Hagel and Company have put together an excellent article on how to build a business case for buying HR software. The arguments they make are designed to convince executives to invest in HR technology such as ESS even when the economy is taking a beating. Here are their arguments and some thoughts about how implementing an ESS and Onboarding at the same time might be an even smarter move.
HR Software Must Align With Business Goals
Pretty much all businesses want to increase productivity while lowering costs, so that’s a good goal to align your HR software purchase with. Reducing or eliminating paper forms is one way an ESS can help achieve this goal. It also means each employee is responsible for making updates to his/her own data directly in the database, saving HR the trouble of rekeying data into the HRMS.
Sound familiar? Yes, Universal Onboarding does the same thing from day one when most employee paperwork is typically generated. When you use automated onboarding, new hires will naturally adopt use of the ESS as well. It promotes a DIY culture that can minimize routine employee queries to HR. Interfacing onboarding directly with an ESS portal means no extra work for HR in setting the new employee up in the system.
Stop Wasting Time
Hagel and Company point out that 80% of HR’s time is spent on low value, routine processes. They don’t mention where they got that statistic, but even if your organization only spends 50% of HR’s labor hours on repetitive admin, that’s too much. Automating the transfer of ESS and onboarding data into an HRMS or other back end systems saves HR time and reduces errors. The time saved can be used to mine data from these applications to be used in developing better HCM strategies.
Positive Framing is Essential
Check out the full article for how the author suggests framing your business proposal. It involves steps like identifying the functional requirements for the system, explaining the shortcomings of your current system, and more. One step that differs is the ROI calculation. The author mentions the costs being loaded at the front end. That’s true for traditionally licensed software. With SaaS, the costs remain constant (and affordable) over time.
Combine Your Efforts
With either approach, there will be a time investment with IT and HR to implement the onboarding software. The time commitment varies depending on the number of integrations required. Assessing onboarding and ESS at the same time makes it possible to ensure the systems are compatible (Universal Onboarding is compatible with most ESS portals). Plus, rolling the two projects into one might make it easier to get IT to collaborate.
Showing posts with label ROI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ROI. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
What Do Employers Want To Know About Buying HRIS?
Compare HRIS.com has an extensive knowledge library on HR and Payroll software topics. Some of their articles are more popular than others. So, they’ve taken a look at the top 10 most frequently read pieces. These offer a sneak peek at what business owners and HR decision makers want to know as they shop for HR software. Most of the topics that get lots of hits fall into 3 basic categories: money, IT, and functionality.
Money
There are two things employers want to know about HR software. First, how much will it cost? Second, how much will it save? Smart vendors generally answer both these questions by answering a third: How much is it worth? Author Chris Scroggin points out that it’s nearly impossible to do an “apples to apples” price comparison for HRIS software with an online search. That’s because companies that offer high value software typically choose to demonstrate that value to a customer before going into detail about price. As time consuming as it may be, it really is necessary for software vendors to consult with HR clients to identify their specific needs. Then, vendors can show how their HRIS software can be leveraged strategically to reduce administrative overhead and speed ROI.
IT
Information about how to work with IT in selecting and implementing HRIS is always a big draw for HR professionals. CEO Shafiq Lokhandwala from NuView HRIS Payroll, Inc. offers a tongue in cheek look at this topic in “IT is from Mars & HR is from Venus”. At Emerald Software, we encourage clients to enlist the aid of an HRIS analyst to help bridge the gap between HR and IT. This does wonders for ensuring successful implementation, integration, and interfacing with minimal conflict.
Functionality
As with any complex buying decision, sometimes you just don’t know what could benefit your organization until you realize what’s available. For example, it’s not unusual for an HR client to look at Universal Onboarding and discover that the application addresses compliance issues they didn’t realize they had. So, HR decision makers are looking for information that educates them about what they need and how to get it. It’s also interesting to look at what is important to other employers when they start shopping for an HRIS system. Check out this breakdown (by company size) of what HR typically views as the most and least critical software features.
Money
There are two things employers want to know about HR software. First, how much will it cost? Second, how much will it save? Smart vendors generally answer both these questions by answering a third: How much is it worth? Author Chris Scroggin points out that it’s nearly impossible to do an “apples to apples” price comparison for HRIS software with an online search. That’s because companies that offer high value software typically choose to demonstrate that value to a customer before going into detail about price. As time consuming as it may be, it really is necessary for software vendors to consult with HR clients to identify their specific needs. Then, vendors can show how their HRIS software can be leveraged strategically to reduce administrative overhead and speed ROI.
IT
Information about how to work with IT in selecting and implementing HRIS is always a big draw for HR professionals. CEO Shafiq Lokhandwala from NuView HRIS Payroll, Inc. offers a tongue in cheek look at this topic in “IT is from Mars & HR is from Venus”. At Emerald Software, we encourage clients to enlist the aid of an HRIS analyst to help bridge the gap between HR and IT. This does wonders for ensuring successful implementation, integration, and interfacing with minimal conflict.
Functionality
As with any complex buying decision, sometimes you just don’t know what could benefit your organization until you realize what’s available. For example, it’s not unusual for an HR client to look at Universal Onboarding and discover that the application addresses compliance issues they didn’t realize they had. So, HR decision makers are looking for information that educates them about what they need and how to get it. It’s also interesting to look at what is important to other employers when they start shopping for an HRIS system. Check out this breakdown (by company size) of what HR typically views as the most and least critical software features.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
