24 Jul What Is HR-IT Convergence, And Why Is It Accelerating In 2026?
Key Takeaways
- Market context: 64% of IT leaders expect HR and IT to fully merge within the next five years (Nexthink, 2025).
- The problem: HR and IT build employee technology separately, creating an “experience silo” with no shared ownership of digital tools.
- The barrier: 58% of respondents cite unclear ownership of responsibilities as the main obstacle to integration (Nexthink, 2025).
- The solution: open source HCM gives IT source code and an API, while HR gets ready-to-use recruitment and onboarding modules – without translating requirements between departments.
- What MintHCM does: one system, two entry points – source code and an API for IT, Recruitment, Candidatures, and Onboarding modules for HR.
What is HR-IT convergence?
HR-IT convergence means combining ownership of employee technology under one team or budget, instead of keeping HR and IT in separate silos. The phenomenon is described in Nexthink’s The Experience Silo: HR, IT, and the Digital Workplace (2025) report, based on a survey of 1,100 IT leaders across the US, UK, France, and Germany. 64% of them expect a full departmental merger within five years, while 31% expect closer collaboration without a formal merger.
What data confirms this trend is accelerating?
IT leaders point to concrete benefits of merging HR and IT, not just a general belief that the direction is right. 93% of respondents said combining the departments would increase productivity, satisfaction, and engagement (Nexthink, 2025). The remaining figures show the scale of the expected impact:
- 97% – faster employee adoption of new digital tools
- 95% – smoother onboarding for new hires
- 94% – better outcomes for digital transformation projects
- 85% – fewer delays in those projects
- 93% – higher employee productivity, engagement, and retention
The report also notes that a merged function would need a leader with a broader mandate than a CIO or Chief People Officer – for example, a Chief Experience Officer (CXO).
Two in three IT departments believe the future of the digital employee requires one owner, not two separate systems.
Where does the operational pain between HR and IT sit today?
HR picks a system for recruitment and onboarding needs, while IT picks one for security, integrations, and maintenance – without a shared language, this creates technical debt and duplicate implementations. Nexthink (2025) identifies three main integration barriers: unclear ownership of responsibilities (58%), poor communication between teams (50%), and differing priorities between the two departments (49%). In practice, this means an HR system IT cannot safely integrate, or an IT system HR cannot configure for its own recruitment process.
How does MintHCM address both departments’ needs at once?
As an open source HCM, MintHCM gives the IT department full access to source code and an API, while HR gets ready-to-use operational modules – without building integrations from scratch or translating requirements between teams.
For IT:
- Source code – full code access, the ability to self-host, and the freedom to modify the system for security and compliance requirements.
- API – integration with the existing stack: SSO, payroll systems, BI tools, without dependency on a closed vendor.
For HR:
- Recruitment (
Recruitments) – manages the recruitment process: salary ranges, sourcing channels, and links to the relevant position. - Candidatures (
Candidatures) – the full candidate status cycle, from application to hire or rejection. - Onboarding and onboarding templates (
Onboardings,OnboardingTemplates) – automatically generates onboarding tasks assigned to a position, without rebuilding a checklist manually for every new hire.
MintHCM is not a no-code platform – source code and an API are tools for the technical team, not a toggle in the HR user interface.
Separate systems, or one system for both departments?
| Criterion | Separate HR and IT systems | MintHCM (open source HCM) |
|---|---|---|
| Technology ownership | Split between departments | Shared, one system |
| Access for IT | Limited to a vendor’s external API | Source code + API |
| Ready-made HR processes | Require a separate tool | Built-in modules (recruitment, onboarding) |
| Integration cost | High – two systems to connect | Lower – one system, one dataset |
| Vendor lock-in | High (closed code) | Low (open source) |
Summary
HR-IT convergence is no longer a distant scenario – for most IT leaders, it’s a plan for the next five years. Companies that already choose a system built on open code and an API, instead of two separate tools, avoid the cost of translating requirements between departments once the merger becomes the standard.
See how MintHCM connects HR and IT needs
Want to see how MintHCM works in practice? Try the demo → https://minthcm.org/demo/
Frequently Asked Questions
How is HR-IT convergence different from regular cross-department collaboration? Cross-department collaboration means exchanging information between separate teams. Convergence means combining ownership and budget for employee technology under one team or leader (Nexthink, 2025).
How many companies plan to merge HR and IT in the coming years? 64% of IT leaders expect a full merger of HR and IT within five years, and another 31% expect closer collaboration without a formal merger (Nexthink, 2025).
What are the biggest barriers to merging HR and IT? The biggest barriers are unclear ownership of responsibilities (58%), poor communication between teams (50%), and differing priorities between the two departments (49%) (Nexthink, 2025).
Does open source HCM make integration with existing IT systems easier? Yes – access to source code and an API lets the IT team integrate the HR system with the existing stack (SSO, payroll systems, BI), without depending on a closed vendor.
Who should manage a merged HR-IT function? Nexthink’s report (2025) states that a merged function needs a leader with a broader mandate than a CIO or Chief People Officer – for example, a Chief Experience Officer (CXO).
Does this convergence apply to small and mid-sized companies too, or only large corporations? Nexthink’s survey covered IT leaders across organisations of different sizes. Pressure for shared ownership of employee technology applies regardless of scale, though the pace of adoption varies with available resources.
Which MintHCM modules address both HR and IT needs? For IT, that’s source code and an API. For HR, that’s the Recruitment, Candidatures, and Onboarding modules with onboarding templates, built on established recruitment and onboarding processes.
Sources:
- Nexthink, The Experience Silo: HR, IT, and the Digital Workplace (2025), via BBC News
- Reed Talent Solutions – The great convergence: Should HR and IT teams merge? (2025)