How to Choose A Right HR Software?

Choosing HR software for your organization can be a painstaking process but the right software can automate and accelerate your current processes. You need to consider several factors while selecting software to automate your HR Process. The benefits of automating HR functions are significant.

It will eliminate the hours spent in tracking manual attendance, time spent on performance reviews, vacation accruals, benefits, compensation and other items. Manual errors in all departments will be eliminated and it will cut down on staff hours.

Here, today in this blog I am going to share some tips and facts to consider while selecting the right HR Software for your organization.

• Define the needs of your organization
• Decide on the budget parameters
• Research the market on the available HR Software within your price range
• Request demo on each of the package
• Test the software with your company’s requirements
• Categorise the software available in your organization
• Check the ease of implementation and integration with your existing applications
• Validate the support and after sales provided by the vendor
• Make a decision.

By defining the needs of your organization, we are essentially referring to the issues that your organization is facing for which you are looking for a solution. Then understand the company size, growth rate and strategic plan and get to know the amount of data entry involved and reporting requirements. Upon discussion with others in HR department and management, come up with a comprehensive list of needs in order of priority. When you begin your search, disregard the products that do not satisfy your basic criteria.

Always be credible about your needs and budget. HR software that are expensive do come with greater functionality and customization features. But check if that is what your organization really needs and filter out the software that are way too expensive even to meet your basic requirements.

The next step that you will have to take is research the market for all the available products that have passed your above criteria of need and budget. By interaction with users who have already tried your short-listed products, you can arrive at the pluses and minuses of using these HR software. Contact all the prospective companies and request for a software demo. Disdain products that do not meet your negotiable requirements for price, function or compatibility. Then, make acategorical listing of the software already available in your organization.

Now that you filtered a few products from the market based on the above selection criteria, test the software for these important factors – Ability to integrate with the existing software of your organization, especially those related to payroll and other internal functions is important. The software should be easy to learn with little initial help from the vendor company. Data entry into the application should be simple. Check for the performance, flexibility and reporting capabilities of the application.

The ensuing important phase is the ease of implementation. This is vital because software that are easy to implement with virtual hosting and anywhere accessibility gets bonus points. Time taken for the implementation is yet another aspect to be taken into consideration.

With all the above filter criteria applied you will be able to narrow down your search to a handful of software from which you will have to choose the right HR software for your organization.

Now that we have reached the end of our selection process, we have to take a closer look into the technical support and after sales provided by the HR product selling firm as it is these people who will make your transition to automated mode in all departments easier. Some companies provide onsite support throughout implementation and training, while others conclude with training classes. The more help provided, easier is the transition to the new automated mode.

Make a checklist of the plus and minus points of the software programs that you have shortlisted. Shoot for the best price-to-performance ratio, which will vary depending on your company’s needs.

With all this said, you will also have to look out for any special features that the product that you are selecting is going to offer. One example is CavinHR that provides some additional attractive features like Time off & Absence Management to simplify and automate the Time off Process, Performance Management System that maintains and tracks information pertaining to the performance appraisals in an organization and the Employee Self Service Portal which is a powerful tool that helps dissolve the administrative functions needed to be performed by the HR department. Check out CavinHR features in our website and let us know if this is what you have been looking for in a HR software and also feel free to add your own selection criteria for selecting a HR software for your organization.

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