If technology continues to evolve at the current rate, the 2015 workplace could look quite different from today's office spaces -- and may even involve less traditional office space with the rise of telecommuting. From a company's hiring process to sharing knowledge with employees, technology has the ability to change the way we all work.
What technology will be essential in the 2015 workplace, but doesn't exist yet?
An Applicant Tracking System Delivering a Quality Candidate Experience
More than 10 million additional millennials will enter the job market before 2015 -- and most expect a higher-quality user experience than today's. In the next three years, an Applicant Tracking System will be designed to greatly reduce hiring time, initializing timely candidate interaction and utilizing social media as a communication tool. Essentially, rather than the cold shoulder being given candidates, this next-gen HR technology will deliver a digital handshake and a virtual smile.
-- Mark Babbitt, YouTern
A More Advanced LinkedIn
Currently, we have professional networks, job boards and applicant tracking systems. I envision the matchmaking of companies and prospective employees will become more than just keywords. It will either be a more advanced LinkedIn, or a platform which will be an end to a profile-meets-applicant tracking tool, which will allow companies and people to follow each other much before the need arises. There will be dating and matching, and a longer courtship before the two get married.
-- Raj Sheth, Recruiterbox
A "Next Generation Siri" and Seamless Integration Between Devices
The ability to tell the system to call my daughter and her phone rings -- much more enhanced voice and personal recognition. Also, having all type of devices interoperate seamlessly. Today, music can be shared on tablets, phones and laptops; having all your information (medical information or your wallet, for instance) available on any device and in your car is a possibility.
-- Sudy Bharadwaj, Jackalope Jobs
Learning Academies to Keep Up With New Knowledge
Part of the scariest scenario for current IT workers, if they'll be honest, is that the required knowledge base is constantly changing. If you can't keep up with the newest and best program, the newest and best database or the newest and best programming language, you're toast. Perhaps the best way to stay "connected" with the "newest and the best," is to create learning academies inside your tech function, and assign key personnel to regularly report on their assessment of the newest and best.
-- Alan Guinn, The Guinn Consultancy Group
Network Relationship Management Applications
Email, voicemail, text, tweets, pokes, IM, private messages, timelines and status updates have made it possible to completely lose sight of what actually drives business relationships. Tools to allow you to effectively manage relationships effectively will become increasingly more important as other technologies make is easier to lose touch with those that matter.
-- Michael A. Morell, Riviera Partners
Technology Geared Towards Succession Planning, an Important Component of Many Organizations' Strategic and Future Planning Processes
Long gone are the days that an organization thinks about a succession planning process only after a key employee has left the organization. This technology ensures continuous development of employees to fill key roles. Much more than a replacement process, succession management is an opportunity to build overall leadership capability, typically targeting the CEO and other C-suite executives, senior management teams and roles critical to the long-term strategic and economic health of the organization.
-- Elizabeth Moffitt, Christopher Quinn Group
Expect Sophisticated Job-Candidate Matching Technologies That Change the Game
Smarter job-candidate matching technologies are right around the corner. The days of advanced Boolean searches to try to uncover keywords hidden in a resume will be a thing of the past. New matching technologies and algorithms will change the entire process, marrying social media with sophisticated back-end matching, and building a dynamic process instead of demanding information of job candidates and then dumping them into a black hole.
-- Keren Douek, jobdreaming
Mature Social HR Systems That Enable Great Insights Into HR Analytics and Intelligence
In the future, we'll see a marrying of core HR systems with mature deployment of social HR tools. These will enable HR managers and business leaders to derive more valuable insights from the data collected, such as which employees refer the best candidates, retention trends, correlation between workplace culture and salary increase, etc.
-- Joseph Fung, TribeHR