AdviserPlus | Progress through technology: Understanding current trends

The very best advertising slogans stick with you. Audi’s famous ‘vorsprung durch technik’ is more than 30 years old now but it still resonates. Why? One reason is that the translation – progress through technology – sums up the way many people would categorise the current era. From broadband to smart phones and cloud computing, technology has revolutionised our world.

For some businesses, this has been – and continues to be - quite intimidating. HRs not only need to follow the latest trends, but also need to be able to keep their workforce happy. This is a workforce used to intuitive technological platforms that make their personal lives easier. If Facebook can make it easy to organise a weekend away with your friends, why should it be harder to book a day off or check your holiday entitlement at work?

If you’re solving the latter – and ensuring your workforce has an easy-to-use system that serves their needs swiftly and effectively – you will be keeping up with the trends that really matter for a modern forward-thinking HR department.

The key, as Audi’s marketing team would attest, is ensuring there really is progress through technology. Without that focus on progress there’s a distinct danger of investing in technology for technology’s sake and chasing a vanity project. There are plenty of shiny new pieces of tech – backed by slick advertising campaigns – that do little or nothing to improve your business.