The three most important human resources technologies this year are skills management, learning experience platforms and internal talent marketplaces, according to a survey of 138 HR leaders by Gartner.

“With a tumultuous global economy, HR technology leaders face a balancing act in 2023,” said Sam Grinter, director in the Gartner HR practice. “Leaders must anticipate greater levels of accountability and demand for measurable outcomes to justify new technology investments.”

To drive their organizations’ HR transformation, HR technology leaders should action on the below imperatives:

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Top priorities for HR technology

Forty-four percent of HR leaders report driving better business outcomes is their No. 1 strategic priority for HR technology transformation over the next three years. Growth in headcount and skills (26%) and cost optimization (17%) were ranked as the next most important priorities.

“Right now, many organizations are taking a proactive approach to business transformation in order to safeguard critical areas of operations,” said Grinter. “Delivering on revenue growth and profitability is imperative for HR technology leaders, particularly during times of social, technology and economic changes.”

Top barriers for HR technology

Gartner research shows the top three hurdles for HR technology leaders are ensuring ongoing adoption of HR technology (57%) among key stakeholders—employees, managers and HR, justifying HR technology investments (46%) and developing and maintaining a strategic roadmap for HR technology transformation (43%).

“Without adoption, technology is worse than dead weight—it provides zero value while incurring ongoing costs,” said Grinter. “Lack of adoption also impacts productivity as employees waste time finding workarounds, creating more unnecessary work friction.”

Current and emerging technologies

This year many HR technology leaders’ focus will also be spent on the deployment and optimization of existing technology decisions. Most cloud applications get two to four major updates per year, and HR technology leaders must work to communicate updates in a timely fashion, so the organization can benefit from new capabilities as they arrive.

In addition, Gartner research shows HR technology leaders see the following areas as the most important technology this year: skills management (51%), learning experience platforms (41%) and internal talent marketplaces (32%).

“Organizations continue to face a troubling skills gap,” said Josie Xing, director in the Gartner HR practice. “This problem has compounded as the pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital technologies in all industries as well as today’s fierce competition for talent.”

Employee satisfaction

Less than half (43%) of HR technology leaders believe their employees are satisfied with the HR technology used by their organization, with the rest reporting their employees are either neutral or unsatisfied.

“This dissatisfaction most often stems from suboptimal end-user experiences that can be due to several causes, including lack of digital maturity, inadequate change management and insufficient communication about the value of the technology,” said Xing.

HR and IT collaboration

Thirty-nine percent of HR technology leaders specified they define their own HR technology strategy with support from the IT department while 45% reported shared leadership between IT and HR in defining the HR technology strategy.

“Leveraging IT expertise and support is necessary,” said Xing. “While many HR organizations try to fully own the HR technology strategy, the HR team is unlikely to have all the skills needed to define a holistic HR technology strategy. IT and HR must work in lockstep to bring together both the business process insight and technical expertise of their respective functions.”