You’ve made the decision to go ahead and use a HR system to make life easier and take away your HR admin headaches. But what HR system features do you need to be looking out for when choosing the right system for your business?
There are a variety of HR systems on offer, each with their own benefits. So it’s important to take time to review the marketplace, look at what is out there, create a wish list and ensure the features work for you and your business so that whichever HR system you choose delivers real value.
1. Ease of use
Before you even start to drill down into specific HR system features, your priority should be to have a system which is easy to use. Look for a system that is simple to pick up, doesn’t take numerous clicks to complete basic tasks, is easy to access and straightforward to navigate. If your HR system doesn’t deliver on this, it quickly becomes a white elephant.
The idea of implementing an HR system is to save you and your team time and money, so the last thing you need is for people to be spending hours working out how to use it, or worse still, to get that frustrated with the system that they don’t use it at all!
HRX has been designed by people who have worked with many other HR systems from an end user, and employer perspective. When creating HRX we did it with the user in mind and so, it has a clear and simple dashboard. Everything is easy to access, wherever and whenever you want and will save you time on a whole host of monotonous, manual HR admin tasks
2. Central people information database
Many businesses will have employee information stored in various ways. That might be spreadsheets, electronic folders or even hard copies of documents stored in physical files. A key HR system feature is that it has a centralised database in which to store all this information. No more worrying about where a form has gone, or trying to remember if an employee has given you some key information or document. It’s all in one place which is great for compliance.
HRX has an individual record for each employee. You can upload all their documents and quickly and easily access and view them on demand, as can the employee. Your ability to store, search, audit and report on the information in the system is then a real game changer, which saves you and your team time, effort and money.
3. Self-service for employees
This feature is a genuine must have for any HR system and its ease of use and effectiveness is key to your system getting buy in from end users. Allowing employees access to their own record gives them the ability to review, and if necessary change their personal details, check their annual leave entitlement and request time off. Self-service functionality also allows staff to record sickness absence and access their own documents such as their contract or a particular letter.
HRX can be accessed via your laptop or on your phone, making self-service access easy whilst on the move. It takes just two clicks to submit your leave request or register a sickness absence and then you can use your time doing what you do best.
4. Employee data & reporting
HR systems hold a vast amount of information and data. Some businesses will do little or nothing with that information and will overlook the value of it, whilst others will harness the power of the data and analyse it for a range of purposes depending on the size of the business and how sophisticated their reporting is.
Forbes has provided a great summary on some of the key benefits of HR data analytics which you can read here. Data and reporting functionality is a key feature of any HR system and as a small business it is important to use at least some of the data.
HRX offers users a simple data summary via their dashboard and will also provide numerous reports so you can analyse annual leave usage to ensure that you don’t get to the end of the year and have all your staff making requests for time off. HRX also reports on absence data so you can monitor absence levels across the business, or in particular teams and see if there are specific employees who are giving concern due to their absence. Basically, if the data is in HRX, you can get it out in a report.
5. Knowledge Base
Having everything you need in one place to help you to manage your employees is invaluable and keep things simple. A knowledge base feature is a must have for any HR system, as it contains a wealth of information and useful documents that will save you time and keep you on track.
HRX’s Knowledge Base provides you with all the information you could need in one place, including new starter information, templates and much more. You have the documents you need at your finger tips and don’t have to spend time creating a form or letter.
Ready to take the next step?
Before you dive into purchasing a HR system, it’s important you research the needs of your business, and have your requirement list ready. Knowing what your needs are will make the quest much simpler, and ensure that you get the HR system which best fits your business and is able to grow with you so that you are future proofed.
If you already know what your business needs, then why not sign up for your free trial of our HRX HR software?
