Can SaaS Work For Large HR Departments?

While many current SaaS solutions are targeted at small to mid-sized businesses, there are a number of larger corporations that are testing these waters as well. Some challenges are unique to large businesses when using remotely hosted software both for niche services and enterprise-wide solutions. This is especially true in multi-national organizations where data privacy regulations in foreign countries may prohibit certain types of information storage and transfer.

Workday Takes On the Tough Questions

Author Stan Swete on Workday.com posted a blog article in September that highlights additional issues. He addresses many common concerns clients have about using SaaS and cloud computing for core HR systems in organizations with more than 5,000 workers. It’s a quick read and well worth a perusal. Below is our take on some of the questions he raises.
On the one hand, using a full suite of SaaS products from a single HR software vendor helps ensure ease of integration between the hosted applications. However, it also means that the SaaS solutions may “touch” many more applications throughout the enterprise structure. This can impact the cost and complexity of interfacing the HR system with other applications.

Far Reaching Service Reliability a Must

When faced with servicing a workforce numbering thousands (or tens of thousands) of employees, small-time SaaS vendors may not have what it takes to handle the workload. Those that are most likely to be successful from a scalability standpoint are taking advantage of the cloud platform to cater to clients of all sizes. For multinational employers, SaaS vendors must also be able to guarantee reasonably reliable access from any point on the globe. Not every country has high-bandwidth capability, so this must be taken into consideration during the planning stage for global integration of an SaaS solution.

Customization is Vital

In addition to scalability, multi-state and multi-national companies must have the capability to customize workflows within the SaaS application to meet local employment law requirements. This is critical from an HR compliance standpoint. Vendors who offer just an off-the-shelf solution or who run only a single instance of their application can’t generally supply this type of targeted service. However, at Emerald Software Group we have designed our Universal Onboarding system to be configurable for any unique business process you require. This customizability is built in to the system since we know that labor laws are constantly shifting and HR needs to be able to keep up.