Technology can be both wonderful and terrible. The right solution enables communication, streamlines workflows and makes jobs easier to do. But the wrong one, or the right one applied incorrectly, can leave everyone stuck in the figurative muck, experts explained to HR Dive.

According to HR Dive’s latest Identity of HR survey, the latter is becoming more of a problem in HR. In the annual survey, one in five respondents said technology was their biggest challenge in 2024, but more than a quarter said so in 2025.

Change management still takes work — and guidance

Despite new technologies, any kind of digital transformation or enterprise resource planning change still needs planning to work and work well. Whether building solutions internally or working with third party vendors, collaboration between developers and stakeholders is still a must if a technology solution is going to hold.

Kevin Byford, HR director at healthcare company Select Medical and founder of HRStudy Pro, a test preparation platform, knows this firsthand. In 2023, HRStudy Pro hired an outside vendor for their human resources information system. It all looked clean on paper, but then the launch was a mess.

The problem was multifold, Byford said. To start, 10 years of legacy data was not clean when it was fed into a new platform. Each section being changed — payroll, benefits, performance — were each being handled by individuals without one project manager overseeing their implementation to make it a cohesive whole.

“It wasn’t until we flipped the switch when we realized none of these people were actually talking to each other,” Byford said.

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