New Technology:

Beyond cost, data security and other basic software implementation concerns, there are specific factors to consider when thinking about employing new technology in HR.  Some of the most common mistakes in new HR tech integration are:

• Not having clear objectives or a business case for using the technology: This makes it difficult to show ROI and secure investment for the maintenance of and upgrades to HR technology. It may also lead to missteps when configuring the new technology.
• Neglecting the user experience: Often, much attention is paid to back-end integration and automation while the user experience is neglected. This means users must access multiple interfaces or are redirected to multiple places, which can detract from the value of HR technology.

HR technologies will inevitably replace some tasks and activities traditionally performed by HR professionals.  Others will augment HR’s capabilities, empowering them to achieve more with the same or fewer resources.  Adopting the right tools can help you streamline operations and create a better employee experience.  But the biggest mistake companies can make is forgetting these are just tools.  And even in 2025, there isn’t a tool that can or should take the human out of Human Resources.

As new HR technologies continue to emerge, small businesses have a unique opportunity to enhance efficiency, improve employee experience, and streamline critical functions like hiring, engagement, and workforce planning. However, implementing these tools thoughtfully—with a focus on user experience, clear objectives, and strategic integration—is essential to ensure success.

At ARI, we help small and mid-sized businesses navigate these changes with confidence. Our HR consulting services are designed to meet you where you are—whether you need support evaluating new technology, optimizing your current systems, or handling day-to-day HR operations. With a team of experienced professionals and a hands-on approach, ARI provides the strategic guidance and operational support your business needs to grow.

To learn more about how we can help your organization stay ahead in a rapidly evolving HR landscape, contact us today.