While 73% of French people are equipped with a smartphone and the mobile phone is now part of the employee's toolbox, the company must support mobile usage in order to offer solutions that are in line with its employees' practices. Travelling employees or those on occasional trips, teleworking, the contexts of professional mobility require HR to offer tools adapted to these situations which are developing in the working world.
HR mobile applications: the context
The use of cell phones at work in figures
Today, 55% of employees say they use their mobile phones in their jobs. The introduction of mobile career management applications is therefore the logical evolution of HR techniques. The mobile platform offers employees a freedom of use that they would not have had before. Already more than 40% of French employees say they use their mobile phone for their job during their daily commute. The implementation of HR solutions on smartphones is in line with the mobile development of professional tools. In 2019, 90% of the French working population is ready to use their mobile phone for career management.
Adapting to the uses of mobility
A mobile HRIS can be compared to a companion for the employee in a mobile situation. Between two appointments or on the train, they must be able to continue their administrative tasks with ease. It is therefore more a question of offering the mobile employee key functionalities than an exact and complete replica of your complete HRIS. It is also an opportunity for HR to manage mobility.
The benefits of a mobile HR application
What are the use cases of mobile for HR?
Manage expense reports
Your mobile employees regularly incur business expenses. Offering them the ability to enter these expenses and capture the corresponding invoices directly from their mobile HR tool should be a central part of an application available to your workforce.
Administering absence requests
Through the HR mobile application, employees must also be able to consult their time counters and submit their leave requests. The process of validating these requests must be done in real time for an optimal experience.
Access to the administrative elements
With access to the electronic safe, employees can access their pay slips or employment contracts at any time. This is information that the employee may need at any time.
Preparing for annual interviews
HR teams and their managers often receive the elements of the annual interview at the last minute. Thanks to mobile, employees have a new opportunity to prepare for this key event of the year, as they go along. In addition, notifications appear as well as a progress level to encourage full completion.
An example of mobile applications
A mobile version can make sense depending on the type of employee the application is aimed at. Several modalities are currently available on the Neobrain mobile application:
- Profile completion
- Declaration of the level of skills and the appetite to develop their skills
- Internal Talent Marketplace: access to internal job and training opportunities
- Annual maintenance
- Performance monitoring

Labour law in your pocket
For its 2018 edition of the Labor Code, the Revue Fiduciaire group has developed a mobile application featuring all 2,900 pages of the book. Searching by keyword or by article, case law news on labor law, the app allows HR managers to stay up to date on regulatory issues and to quickly consult the Labor Code itself.
Faced with a mobile revolution that is now well established, companies cannot escape the need to overhaul their tools. This is an opportunity to stand out from the competition as an employer brand. Whatever the solution adopted, the company will also have to train its employees on the notions of professional data security. Particular attention should be paid to this point if employees use their own equipment to access company data.