Christina Yue, Customer Learning Manager |

For the last few years, PwC has conducted an annual HR tech survey to better understand how businesses are adapting to new systems and processes. In 2017, the survey was distributed to 307 companies around the world. The primary purpose of this survey is to spot trends in Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS)  and provide insights into the challenges and opportunities companies are faced with when shifting HR applications into the cloud.

Demographics of the survey respondents:

• 60% employ workers in more than one country
• 50% employ over 5,000 workers
• 50% employ over 50,000 workers
• 53 % report $1 billion in annual revenue

See the questions and answers below for a brief overview of the survey.

1. Have you implemented any HR processes in the cloud?

• 74%  yes
• 26% no

2. What is your biggest challenge for cloud implementation?

• 54% selected their organization’s readiness to give up customizations
• 4 selected the product did not have the features or did not perform as they were led to believe in the sales process
• 44% selected a lack of internal resources to assist with project
• 39% selected feeling not fully prepared for the process transformation required

3. To what extent did you change your business processes to fit in the cloud?

• 22% claimed they changed 0-25% of their business processes
• 45% claimed they changed 26-50% of their business processes
• 21% claimed they changed 51-75% of their business processes
• 11% claimed they changed 76-100% of their business processes

Key finding: Of the companies that changed 0-25% of their business processes, only 26% were very satisfied with their cloud product. Of the companies that changed 75-100% of their business processes, 47% were very satisfied with their cloud product.

4. When it comes to HR self-service (performing transactions/viewing data), do you feel that your tools and apps are not enough, perfect, or too much?

• 80% believe it’s not enough
• 10% believe it’s perfect
• 10% believe it’s too much

5. How committed are you to mobile deployment?

• 20% reported every HR transaction is mobile-enabled
• 72% reported at least one HR process is mobile-enabled
• 17% reported mobile is a top priority

6. What positive impacts on HR service delivery have you experienced with the cloud?

• 52% increased the usage of ESS
• 47% increased the usage of MSS
• 32% increased time HR can spend consulting with business partners
• 20% reduced HR personnel costs

7. How has the size of your technical support team been impacted as a result of your cloud HCM migration?

HRIS:

• 4% reported a decrease
• 33% reported an increase
• 63% reported no change

HRIT:

• 19% reported a decrease
• 11% reported an increase
• 71% reported no change

Key Findings

After compiling all the data, PwC identified six key takeaways:

1. Almost half of the organizations reported a continued portfolio consolidation.
2. With innovation as the top motivator, 74% of organizations are committed to ongoing cloud implementation.
3. Cloud satisfaction keeps climbing as organizations encounter issue resolution, enhancement schedules, vendor communications, defects from patches and the ease of upgrades.
4. The top reason for not moving HR to the cloud is security.
5. The #1 area organizations are hoping to improve is data analytics.
6. Currently, only a small percentage of organizations plan to leverage PaaS to extend their product, but we expect this number to rise.

Learn More

To hear PwC HR Technology Leader Dan Staley speak in detail on these results along with panel participants Melinda Sellers (Mary Kay) and Karen Bredehoeft (PwC, Blue Apron, & David Yurman), watch the full presentation here.

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