Selecting a human resource management software involves many considerations, and the best choice entirely depends on the organization, employees, business, and several other critical aspects. Also, numerous types of offerings are available in the market from vendors to choose the ideal software solution to manage your workforce. Comprehensive ones to niche products – choices are abundant with different pricing models. Also, these human resource management solutions offer various features and functionalities.
Additionally, vendors offer customization options, and some also offer integration facilities. For example, a niche human resource management software may need to incorporate quality assurance software for call centers and custom reports and analytics to satisfy their needs. Options and offerings may differ, and there is no definite rule to identify which software will better suit your organization’s operation. However, there are some common pitfalls to avoid when choosing an HR system. Let us explore these software features or deployment practices that organizations should stay steer clear of when selecting the human resource management system.
Implementation is expensive and time-consuming.
Deploying software must be streamlined to consume the least amount of time and resources for the organizations. It is especially true for small to medium businesses. Software implementation should be simple for these businesses, and most of the players in this category offer a plug-in-play model for human resource management software. Also, enterprise-level implementation of software must not be a headache for organizations. Organizations should be up and running in a few weeks using the new software. However, data must be clean and up to date to migrate them fast to the new system.
Select your provider carefully and discuss how long it will take to implement the software and potential issues, as it largely depends on the communication and level of support your vendor offers. For example, implanting any new software involves user training, enabling users to utilize the software’s capabilities fully. Poor user training will lead to poor utilization and adoption of the HR software. Additionally, users will need more training beyond the agreed scope and increase overall spending and time needed for the software implementation. Therefore, clearly understand how long the software implementation will take and how much it will cost you before you select and start deploying it in your organization.
Data is difficult to analyze
One of the most significant advantages of human resource management software is it can collect data from different systems and operations and analyze it to offer extensive reports with actionable insights. But many human resource information systems or other HR CRMs collect data from multiple systems but need more reporting capabilities. Also, many HR systems may fail to offer real-time analysis and insights, leading their users to miss significant events, trends, and opportunities to act on them early. Data is accumulated, but users need to analyze them spending hours on it to find any useful information.
Therefore, HR reporting tools are critical for any HR software offering. Check thoroughly if the solutions offer basic and extensive reporting with the right kind of attributes and elements. Consider what reports are essential for your operation and if they are available in the HR software or if there is an option for customizing reports. The absence of these aspects may lead to poor reporting and visibility into HR operations.
Real-time or near real-time reports with search and customization capabilities are desirable for HR operations. Find out if the software allows to development and export of intuitive reports fast and offers reports with the right metrics and accurate data. These reports and analytics will help optimize your recruitment efforts, employee performance, productivity, and employee engagement initiatives.
Inefficient user design
One of the major objectives of switching from paper-based operations to automated HR software is to improve user experience. But human resource management software must be easy to use for human resource professionals as well employees. How well software will be received and adopted by the users primarily depends on how user-friendly it is. For example, attendance and time tracking are traditionally done by a team using spreadsheets. If found the new HR tool’s time attendance tracking is complicated and cumbersome, they may return using the Excel sheets instead of your software.
It has happened many times that something new has been introduced, which is helpful but tuned down by the wider team.
There may be other issues, but easier to use and intuitively built will surely get your software solutions some interested users. UI design also impacts user experience. Other than core or extended HR functions like time, attendance tracking, leave management, performance monitoring, learning and development, and many more, employee self-service gained popularity in HR software features. On the one hand, it enables employees to perform numerous tasks and offers better control over their data and activities to empower them.
On the other hand, it increases the productivity of the HR team by reducing their workload. But if the employee self-service is complex or hard to understand or use because of poor design, employees may avoid or neglect these features. Therefore, the user interface must be designed carefully, keeping its users’ needs in mind so that all users can use it conveniently.
Though good design to facilitate better use of software goes beyond the graphical interface, here are some common characteristics of a good UI design.
HR platform should be easy to understand and use and can be used without specialized training or specific knowledge.
Users must be able to easily access the core information and functionalities without any risk.
It should be able to run on other devices seamlessly.
If the software is designed well, the HR team and employees will definitely enjoy using it, and the software will achieve a wider adoption in the organization.
Lack of employee engagement
An HR tool’s main objective is to manage your organization’s employee lifecycle. Therefore, when selecting an HR solution for your organization, employee engagement, and experience must be core considerations for organizations. Employee engagement shows an employee’s feelings and attachment to the organization, their work and their position in the company, and their relationship with their colleagues.
Employee self-service, as said earlier, can make employees feel empowered and in control, and it will contribute to positive employee engagement. Many HR solutions are also now offering surveys and feedback mechanisms separately or with HR functions like training and learning, recruitment and onboarding, performance management, etc., to understand employee feeling toward an organization and engage employees.
HR software with recruitment and onboarding modules offers all stakeholders the process of communicating and offering feedback.
Additionally, automated emails or messages to the employees on their birthdays or other celebrations are also sort after features for organizations willing to engage and retain promising talents. Finally, performance reviews and appraisal systems must have options to add feedback, and 360-degree feedback is an increasingly demanded feature of a performance management system or comprehensive HR system. The absence of these features will significantly cripple the HR solution’s ability to engage and motivate employees.
Poor accessibility
Even if the human resource management software is laced with excellent features, poor accessibility will fail its purpose and implementation initiatives. First, assess the accessibility needs of your organization. Questions like if your workforce is office-bound or works outside, or works from anywhere are important to ask before understanding before selecting an HR system. Remote or hybrid workers or workers with computers or other devices must be able to access HR solutions around the clock. Besides the responsive design, it should be ideally web-based and browser independent to run on any device seamlessly.
Other concerns are network connections, versions of software, and integration needs during the development or customization of the software to offer better accessibility to the users. Also, access control should be implemented to safeguard sensitive data and ensure that only relevant functions are available to the users to streamline software use. Also, the utility of the software solution will increase if it is built according to the user types and their respective needs.
There may be employees who work mostly in the field, and the attendance system must have geo-location capabilities. So, additional hardware and software capabilities must be added to the HR system. The software must be robust enough to handle such needs if there is multilocation and too many users will access it simultaneously. Otherwise, the software will be plagued with issues like slow loading, inaccessibility from different locations, and failure to handle multiple user requests. Most importantly, it may cause security issues.
Conclusions
Selecting the best HR systems is subject to specific requirements, but organizations must heed these aspects to ensure HR software implementation success. Also, they should discuss these issues when analyzing different products and vendors. The support levels and experience of the providers will also help organizations choose the right human resource management application and the correct way to deploy it.
