New research from global employee engagement company, Reward Gateway, has revealed that having HR tools that integrate into their current workplace technology is a key priority in 2019 for 87 percent of HR professionals.

The finding comes as no surprise, as HR professionals in the U.S. state that they are spending 512 hours a year manually checking, responding to, and keeping up with multiple HR applications. An amount of time that’s significantly higher than employees spend in other countries. Many organizations are using different platforms for employee communications, recognition, applicant tracking, onboarding, and performance management; forcing all employees to access multiple apps a day. Indeed, the same research found that over a fifth of companies are using ten or more different systems and apps every day for work.

With these workflow interruptions, it’s no wonder the research, which polled 500 HR workers across the U.S. also found increasing workplace productivity was ranked as the second most important HR priority for 2019.

To help tackle this issue, Reward Gateway has introduced a range of product integrations with its employee engagement platform, to create a seamless user experience. This includes the integration of platforms including Google, Linkedin, Slack, BambooHR, and Google Analytics.

On the research, Will Tracz, Chief Technology Officer at Reward Gateway, comments:

“Many companies have systems-of-record in place with up-to-date details on their employees. Creating and maintaining data in other systems, outside of this, often takes time and is prone to error, particularly in fast-moving businesses. Through our expanding integration partner network, we want to help our clients’ HR teams focus on what they want to do using our solutions: create an engaged workforce, remove the need for multiple login and security processes, and keep data secure.

“Our clients are also looking to enhance the employee experience, and make it easy for them to access and use the tools that will help increase employee engagement . With the integration of key workplace applications such as Slack, Yammer, and Okta, Reward Gateway customers are able to get the most out of their existing technology and make the employee experience as seamless as possible.”