New technology is changing the way people interact, the way software is sold and delivered, and the way lawsuits are won and lost – and all of those things have big implications for HR pros. With that in mind, here are the three biggest tech trends that’ll impact HR this year.

Web 2.0

Thats the catch-all term for new online technologies that are user-focused and collaborative for example, blogs, wikis, user-created videos, etc. HR managers around the world are trying to figure out ways to use those technologies to recruit employees. Social networking is the obvious place to start, whether its getting in touch with recent grads over Facebook, or finding execs over LinkedIn. But some companies have gone a step further, doing everything from starting blogs to find applicants or posting recruiting videos on YouTube (check out Google’s here). The site JobsInPods is dedicated to the use of podcasts for job recruiting.

So far its mostly larger companies that have that ground covered, but as the technology prices drop and workforces get more tech-savvy, its getting easier for small companies to leverage the power of multimedia tools, too.

Web 2.0 is also causing new discipline challenges for HR. With more interactive social content available to Web users, there are more and more opportunities for employees to waste time at their desks. Its becoming more important than ever for HR to work with management and IT folks to come up policies about using the Web at work and set up some type of monitoring capability.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Basically, Software as a Service is a computing platform that lets you run software hosted by the vendor and access it through the Internet for a pay-as-you-go subscription fee (instead of installing the application on the company’s network) . Its been around for a while, but experts say it might really take off in 2008 (check out tech analyst Jeff Kaplans post on the subject.)

Why? For one, the pay-as-you-go format requires a much lower initial investment than actually buying the software, and it takes less manpower to manage since you’re not actually installing it on your own computers. Also, a lot of vendors offer pricing based on how many users need to access the software, which gives smaller companies the advantage of scalability.

For HR, the SaaS trend is pretty well-established, especially in the talent management field, but the options have been increasing. For example, Ceridian recently launched HRevolution, a SaaS system aimed at mid-market companies (read more here).

New legal woes

At the end of 2006, federal courts started enforcing new Rules for Civil Procedure that govern what electronic documents companies have to hang on to in case they end up in litigation. In a recent survey, Osterman Research reported that about 53% of companies still aren’t ready to meet the new requirements. So as enforcement increases, and preparedness lags, were going to see more and more firms getting hit with big fines for violating the rules.

As it relates to HR, the most important aspect of electronic discovery is the concept of a litigation hold. That is, once a company anticipates litigation, all the documents that may be relevant to the case must be protected. In other words, when HR managers get word that an employment lawsuit might be in the pipeline (as they are often among the first to know) they need to talk with IT folks immediately about saving e-mails from, to or about the employee in question, and any electronic performance review records, etc.