Technology can be both wonderful and terrible. The right solution enables communication, streamlines workflows and makes jobs easier to do. But the wrong one, or the right one applied incorrectly, can leave everyone stuck in the figurative muck, experts explained to HR Dive.
According to HR Dive’s latest Identity of HR survey, the latter is becoming more of a problem in HR. In the annual survey, one in five respondents said technology was their biggest challenge in 2024, but more than a quarter said so in 2025.
Change management still takes work — and guidance
Despite new technologies, any kind of digital transformation or enterprise resource planning change still needs planning to work and work well. Whether building solutions internally or working with third party vendors, collaboration between developers and stakeholders is still a must if a technology solution is going to hold.
Kevin Byford, HR director at healthcare company Select Medical and founder of HRStudy Pro, a test preparation platform, knows this firsthand. In 2023, HRStudy Pro hired an outside vendor for their human resources information system. It all looked clean on paper, but then the launch was a mess.
The problem was multifold, Byford said. To start, 10 years of legacy data was not clean when it was fed into a new platform. Each section being changed — payroll, benefits, performance — were each being handled by individuals without one project manager overseeing their implementation to make it a cohesive whole.
“It wasn’t until we flipped the switch when we realized none of these people were actually talking to each other,” Byford said.
That made implementation harder when the solutions were rolled out, too and in one case completely failing on its first trot out of the gate. “It resulted in a ton of people’s pay being wrong in the second week of the switch,” Byford said. Thankfully, they caught it, but it took hours of manual auditing, not to mention panic and stress.
Even if a technology solution is perfect, it’s going to cause more headaches than help if the roll out is not planned or guided after it goes live.
AI is out of the honeymoon phase
When AI flooded the market, it was promised to do everything and make lattes, too. But reality is setting in that while it may be useful in specific cases, it’s not a panacea. And even where it might work, getting it to blend in with existing technology isn’t always easy either, especially if integration isn’t a continuous process.
“Everybody was looking at AI and experimenting to see what was possible,” said Jamie Aitken, vice president of HR transformation for software company Betterworks. And now companies are getting “into the messy reality of how do we actually integrate and introduce these new tools?”
That’s especially tricky when AI is supposed to be working with legacy systems. “It’s not just about AI and the new technology. It’s also about the technology that we already had,” Aitken said.
This was exacerbated in companies when IT was leading the purchase decisions and HR was a voice in the room but not the loudest, Aitken added. Often they considered their job was done when the new solution went up. “You can’t just assume when go live happens, all those people are going to be like, ‘Bling! Immediately magnificent,’” Aitken said.
If not accompanied by governance after — up to two years, Aitken said — it could lead to both a technology mess and also employees using external AI, which could become a cybersecurity and compliance risk.
Ideally, HR professionals would be part of the conversation before any new technology roll out to make sure it’s a solution for a problem that really needs solving. But if that stage is in the rear view mirror, make sure HR managers don’t stay in “our little HR bubbles without talking to the business,” Aitken said, to make sure that next time, HR’s voice is a louder one at the table.