20 years back, self-service applications were a rarity with HR systems set up on premise. However, due to the rise in mobile technology, cloud-based platforms are now available to make the work-life easier for employees as well as managers in a company, small or large. MNCs with a truly diverse global workforce have been benefitted the most as they can now connect seamlessly like never before. Various tools and virtual interfaces have brought about a significant change, allowing quick and constant engagement, disregarding the physical constraints.

According to Jason Averbook, an HR tech industry analyst, "It'll be no more clicking or going through menus." The time is not far off when voice-based assistants will take over these interfaces and platforms with Amazon's Alexa or Google Home being used to look up payroll, benefits or any other work-related app.

HR tech thus becomes a very important aspect of any business. All the industries are dependent on it. It helps in developing a vital bond between the individuals and their organizations.

HR tech is now an industry in itself, which is worth billions of dollars, says Ellis Whittam.

Some innovations in the HR tech are just around the corner. Artificial intelligence is one of them. Of all the companies exhibiting at this year's HR tech conference in Las Vegas, fifty of them showed several AI-based workforce applications. It can be really helpful in completing high-volume repetitive tasks and augmenting things people are good at, like problem-solving. It can be put to use for employee assistance, job interviews and wellness as well.

Autopay payroll platform, which has been present since past 50 years, is being evolved too, with better versions of it being developed every now and then. The latest platform is developed keeping modern work and pay practices in mind, covering global payroll and a flexibility to pay independent contracts daily as per their shift. Weekly and batch payments will be a thing of past and not the way business is to be done in the future.

People management practitioners will have to innovate quickly in order to adapt to this constantly evolving business world. Stacey Valy Panayiotou of The Coca-Cola Co. thinks that a possible way to do so is to experiment all possible HR tech projects even before instituting a pilot. They ran experiments for over nine months on new management processes and tried different approaches and also created a business case. This, in turn, helped her team gain a lot of valuable data needed to be analyzed for a fast-track and seamless approval to proceed with the newer platforms.