Don’t shop for Human Resources technology until you know what you want and need. A right product will fit your workforce size, industry sector, organizational structure, and potential budget. It’s not impossible for your internal Information technology people to create a workable product, but that’s a misuse of their time and yours when you consider the array of HR IT systems available. Nonetheless, this buyer’s guide to HR IT products lists 10 base needs.
Ten base needs for any HR IT program
- Payroll: Your system manages the payroll functions. It tracks time and attendance, makes appropriate deductions, and prepares data for payroll execution, tax and benefits charges, and compliance reporting.
- Benefits: Employee benefits have become increasingly difficult to administer with more group products and quality tiers. You want the system that will track your benefits options, enable open enrollment, allow employee editing, and prepare related financial reports.
- Talent Search: Recruiting burdens any HR office. HR IT can coordinate job descriptions, want ad posting, application forms, filter screening, compliance tracking, and more. Some systems will create talent pipelines and/or integrate with social media platforms.
- Orientation: A contemporary HR information system will “walk and talk” new hires through onboarding processes. HRIS will connect them to security, training, supervision, policy, and procedure. It offers instructions, manuals, and news.
- Training: HR information technology can be a training and development kiosk. It’s the place workers can learn in engaging ways, schedule and archive training courses, and provide constructive feedback.
- Performance: Automated systems calendar and facilitate performance appraisals. It layers performance standards, target objectives, and developing competencies. You can integrate such records with talents and workforce management metrics.
- Workforce Management: You might integrate the HR system with ERP and CRM analytics to mine the data that helps understand, predict, and manage productivity.
- Talent Management: It takes some talent and ability on your part to step up to matching talent resources and potential needs. Such systems can integrate what you “know” in terms of recorded recruiting, training, development, and performance appraisal.
- Analytics: HR management simply does not realize the information it has at its disposal until it introduces the data to HR information tools. The reporting capacity is enormous and challenges the strategic talents of managers. It will administer and store records, of course, but its ability to assess and analyze is invaluable.
- Scalability: Any HR IT system relates to workforce size. If the product you buy serves numbers and needs your business has not grown into, you may have overbought. However, you always need information technology that will grow with you. The growth may be an increase in employee count or in multiple locations, but either way you want a seamless support system.
When shopping, you need support from your information technology people, HR peers, current users, and supportive vendors. It’s not just a question of what you want, but it is a search for why, when, and how. You don’t want too much overlap among functions, and you do want to understand the interface with the organization managers and employees the system will serve.
Remember, it is not your administrative function alone; it is a primary shared technology. So, spend time and talent on framing the base needs cataloged in this guide to HR Information Technology.
To narrow your search for HR technology systems try our free Software Selector Tool which will rank providers as to how well they match your criteria.