HR is a discipline that essentially revolves around making sure that all of the moving parts of a business work in unison without friction or conflict. This often means bridging the gap between different departments and streamlining various integral operational aspects of an organization.
As such, it should be straightforward for human resources professionals to understand how application programming interfaces (APIs) function, and what benefits they bring in an HR context. All you need is a little info on the ins and outs of APIs, so here are the main talking points to bring you up to speed.
API basics
The purpose of an API is to essentially act as an intermediary between different software applications which would otherwise be incapable of communicating with one another.
With an API, you can allow one app to request data from another app. For example, when a news website has a weather widget on the homepage, you can safely assume that an API is working behind the scenes to pull in meteorological data to display it to visitors. Another example is News API, which allows developers to fetch and display real- time news article from various sources, integrating the latest headlines into their applications seamlessly.
Similar functions are used across the software app ecosystem, with everything from graphics solutions to mapping services providing APIs so that other developers can harness them.
In conjunction with the underlying APIs, entire developer portals are made to ensure that these interfaces are comprehensible and accessible. There are many examples of developer portals that lower the barrier to entry for new technologies, while also catalyzing their adoption.
Relevance to HR
There are a multitude of scenarios in which APIs can be useful to HR team members, and the goal in every case is to alleviate or entirely remove a lot of the processes which would previously have been handled manually.
For example, being able to share payroll data between the apps, systems, and solutions that require it can be achieved using APIs. This can help with everything from paying invoices on time to submitting tax documentation digitally, as well as calculating deductions and benefits along the way.
Another excellent use case for APIs is when onboarding new hires. In this instance, data is likely to be required from a litany of sources so that a fresh face can be inducted effectively, and the right combination of modern software apps and the APIs which connect them will allow HR team members to do this in minutes, rather than hours.
Ultimately it all comes down to embracing the power of automation and interoperability, which will only become more important as the digitization of HR services accelerates.
Future considerations
It may sound like APIs could eventually sideline human HR workers altogether, but this is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Instead, they should be seen as a useful tool that affords flesh and blood employees the time and opportunity to maximize their productivity and tackle tasks that no piece of software can complete.
HR can work hand in glove with APIs to make businesses of all sizes and across every industry happier, more efficient places.
Michael Dunlop is the Chief Operating Officer of Paradigm Digital Ltd and has extensive experience in business consultancy services.
Image Source: Pixabay
