Thirty years ago, human resources tech was about optimal operational efficiency (think payroll, timesheets and attendance); 20 years ago it expanded to focus on talent, internal communications and growth; and in the early 2000s the enterprise single systems of record like Success Factors came online. Today, HR tech is moving beyond organisation functions, processes and data.

The future is about making employee's lives at work better.

Here are three key emerging trends that business and enterprise need to be aware of:

1. HR will evolve from administrator to enabler

Companies are redefining their people management strategies to remove friction, exposing employees to more aspects of their organisation and allowing them to develop and change their roles more efficiently.

HR teams will spend less time administering and more time enabling employee engagement through better internal connections, mentoring and self-directed learning; tech solutions will continue to focus on supporting HR's strategic mission rather than just streamlining processes.

Next generation survey tools will continue to talk directly to businesses' bottom lines. These tools build a data-driven business case for change, while workforce metrics provide a remit for diversity policies and incentivise the enhancement of company culture.

2. Bigger data is not better data

The right data can be a goldmine, but its collection and review is a business's minimum commitment. The differentiator is what companies are doing with their employee data.

Future-thinking companies won't use it just to write a board report, they'll employ data to connect their people in reciprocal, mutually beneficial learning relationships that enhance their work and lives. They will use it to enable better knowledge sharing between previously-siloed internal business units. And they'll use it to craft high performing teams.

3. It's not a tech solution you want, you're after a people solution

The application for process improvement seem infinite – from optimising the processes of onboarding, training and evaluating people to succession and promotion – but somewhere along the way human resources has become dehumanised.

And now the robots are coming.

Employed properly, bots, machine learning and artificial intelligence should build subtler tech platforms that fade into the background and enable human elements to shine. As more processes become automated, there will be a premium on what is uniquely human: listening, empathy, communication, and lateral thinking. These skills cannot be automated.

Lucy Lloyd is a co-founder of MentorLoop, a platform which runs organisational mentoring programs.