HR technology is the software a company uses to find, hire, pay, train and keep its employees. It is also called HR tech, HR software or human capital management (HCM). HR stands for human resources, the department that looks after a company's staff. Most of this software is rented by subscription and used in a web browser, a model called SaaS.
Think of what happens to one person in their first six months at a new job. A job advertisement reaches them on a job site. They apply, take an online test, attend interviews and receive an offer letter. The company checks their degree and their past jobs. On the last working day of the first month, their salary is credited. In the first week, they are assigned courses on data privacy and workplace conduct. Six months later, a short survey asks how they are finding the work. Each of these steps usually runs on a different product, often from a different company.
The products fall into three groups.
The first group is recruitment: everything from the job advertisement to the offer letter. The central product is the applicant tracking system (ATS), which records every job, every applicant and every interview. Around it sit AI recruiting tools, which search for candidates who have not applied, and the coding assessment platform, which sets the timed test that most software engineers take. The last step before the start date is background verification.
The second group is HR and payroll: keeping each employee's record and paying them. The human resources information system (HRIS) and payroll holds the record of every employee and produces every month's payslips. Workforce management decides who works which shift. An employer of record lets a company hire someone in a country where it has no company of its own.
The third group is learning and talent management: everything after the person has joined. It includes the learning management system that assigns courses, the engagement survey and the performance review.
One record connects the three groups. When a candidate accepts an offer, the ATS sends their details to the HRIS. From then on, that one employee record decides their salary, their leave, their laptop, their software logins and their courses. The page on the HRIS as the root record explains this idea. The HRIS is the company's system of record for people: the one database it treats as the official version.
India plays two roles in HR technology. Indian companies build HR and payroll suites for India's own firms. And many American HR software companies do a large part of their engineering in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Noida and Chennai. Two of the best-known online coding test platforms began in Bengaluru. India needed such tests early, because its IT companies hire tens of thousands of engineering graduates every year.