5 Questions HR Needs to Ask When Buying HR Software
With so many HR software systems available to use nowadays, it can be a little daunting when trying to figure out which one is the perfect fit for your company. These systems are created to allow HR professionals to keep on top of the daily tasks, to centralise data and maximise employee engagement.
We know that HR software can be a powerful solution for everyday HR processes and strategic planning. But how do we know which one, with the different functionalities and outputs, will provide us with what we need or currently don’t have?
With so many options out there, it can be a minefield in determining which is the most suited HR solution for you.
5 Questions to Ask When Buying HR Software
To ensure that you’ve made the right investment, it’s important to understand what you aim to achieve with your HR software. Here are a few questions HR needs to ask when buying HR software.
What are your Current Frustrations?
It is rare that you’ll ever find something off the shelf that ticks all of your boxes straight away. One of the best activities to start with is to create a list of what your current frustrations are:
- What takes up too much of your time?
- What does your current system not give you that you need?
- Is your current system not user-friendly or off-putting for employees to use?
By determining your key frustrations, you’ll be able to provide scope for what your new system must have to make it a valuable investment. As well as frustrations, consider what things your software needs to have, what’s nice to have and what you’d be willing to make do with.
It is important that it is the HR manager or team that consider the requirements to ensure that the system they end up with is fit for purpose and eases the issues you are currently facing.
How Effective is the Reporting?
Reporting is an area that many HR systems lack in and therefore often a key frustration. In fact, it’s estimated that almost 50% of businesses lack sufficient data to assess the success of their employee wellbeing initiatives.
Reporting is critical to be able to put strategic plans in place as well as to evaluate successes. The lack of good reporting often results in further work being required such as analysis of the information generated or work having to be done for the information to be able to be used or interpreted.
This is an area that can hinder smaller companies especially who may not have additional staff to support in this area or have additional software. If this is important, you’ll want to ensure that the reporting is providing you the information you need in an accurate and efficient way.
How Good is the Onboarding Process?
Another important area to consider when exploring HR software, is the onboarding process and customer service from the supplier. You need to diagnose if there are any areas within the system that might be complicated or just a new area that has not been explored before.
You may need to communicate proactively with your employees. You want to make sure they understand the new software, and will therefore use it correctly.
Guides and tutorial videos can be useful tools to help onboard your employees. Simple steps such as this can improve the employee uptake of the HR software. Good onboarding ensures that employees will use the system properly. This results in:
- More effective use by employees
- Better data to assess your wellbeing initiatives
- Improved employee engagement
- Improved return on investment
How Easy is it to Use?
A system that is not user friendly, is a system that will not be used to its full capability either by HR professionals or by employees. Despite people using tech more often nowadays and being more confident with it, you’ll need to question the usability for staff who are not tech experts like those that create the software.
You need software that all employees can use and are not put off by how technical it is. By having it easy to use and fit for purpose, HR professionals will be more inclined to use and promote it rather than it be a burden on their work. Employees will be more likely to use it if it is intuitive and easy to use, something that can become part of the everyday rather than a perceived effort.
Employees come from all walks of life with different circumstances, and you’ll want a system that each one of them will have good access to and will be able to use with ease.
How will This Engage Your Employees?
It is critical that the HR software selected enables employee engagement by providing a positive employee experience. You need to ensure that employees will engage with it, use it for its purpose and not get frustrated with the expectation that they will have to actively use it.
With the younger generations now being increasingly tech confident and the internet being an everyday part of life, it is important that the solution is up to scratch. It must work efficiently on mobile so it can be used on the go and must be intuitive. You need to ensure it is simple enough to use, to encourage employees to use it, making it a worthwhile system to have, providing HR teams with the information they require.
In a world where we can find information at our fingertips, we need to be equipped with the right questions to ensure we get the answers we need to make informed decisions. When considering an HR software, as long as you ask the right questions, you should end up with an efficient, smart system that provides you the tools and information you need to do your job effectively whilst creating a fantastic employee experience and ticking the box for that important ROI.
If you’d like to explore a platform that can address all of the above concerns, we’d love to give you a tour of hug. A free, 15 minute demo can show you how. Please request your demo by clicking here today.
