HR Tech: Demystified - Low-code

These topics are not really new, software vendors such as Salesforce and Microsoft have been providing these kinds of tools for a long time. However, it seems we are entering the renaissance period for low / no-code. Recently it was crowned as “The Most Disruptive Trend Of 2021”. 

“Gartner’s research finds, that on average, 41% of employees outside of IT — or business technologists — customize or build data or technology solutions. Gartner is also predicting that half of all new low-code clients will come from business buyers who are outside the IT organization by the end of 2025” 

It seems a lot of departments outside of IT and software engineering are taking control and creating their solutions on platforms such as Microsoft Power Apps and Salesforce. 

What is no-code? 

You can think of no-code as a toolset you can use to create your own apps or forms, by just using templates and ready-made components. 

You have probably come across no-code without even realising it. For example, when you create a new SharePoint site you choose a template, change some config like the layout and colours, then you might create a page by adding components such as text boxes, images, and maybe a news feed. 

You might have also used no-code whilst creating a survey using a tool such as Survey Monkey. Here you choose your questions and how you want each question answered – free text, radio buttons, multiple-choice, etc. This time, you are essentially designing and creating the form that the survey recipients will see, without using any code. 

In both of these cases, the hard work is done for you behind the scenes – you just have to choose the layout and the specific details – then piece it all together like Lego bricks. 

What is low-code? 

Low-code is an extension to this, where a little technical ability goes a long way. You have most likely used formulas on Excel spreadsheets and maybe even created macros. These are not coding as such, but they are low-code features that help you to create what you need to enter data, run calculations, display graphs, and ultimately automate parts of your processes. You may remember Access databases, which were a low-code tool in their day – you could easily create database tables and forms to manage them without a huge amount of technical knowledge. 

Nowadays, there is a multitude of low-code toolsets online that help you to create your own simple apps using a drag-and-drop interface. Microsoft Power Apps is one example where you can create forms and workflows with a reasonable amount of complexity. You can keep to the drag-and-drop features or you can do more with an Excel-like language that is built-in. This language allows you to create logical expressions which are the “low-code” part of the phrase as you’re using a coding-like language.  

So, this is where the term citizen developer comes in. The development of apps with the use of logical expressions is now accessible to the everyday employee, not just specialists in application development. 

How is this different from standard software applications? 

I have a story to illustrate the difference. My daughter wanted a playground in our garden. I had two choices, build it completely myself or buy something off the shelf. If I was to build it myself, I would have to source all of the wood, plastic, and metal for the swing and the slide. Then figure out the physics and weights for the swing. This would involve a lot of design work, material sourcing, measurements, and testing. 

While it sounded like fun to build it from scratch, I did not have time, and more importantly, my daughter wanted a playground as soon as possible and she did not want to wait for the long time it would take me. So I went for a hybrid approach. I got playground parts that I could assemble in different configurations depending on the garden specifications and what I wanted. This means someone else did all the design thinking and sourcing, all I had to do was to pick what kind of configuration I wanted to go for and assemble it. This made me a “citizen craftsman”.  

I think that this analogy probably describes best the difference between standard development where we have to source everything, figure out the design, requirements, performance specifications, testing, and so on, and no / low-code where the platform has already sourced everything, and you just need to put together what you want. With one approach you can build anything you like, however it comes at a higher cost and takes much longer. With the low / no-code approach, you are constrained by the parts that you are given, however, it is quicker, cheaper, and does not require craftsman or software engineer experience.  

If we wind the clock back to the late noughties, YouTube was not as mainstream as it is today. If you had a business that specialised in HR videos (for example leadership and management skills) you most likely would need to contact a local or national software development company and ask them to build you an HR video site. This company would have to figure out all of the requirements, build it for you, deploy it and then maintain it. Typically, this is a long and expensive process. Compare this to now where there are so many video hosting websites that you can use to host your HR content. On these platforms, you can upload your logo, pick the colour scheme and choose what functionality you want to be enabled for your HR video website in a matter of minutes or days.  

When would you use each? What are the benefits? 

I think it’s clear that when you need rich and complex software then you most likely need the usual route of buying custom-built applications. If for example, you want all the features to be integrated, so you want your employees’ learning outcomes to be linked to their skills, which are then linked to the projects they work on, their performance, and the pay reviews they receive, then custom software is the way to go. 

However, if you need something relatively simple or standalone then you could create a low-code application. One good example is when lockdown first started, and many employees needed to work remotely; you might have needed a way to keep track of who has taken what equipment home. If your company is large and you wanted your employees or managers to self-serve here, rather than having a central administrator, having a simple app accessible online could be a good option to solve this problem, especially since there was very short notice. The major benefit of these tools is a very fast deployment to the users – think days instead of months for a simple app. 

In this example, you could argue that this admin task could be done in a spreadsheet but in terms of governance of people data and compliance to legislation like GDPR then I think an app can be much better managed and secured than a spreadsheet. 

What are the problems with these tools?  

The main problem is how far these tools can take you. As stated above, they are great for quick tasks and if it is possible to extend your existing HR or Finance app, then they can even allow for more medium-sized developments. However, because you are developing on the platform, this platform will place limits on how far you can push it.  

I mentioned Access databases above, it was a go-to no / low-code tool that has dominated the noughties. From that, a Dietzler’s Law for Access emerged that states: 

Every Access project will eventually fail because, while 80% of what the user wants is fast and easy to create, and the next 10% is possible with difficulty, ultimately the last 10% is impossible because you can’t get far enough underneath the built-in abstractions, and users always want 100% of what they want. 

So, if you want to use YouTube to host your HR training videos, you can get started really quickly. However, if you wanted to add a forum, chat channel, or e-shop to your channel, suddenly YouTube is no longer the right fit, and you will need to either find a software development team to build it for you or find an alternative platform. Therefore, it is great while your requirements are not too demanding but the moment you want to do something unique and different that’s when the no / low-code option becomes a problem.  

Essentially you give up control and customisation for speed and convenience. You need to decide when this trade-off is appropriate. I think it is totally appropriate when you want to automate internal corporate processes through something like Microsoft Power Apps or capture more data and create new workflows in your HR software such as iTrent or People First.  

However, if you are a software vendor then it is not appropriate for your software development team to use other companies’ low / no-code platforms to build upon it. This is because the user experience that you will create will be poor due to the platform limitations. Your offering will be easy to re-create and you will be constantly fighting the platform to incorporate important features such as data retention, GDPR, audit, data encryption, and many other important features that you will need for your domain.  

How can HR professionals take advantage of low or no code?  

In terms of bringing this back to the benefits for organisations and HR, I see low and no-code as the next step in digital transformation. There are some great tools already in use by tech-savvy employees, so there is no reason why non-developers couldn’t advance from Excel formulas and survey builders to something more complex. Employees will have their own ideas about what they could build to improve processes. As they are the experts in their areas working day-to-day on the “shop floor”, they will be the best people to make these suggestions and even build the no / low-code apps. This is a great way to increase engagement if employees are interested in developing these skills and are given some time to work on them. 

For HR, you can do a lot with customising your HR application itself. Good HR applications allow you to add custom forms and fields, and they have toolsets for workflows and custom calculations for more complex requirements like your absence allowances ad payroll elements. 

For example, you could add specific fields for things like tracking vaccinations and equipment taken home in the HR application itself. I think it is better to spend the time modifying your HR application in these instances through low and no-code extensions if you can. This way you can keep all of your people data in one place, which then removes the need for separate documents and spreadsheets and which will ultimately improve efficiencies in your HR team. 

On top of this, by customising your HR application you can improve the employee and manager experience as there will be only one place to go for all HR-related tasks and information. 

Thoughts about the future of low / no-code  

More apps will provide extension capability through no / low-code out of the box. This means your HR, Finance, and productivity apps will become more configurable with the possibility to create custom dashboards, reports, forms, workflows and even processing custom logic. This is fantastic as hopefully, we will start to see the demise of the spreadsheet and their functionality will be transferred into the appropriate app. As a great side effect of this, once you can extend your apps, other app users will start to share the extensions that they have created in relevant app stores. You will also be able to take advantage of other citizen developers’ or platform developers’ work. This will create a community and an ecosystem and will enrich your existing applications for the better.