#HRTechChat: Ahmad Noordin on HR-IT Collaboration and Simplifying Employee Tech

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As organizations face growing complexity and rapid change, the need for simple, integrated HR solutions is more urgent than ever—especially in industries where high attrition and operational efficiency collide.

In this episode of #HRTechChat, 3Sixty Insights’ Dylan Teggart sits down with Ahmad Noordin, VP of HR Technology at a leading U.S. property management company, to explore how HR and IT can partner to drive better employee experiences without overcomplicating processes.

Ahmad shares how his background in both technology and HR uniquely positions him to bridge the gap between functional needs and technical capabilities. Together, they discuss the growing shift toward simplification in HR tech, the role of no-code and low-code platforms, and why ease of use has become a competitive advantage in workforce technology.

From selecting practical solutions and balancing vendor partnerships to embracing AI as a wrapper for fragmented systems, Ahmad unpacks how organizations can reduce friction, improve usability, and deliver faster outcomes for managers and employees alike.

How can HR and IT avoid working in silos? Why is simplification the new sophistication? And where does AI fit into the evolving digital employee experience?

Tune in as Ahmad offers clear, actionable insights on uniting people and technology in pursuit of seamless, human-centered HR.

Our #HRTechChat Series is also available as a podcast on the following platforms:

See a service missing that you use? Let our team know by emailing research@3SixtyInsights.com.

Transcript:

Dylan Teggart 00:00
Hey everyone. It’s Dylan Teggart here with the another episode of 3Sixty Insights #HRTechChat Podcast. I’m here today with Ahmad Noordin. Ahmad is HR professional with 25 years of experience. He’s currently the VP of HR technology at a large property management company in the US with around 5000 employees. He’s worked for a couple big names in the industry, such as Ulta Beauty. Hello Fresh and has previously worked in the property management industry. Ahmad, thank you so much for joining me.

Ahmad Noordin 00:32
Thanks, Dylan. I look forward to having this chat today, and yeah, I think the topic today is going to be very interesting for me, because we’re I feel like we’re at this crossroads where you know that the people side and technology side are, you know, there’s an inflection point where the industry is going and it’s it’s going to be fun to see where all of this goes

Dylan Teggart 00:55
right on. And before we get into that, is there anything else I missed in your bio that you’d want to let the people know what you’re up to right now or what you’ve been up to in the past?

Ahmad Noordin 01:03
Yeah, you know, I see myself as a business and HR practitioner. I spend most of my time with our customers now. I go out of my way to, you know, spend more time with the associates, for example, the employees and managers, because really the focus for me is people experience, obviously, using technology as one of the drivers for it, but having a very solid technical background. I have my bachelor’s and master’s in technology, but also I have all of the, you know, your HR certifications kind of gives me, you know, kind of what the HR and the employee experience should look like, as well as what the you know, what technology is required to make it a seamless experience?

Dylan Teggart 01:52
Yeah, yeah. And that’s one of the main things I want to get into with you today. Is, you know, you have that deep, depth of technology when years of experience with it, and oftentimes HR tech teams need to either report to h, not to HR, but to IT function, or have to work very closely with it to find maybe a new solution, or just in general. So how would you feel is the best way to develop a relationship between a tech team and an HR team?

Ahmad Noordin 02:22
Yeah, it’s a great question, and it’s one of those questions that companies are often grappling with or experimenting with. Now, I’ve spent, you know, I’ve been on both sides of it. Currently, I’m reporting into the IT function, but still spending majority of my time with, with my with my customers HR, as well as other stakeholders across the organization now. So obviously, when you’re on the HR team, you could be more formally embedded into the HR function. You’re you’re very close to the action in terms of what their needs are and so on. But some of the drawbacks could be that you might be too vested into, you know, the customer, and in some cases, the customer’s voice, you know, you may end up mimicking what the customer is really wanting to do, versus looking at it from a more agnostic and non biased standpoint. So, you know, being an it kind of gives you that lens of your you’re still an insider, but you’re outside, coming in, and in some cases, especially in my current role, the HR function and some of the stakeholders I work with, they appreciate the fact that they see us as experts and consultants. They’re still, we’re still partners, but we, you know, we may or may not agree with everything, and that’s fine, too. Also, you know, in most companies, it has a strategy, and each function usually has their own strategy. And the the goal always is, how do we not continue to work in silos and try to have an overarching strategy as an organization. And so, you know, the fun part for me is, regardless of which side of the aisle I’m on, how do we make sure that we’re working towards that overall enterprise goals? And, you know, we have more cohesion between the the department goals, and so, kind of being in a role where you’re in it, you can look at what all of the departments are doing, what all of their goals are, and start connecting the dots in terms of where you see overlapping technology and where you might be able to do a better job of investing in those tools. And also when you see an overlap in terms of where the systems that employees have to use it gives you a much better, you know, point of view. And you can call some of those overlaps and gaps in a in a more, you know, I would say comprehensive way, so

Dylan Teggart 04:56
interesting. And I know in your, you know, in your current role, I. So you were kind of brought on because, you know, the company wanted someone with your specific set of skills who could bridge the gap between HR and IT that was a big priority for them. How would you recommend to someone who maybe is not as tech literate as you, but is looking to become more tech literate, or looking to enhance their skills in terms of technology knowledge so they can have a better relationship with it or tech what would you say is a good starting point, and where do you think people can kind of further deepen their knowledge?

Ahmad Noordin 05:38
Yeah, that’s another great question. Now, when I started in the, you know, 25 years ago, you had to, you know, go to school, get your degrees and and, you know, that technological skill set only was only offered to few, few folks. Now, obviously, it’s been democratized. So a lot more everyone has access to getting those technical skills, not only that, but these applications that used to be much more technical in nature, where you had to learn how to do programming and coding and so on. More and more of the industry is coming to a point where you should not have to do coding. So then the no code, the low code applications, is where you know things have been going. So it makes it easier for someone who is on the business operation side or on the practitioner side to say, hey, it’s no longer I don’t see this big hurdle where I have to go get a degree in computer science, like I did, for example, or go and go and learn programming languages to try to crack the nut and how to how to make things more efficient and seamless for the users. There are many applications out there now where you’re able to, you know the cliche of dragging and dropping, and you know the you know, obviously the education side of it, being able to go on YouTube and LinkedIn and learn all of these things that in the past, again, only a few folks knew how to get get to that information. So I would say, you know, the world is your oyster. There’s a lot of great education material there, you know, some formal and some informal. And I think the best way to do it is try to figure out how it can practically make an impact, either at your organization or at a more personal level. I think a lot of times when people are trying to learn a new topic, let’s say artificial intelligence. You know, just that word itself, folks either are cringing or getting confused or there’s an aura to it, but there’s also a lot of ambiguity. And you know, the best way to kind of go about those is try to figure out what you’re thinking about solving for, and then see, okay, now, how do I approach learning about this topic and how it can solve for what I’m trying to do? And we can just me working with different vendors, especially more recently, I can tell that they’re trying to get in the heads of those customers as well, in terms of, how is the customer thinking about the business problem? And then how can we present our solutions so it’s not as obscure and it’s more practical and more tangible. So if you’re trying to learn because you want to apply to a tangible problem or opportunity, that’s going to really get you much further than just trying to go and read a bunch of articles and trying to connect the dots and make sense of it

Dylan Teggart 08:40
interesting. So communication with vendors, you think, is a big part of it as well.

Ahmad Noordin 08:46
It is, and I know that there are tons of vendors out there, and you can talk about any part of technology, especially even in the HR technology ecosystem. But the more you’re out there, the more, the more you see how the industry is evolving and how the vendors are pivoting, not just, you know, all of the the new players, the startups, but especially how the larger ones, where they’re investing and where they’re putting their bets, in terms of where the industry is going. Because, you know, when you’re a startup, you can just pick a niche field and say, Okay, we’re going to go after improving onboarding experience. They can go all in on that, but if you’re you know, much larger or vendor, it’s more unwieldy for you to just turn on a dime. And so for them, they have to look at their long term roadmap, look at where their investments are, look at the large teams they have, sales and support and and product teams, and then try to determine where they want to put their bets for the next quarter, where the for the next year. So it’s, it’s good to get a get an idea from kind of your startup and smaller organizations that are focused on kind of those, those niche processes, but then also the larger ones, because. They’re the ones who are having to put a lot of money where their mouth is in terms of where they think the industry is going.

Dylan Teggart 10:08
And you know, just going back a tiny bit, you mentioned, more and more of the industry is not relying on coding, so which is making it easier for practitioners. Why do you think that is? And you know, in the past, it sounds like you know how to code a little bit. But why do you think it’s kind of being phased out?

Ahmad Noordin 10:26
Yeah, I think one, one, you know, example I can give you is, if you think of people analytics, when you, you know, I remember, and this is still happening in most companies, right? You’re spending now the technical team is spending a ton of time with the business in trying to create this perfect dashboard, you know, let’s say this operations, HR, Operations Dashboard that’s going to give you turnover, head count, your diversity numbers, and maybe some compliance related things and so on and so forth. A lot of work gets put into kind of building this dashboard, and, you know, with the with the metrics and these fancy graphs, maybe you’re using a visualization tool, and you spend so much time on it, you get, you ship it out the way the customer wants it, and the business need changes. You know, the very quickly, even the head of HR might need to pivot and say, okay, you know, yesterday I asked you for this, because our priority was, we’re going to go after improving turnover today, looking at where the where we need to go as a business. We need to focus on how we need to, you know, improve compliance. And all of a sudden, you know, the things that you spend so much time building, custom, building, creating, you know, having a lot of code and programming behind gets is not as relevant. And so, because the need of the need, I guess, Need for Speed, for what the business needs, is so fast if the or, you know, if departments like HR are not able to quickly, you know, pivot and respond to business needs, then they’re the ones who are going to be left behind and not have that seat at the table. So how can, if I’m an HR practitioner, or if I’m an HR executive, how can I quickly make sure that I stay on top of what the business priorities and needs are as they’re changing all the time, I need tools that are able to quickly get me what I need. And if we decide to go a different way, I don’t have to go and, you know, get bunch of people to do a custom development or go get another vendor, because that system is, is is no longer relevant. So just that that the business need, and the speed of how things are changing has forced HR practitioners, has forced it, and has forced the vendors to try to figure out how to just get things shipped out faster.

Dylan Teggart 13:00
Gotcha interesting. And so, you know, getting into solutions and kind of picking one that’s right for you. I know you, you know you, you kind of emphasized in the past, you know, choosing a practical solution that’s practical for your business. So how you know, but it’s easier said than done. So what are you what are kind of the the borders or the framework you put up when doing that? What’s the lens you’re looking at? If you’re

Ahmad Noordin 13:31
Yeah, well, first of all, I would say that when I engage with vendors, I like to be very transparent, upfront in terms of what we’re trying to achieve. In some cases, we’re approaching vendors and telling them we’re just, this is an education exercise. We’re trying to understand an industry. We’re trying to understand, you know, a technology. And by no means are we expecting to, you know, you know, sign something and buy a product. This is just an, you know, an exercise to get more educated. And in the a, you know, when I do that, the vendors, obviously, you know, they still hope and pray you end up, you know, buying their product, but their their mindset is now focused on making sure that they align the right resources to make sure you’re educated, you know, they’ll bring folks in who can help you understand the technology and real use cases and so on and so forth. And you’re going to get a little bit less of the the salesy part of it, which obviously is there as well, but they’ll just be, you know, they’ll you’re going to spend more time with folks on on the vendor side, who are going to be educating because that’s really what you’re trying to do. And from a vendor standpoint, that gets them in the door, you know, it’s a, you know, allows them to come in and say, as we’re educating you on this, we can, you know, obviously, get into more of how we can solve for some of your business problems. So just being very transparent with you. The vendor in terms of what you’re trying to achieve. Because often, you know, if you don’t, and you just get on a call, the expectation is you’re going to be, you have a business need, they’re going to ask how, you know, how soon are you looking at, you know, buying the technology, and they’re already, you know, light, light speed, light years ahead of you in terms of getting a contract signed, and you’re still in the I don’t even know what your technology does, and I don’t even know if I have a need for it. So just being very clear and transparent is one thing. The other thing is that depending on the vendor itself, you know, I approach them very differently. So if it’s kind of your large you’re going after a large, you know, HRIS system, then you know you want to have a more robust RFP process and supplier selection process. And you know you you have, you pick those vendors you you know will down that list and and you send them your requirements in advance and see, you know how they’re going to respond to it. You, you, you orchestra. Make sure they orchestrate the their demos to meet your needs, and they’re trying to show you how they’re going to solve for things you’re looking for. So things are not canned. So I put in a lot of time to make sure the vendors are successful and we’re successful. Are the customers, the stakeholders who are looking at these technology solutions and reviewing the RFP responses and so on are, you know, it’s very custom to what our business needs are. And the real reason is because, you know, when you’re a large vendor and you have these large, you know, portfolio products, you’re not going to change that technology for us, you’re going to, you know, it is what it is, right? Obviously, you can go on their community board and put an idea in there and wait for the next release, but there’s no way I can make any of them change where they’re going with their technology. Now, if you’re a smaller vendor, where you’re a startup, you’re still trying to get some customers you’re still trying to even build your product. That I enjoy that part even more, because many of them are open to creating, you know, proof of concepts, trying to understand your business workflows and working alongside you, almost co developing with you, and because they’re trying to create, improve and create their product so that it’s more marketable. And they’re getting free advice. They’re getting free, you know, consulting from customers who are sharing their business problems. And you’re they have, you have, they have access to your some of your data, and they’re able to play around with it and try to solve for it, and then take it, you know, to a larger scale with more customers. So with them, I spend more time in making sure that, you know, the they’re ready to be that partner, that it’s not a canned solution, and they’re going to just try to sell us the licenses, and if they are open to spending time with us, doing proof of concepts, talking about our business problems and and even telling us where their product is going and it’s not going and how it may or may not suit our needs. Those are the qualities that I look for vendors. But if I realize it’s more it’s not a partnership, it’s more of a this is kind of where what this product is and really just trying to get you to buy that product, then, you know, I kind of shy away from

Dylan Teggart 18:28
that. Yeah, I feel like, also a part, a factor of all this is that I’ve been noticing, at least, that the industry seems to be experiencing kind of consolidation across solutions and with budgets maybe tightening a bit because of the uncertainty of the economy, full suites to be appear to be making a bit of a comeback. So, and I know, for you, you know you work in an industry that has a bit of a high attrition, and you’ve made an interesting point in the path of when you have that high attrition, you want a solution that’s kind of not overly sophisticated, and that you can kind of get on, get into it really quickly. You know, does it? Do you feel like a full suite solution makes that a lot easier? Well, oftentimes, and when picking a full suite solution that is not overly sophisticated. You know, for the average employee, how does that change your process at all?

Ahmad Noordin 19:30
It does. And I think, yeah, the it is making a comeback. And I I’ll even tell you that from my perspective, the full suite will be with bells and whistles. I think customers are starting to get tired of that, because they’re realizing they you know, they don’t need all those bells and whistles, not just because they’re paying for things they’re not using, but it’s just, it’s over complicating the experience that the users are having. And so to your point, I. Right now, from my purview, what I can see is simplification is the game. No one is going into a system and trying to see how sophisticated it is. They’re trying to go and see how simple it is, how quickly they can get stuff done. And obviously you can compare it to your you know how your apps on your phone and those types of things, that’s really what they’re looking for, because they’re also consumers. Who are, you know, they’re not just employees, they’re consumers. They’re they have access to all of these other non HR applications that, you know, in one click with they can, you know, face ID, into something, and you know, you know, do something with their bank. And you know, 10 seconds they can, they can get something done, and they’re expecting that similar experience with employee systems or people platforms. Now, obviously they understand that it’s not going to be the same. We’re not going to be these systems are not going to turn into Netflix or Apple and so on. But they’re not even looking for it to be slick. They’re looking for it to just be simple. If I am, you know, an employee or a manager, I have very little time to figure out how to create a job description, up, you know, up, post, direct, go through the approval process and then actually have the job get posted, and then go through the interview process and electronically do the video interviews, or Zoom interviews, or on site interviews, and take all of the responses from that and collaborate with others and try to get to a point and then go through the offer letter stage, just just that one part of an employee Life Cycle, or, you know, what a manager has to go through now can be so overwhelming for them, especially if they’re not hiring all the time. You know managers, you know, hopefully, knock on wood, they’re focused on, you know, reducing attrition. And so if you’re not hiring every day, if you’re not hiring every month, every week, or maybe every month, you shouldn’t have to remember how to hire someone, onboard someone that you should be focused on, how to get more customers, keep your customers happy, sell the products and so on. And so what is the quickest way for them to go in there and hire someone, onboard someone, and do it in just a very seamless and simple manner. And same thing for the employees. You know, the more sophisticated these systems get, employees just get stuck. They get stuck somewhere in that process. And then HR or someone has to come in, unstuck them, and you try to nudge them through into that next workflow. And it would be so I think that’s where the industry is going to not just consolidation, but simplification.

Dylan Teggart 22:47
That makes a lot of sense. So in terms of where you see the industry is going, just with the last couple of minutes we have, what are some future trends you’re seeing out there, and you’re keeping an eye on,

Ahmad Noordin 23:00
sure, and I remember, you know, a couple of years ago, and it’s still a big trend, obviously, people analytics, but I think people are now moving towards looking at artificial intelligence and and looking at it more broadly. How artificial intelligence can take, you know, the portfolio of systems we already have in most companies, you will have that, you know, consolidated full suite that’s probably taking care of, you know, 60, 70% of your employee processes, and then you still have 30% of things that are happening in, you know, six, seven other systems. You know, whether it’s hiring or doing employee engagement, surveys or reporting tools and off boarding and compliance systems and benefit tools and so on and so, you know, I think we’ve, we’ve gotten to that point where we’re like, we know that’s going to be it’s here to stay. There’s no way a full suite can take care of 100% of the employee and manager or even hrs needs. You’re always going to have a bunch of ancillary systems. So now the question is, how do you find that wrapper? How do you find a platform that can connect to all of these different systems and offer one experience for the associate and for the manager? So if I’m a manager, instead of me logging into, you know, a background check system to see where that person is in the drug and background process, or in the i nine system for the i nine process, just to kind of get them moving along in the onboarding process, hiring and pre pre hiring an onboarding process, imagine if I just had one platform where There’s a search button, and I’m just asking, you know, where is this associate? And then, you know, if there’s a task I need to do as a manager, I can just in that same box, I can say I approve. And, you know, the, you know, now I think the term that’s being used is used, is agentic, you know? So. These agents. These can automate these workflows. They can go and do these tasks on managers or employees or hrs behalf. I can see very practical uses for it. And again, it goes back into if I’m a manager and I have to do 20 tasks, is there a way I can just do 10 and someone else can do the 10 for me if certain criterias are met and they’re no brainers. So, you know, if there was a way to do that, and that’s the promise that you know, AI offers, which is that perhaps there is an agnostic system, a wrapper that’s sitting, you know, on top of all of these systems, it’s able to pull data from different systems and give me the analytics that I need, versus me having to create a, again, create dashboards and reports in different visualization tools and have integrations with different databases and hard integrations, you know. Wouldn’t be nice if these, you know, I can just go somewhere and just like you’re using chat GPT or Google Gemini, but it goes to what are systems it needs to go to tell you how much PTO you have and how to, you know, take some time off without having to go into those systems, and as long as those guardrails are in place and that the data is secure. And I know a lot of these vendors are focused on making sure data is secure and there’s the right security access is there, and you have and there. And these are based off of company policies, not just, you know, something that people can just go ahead and do. So I just see kind of artificial intelligence as this general wrapper that can that will continue to help us improve how to get to that data, get to the insights, the actionable insights, to help us automate a lot of the workflows, because we know we’re never going to have just one system and just overall trying to streamline that employee experience so they they don’t have to figure out where to go to ask a certain question or get a test done. They just go to one place and then that that box or that portal helps them with whatever their needs are. So I just see that big push, and I’ve been meeting with multiple vendors, and I see they’re trying to figure out how to go from just your, you know, HR chat bots that do one or two things, or go look up certain things in a document, to now go and you can create custom agents. And, you know, it can go do multiple things for you, multiple workflows, even,

Dylan Teggart 27:40
yeah, I think that ease of use is really what people are looking for in simple, you know, simplifying and maybe removing those mundane tasks just with a couple clicks of a button. I think everyone’s looking, everyone’s kind of seeing the fruits of all that coming in now, and it’s exciting to see how much more robust it gets, because I think everyone, everyone’s itching for that to happen in their life, just to get rid of a couple tasks they can’t stand doing anymore. Yeah,

Ahmad Noordin 28:06
and Dylan. I’ll just add the the challenge will continue to be with for these vendors. How? How can the customer show the ROI? Because productivity, yeah, there’s a productivity gain, there’s an employee experience gain. But how can you turn that into hard dollars so that you could make a business case for these types of tools? And that’s where I think that partnership between between the vendor and the company, the customer, makes a whole lot of difference, because if it’s a platonic relationship, that’s not going to happen, they both need to be kind of all in and saying, we’re going to make this marriage work. We’re going to really try to figure out what the benefits are, and try to find not just the intangible but the tangible benefits, so that the executive team and finance and you know, so on, they actually see those returns coming in. And it’s not just more smiley faces because people are people are more happy using less tools, if there has to be more tangible. Roi, and I know vendors are focused on that as our customers,

Dylan Teggart 29:14
awesome. Well, Ahmad, thank you so much for joining me, and it’s been a really insightful discussion. If anyone has any questions for you, is there a good place for them to reach out to you? Or,

Ahmad Noordin 29:25
yeah, I think LinkedIn is probably you can just type my name in and, you know, I should pop up on LinkedIn. So that would be great, awesome.

Dylan Teggart 29:33
Well, thank you everyone for tuning in and Ahmad, thanks again. Thank you very much.

Ahmad Noordin 29:37
Appreciate it.

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