The workplace has changed significantly over the past few years, and HR departments have had to adapt accordingly.

Sage recently polled over 1,500 HR leaders, executives, and employees to understand how the role of HR has evolved, and 59% of the respondents said they are now delivering a more influential leadership role than before the pandemic.

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This is in part due to businesses now understanding how HR can improve productivity and help with hiring and retaining high-quality employees.

“If employees are not proud of whom they work for or are not engaged with us as an employer, they are generally going to deliver poor or non-responsive advice and service to our customers,” explained a CEO in the professional services industry.

Despite progress being made, there is still a disconnect between business leaders and employees in their view of HR. For example, while 57% of business leaders still view HR largely as an administration function, 60% of employees believe that HR has become more strategic and people-focused.

Additionally, the poll showed that although 57% of employees see the pandemic as a catalyst for HR to drive more people-related decisions in the future, 52% of business leaders only view the evolution of HR as a temporary situation.

This makes it clear that while employees are enjoying and appreciating the new role of HR, business leaders do not always embrace it to the same level.

Invest in HR

HR leaders who were polled by Sage also highlighted a lack of investment as a key challenge to their operations.

67% of HR leaders said they need more technology to drive innovation and support employees, yet they are not receiving the appropriate investment into these tools from key business decision-makers.

This is despite business leaders being aware of the benefits of HR technology. Sage’s poll showed that 90% of business leaders agree that HR technology has helped them achieve their business priorities.

This shows that business leaders are clearly aware of the benefits of the latest HR technologies and it stands to reason they should commit to investing in these technologies moving forward.

Cloud HR solutions

One of the most important HR investment focuses should be to support flexible working, noted Sage.

60% of HR teams are spending more time on developing flexible working policies than they were pre-pandemic, while 63% say that flexible working has become a larger priority to them.

“Whereas historically, we look to recruit people who could work from one of our offices, that is no longer the case. We have shown through COVID that people can be very effective working from home,” said a CEO in the professional services industry.

To increase their organisation’s ability to operate in a remote or hybrid environment, 86% of payroll and HR professionals are using cloud technologies.

This includes Sage 300 People, an advanced HR, payroll and self-service software solution.

Sage 300 People is designed to increase your organization’s productivity and drive growth by unlocking powerful insights that provide a better picture of your workforce.

This product also eliminates repetitive manual processes, which gives valuable time back to your HR team so they spend less time focusing on admin and more time on strategy.

You get access to a large range of tools that allow you to manage all of your employee-related information – including employment equity information, asset management, training and qualification data, and disciplinary case information.