Human resource management, by definition, is a people-focused business. But the right human resource management (HRM) software can pick up where people leave off, helping your department streamline operations by automating certain tasks. Whether you work for a large firm or a small business HR tech can help you in many aspects of your job, from employee recruiting and retention to powerful business insights that can help increase productivity and profits.
These exercises will help you choose the best HR software for your company—whatever its size or requirements.
Determine Your HR Technology Needs
Choosing HR software is a little like selecting the right vehicle: A home contractor wouldn’t purchase a luxury minivan to haul lumber, and the mom of tweens doesn’t need a pick-up truck to taxi kids to and from sports.
Likewise, your HRM software should meet your organization’s unique needs. You may be seeking multiple platforms to fulfill all your requirements, but if you can find software that integrates across silos, that could mean reduced costs and streamlined operations. Additionally, if your software systems have the capability to link analytics to business insights and outcomes that have real-world relevance, you’ll be more likely to get a buy-in from the c-suite and enact positive change in your organization based on the data.
How Will You Use HR Technology?
Here are some of the more common tasks HR software can accomplish, freeing up your team to focus on the strategic aspects of HR.
Employee scheduling. Even the smallest of companies will find a benefit to using HR software for employee scheduling.
Identifying qualified candidates. Today’s HR software, including programs sporting recent developments in pattern recognition and AI, can streamline much of the recruiting process. Today’s HRM software uses algorithms to find candidates across geographic borders and sift through resumes to determine which candidates might be the best fit for certain positions.
Collaboration and communication. Robust videoconferencing and unified communications software makes it easy to reach out to team members and candidates across the world.
Measure employee engagement and track performance. HRM software helps organize and analyze statistics so the HR team can see where employee engagement is falling short—and to see how engagement (or lack thereof) is affecting performance.
Capture analytics and business intelligence. It’s one thing to use HR technology to track employee engagement, but HRM software becomes really useful when HR directors use this information to create actionable insights. That’s where business intelligence (BI) software comes in. Once you go beyond embedded analytics and start tracking data across silos, you can determine how employee retention is affecting profits. You can actually put a price—and more importantly—calculate the return on investment of retention techniques.
What to Look for in HRM Software
Your choice in HRM software will be driven by the size of your companies, the number of employees you need to manage, and your budget.
Once you determine your organization’s specific needs, you’ll discover that the best HR software shares some similar characteristics. In most cases you’ll want to look for HR tech that includes:
- Access from the cloud
- Training or tutorials and user support
- Security features, including encryption
- An intuitive user experience
- Scalability (does the software accommodate the number of users in your company now, and can it grow if needed?)
Your IT team may be able to help you find software with these specific features. But it’s important that the HR department can use the software independently without relying on the IT staff for day-to-day operations.
Indeed, the right HR software can help your team operate more efficiently. In order to accomplish that, it’s important to choose an intuitive, adaptable platform that HR staff can access from any Internet-enabled device at any time. The options are out there for organizations with any size budget. Once you hone in on your specific needs, making the choice doesn’t have to be difficult.
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