What about HR Tech in Switzerland?

Recruitment, collective intelligence, talent management, quality of working life, training... Startups have taken over the HR sector internationally, and since 2018, the Swiss HR sector. The market for new technologies and digital solutions in the HR field (HR Tech) grew by more than 7% in 2017, reaching 2.6 billion euros according to a study conducted by the firm Markess. The most popular areas such as "recruitment" or "training" are the most mature, with increasingly cutting-edge, agile and comprehensive solutions offered to Human Resources.

QWL (Quality of Life at Work) and Talent Management are inspiring new startups in the digital HR ecosystem. This proves that, beyond topics linked to personnel management (reserved for the Swiss HR Patent), HR Tech is now tackling broader subjects such as "the management of tomorrow" or "collective intelligence" in the workplace. This new trend, which focuses on developing the personal and professional skills of in-house employees, stems from technological innovations that are already enjoying great success in other fields. Connected objects, artificial intelligence and, more generally, machine learning are set to revolutionize the HR world of today and tomorrow.

Some promising start-ups from Swiss HR Tech are already well established in Swiss companies:

• Swibeco AG with its "Flexible Benefits" digital platform centralizing all employee benefits and gift programs.
• Alaya, which has developed a digital platform for corporate social and environmental responsibility that connects employees with the need for funds, skills and volunteer work for associations.
• Qnnect, which publishes an interactive communications platform optimizing exchanges with mobile employees.
• BananeApp, surfing the mobile recruitment wave with young people connected for an internship or first job (over 55,000 young talents already registered).

Blockchain is already starting to attract the interest of HR Tech startups, who see great potential in this uncharted territory! 2020 holds great promise for the disruption and agility of the HR function. As proof, HR Tech has been represented at major technology trade shows such as VivaTech and CES in Las Vegas.

VivaTech 2019: Showcasing HR Tech

From May 16 to 18, all Tech lovers gathered in Paris to experience three days of innovation at the VivaTech trade show. VivaTech has become the place to be for startups, leaders and visionaries, celebrating progress and innovation together! This year, VivaTech put the spotlight on HR Tech, mainly on the Manpower Group and HR Lab pavilion. For 3 days, HR professionals came to discuss the future and changes in their profession, and the massive arrival of technology in their line of work. They were able to discover increasingly agile and disruptive digital solutions that will have a positive impact on HR business models.

The trend was apparent at previous editions, and is only being confirmed at this 2019 edition with HR Tech making the buzz at VivaTech focused on digital platforms serving collaborative working and collective intelligence in companies.

Focus on 3 unique HR experiences presented at VivaTech

Klaxoon Revolutionize your meetings. Mobilize your team, make decisions, gather feedback... You'll love having effective meetings with Klaxoon! The easy-to-use platform with its suite of collaborative Apps to foster collective intelligence. No more top-down presentations! With Klaxoon, everyone participates using phones, computers and tablets. Users can express themselves, vote, react, brainstorm - and all in real time. Quizzes, Brainstorms, Polls, Tags, Challenges... so many apps to encourage team communication and exchange.

Moovone: Unleash Management's potential with this digital coaching solution. By democratizing access to coaching, moovone makes every manager a key player in the company's digital transformation. Designed to offer an intuitive digital experience, the platform combines coaching and theoretical input. Each course is action-oriented, enabling managers to reveal themselves and overcome their obstacles, to make rapid progress and measure their skills development. With over 150 key account customers, moovone will be presented on the Swiss market at the next HR Tech Drink in October 2019.

2spark Engage and empower your employees through cognitive science and gamification. 2spark enables you to get your employees on board with your company's transformation projects in just 1 minute and 2 questions a day, every day, thanks to a fun, personalized, collaborative and secure platform. The 2Spark algorithm encapsulates all the power of artificial intelligence to help your employees take ownership of the changes underway, and to deliver an unparalleled user experience.

Digital Room: Switch to virtual recruitment with Manpower and the Digital Room! This immersive bubble lets you have a first job interview with a virtual recruiter. This Artificial Intelligence solution, which avoids human interpretation, is used by Manpower for " volumetric CV pre-qualification". volumetric CV pre-qualificationsaving time while broadening the target pool of candidates.

VivaTech 2019 confirms that HR technological innovation is one of the levers to be favored to support individuals in the changing professional market.

HR Tech at CES, with a focus on people!

The world of high-tech gathered once again in Las Vegas at the start of the year to discover all the latest technological trends live at the CES (Consumer Electronic Show). A profusion of lights, sounds and colors for this 2020 edition, bringing together over 4,000 exhibitors.

CES is "The Place to Be" for international tech: connected devices, artificial or augmented intelligence, connected cities and homes, autonomous vehicles, 5G and 8K screens, all of which attracted a large audience of curious onlookers with their share of innovations.

At Eureka Park, the place to be for start-ups, we enter the world of geeks and raw innovation! Normally, you'd pass through this kind of aisle fairly quickly, but here, every stand or pavilion arouses interest and makes you want to stop. Where everywhere else it's more conferences and marketing between major international brands, at Eureka Park it's the world of geeks and future technologies. The pavilions can be identified by their colors, and are at war with each other to attract visitors and investors. The Swiss pavilion, although located at the far end of Eureka Park, did not fall short of the mark, with its "Star Wars"-like concept and its 30 startups that created a buzz under the #SwissTech label initiated by Switzerland Global Enterprise and Présence Suisse. Much was made of the raclette robot, but other startups in less mainstream fields, such as cybersecurity with OneVisage Sa or connected health with Xsensio, attracted targeted international experts.

And in all this... Where was the HR technology or HR Tech hiding?

This year, HR Tech was more discreet, but omnipresent, with a strong focus on human, social and well-being issues.

The startup Klaxoon put on a show at CES, pursuing its goal of energizing and digitizing the world of work and revolutionizing meetings. At CES, the start-up previewed its new "Templayer" tool, which uses a console to make screens intelligent and transform them into collaborative workspaces. Klaxoon won two awards in the "Mobile Device" and "Computer Hardware" categories.

The startup Braincities which optimizes decision-making in career management and internal mobility, and the solution Olystic solution, which mobilizes action-oriented data to enhance team efficiency and commitment. On the French Tech pavilion, the Airudit makes the Chatbot obsolete, by reinventing the man-machine interface through speech. This technology makes it possible to formulate a request with simple words transmitted directly to the machine. Airudit is a new generation of communication interfaces based on voice and natural language. The platform makes it easier to understand what a user is asking, and provides a real textual response, built up in real time, whatever the connected device used. Finally, the TriNet HR solutions provider, which enables HR to concentrate on high value-added tasks, while enhancing the value of human capital.

Whether it's enhancing the employee experience, promoting professional mobility or improving well-being in the workplace, these HR Tech nuggets offer truly innovative services.

CES is still the place to be if you want to get a feel for trends and get your fill of ideas. An incredible adventure in the temple of innovation.