Essential HR Software Features for 2021

In the field of human resources, progressive growth and increase in size of an organization introduces various complexities and intricacies in various processes and tasks. Attendance reports, hiring processes and various other processes that once used to be swift and delivering instant outcomes have now become slow and rather cumbersome. However, a availability of the right set of digital tools and software can alleviate inherent bottlenecks, ease up processes and propel your organization towards instant and rapid growth.

HR software assists the HR team in handling the most complex, cumbersome and time-consuming tasks and workflows with seamlessness and ease and transform the workplace by empowering the workforce to perform at their peak. Today’s best HR softwares can fully optimise organizational workflows and processes while continuing to free up a lot of time for the HR Management to work on organizational strategic planning, leading to greater organizational growth.

However, an HR software should be gauged and the features offered analysed beforehand, as per organizational and business requirements, before determining the right choice.

Evaluating an HR Software:

An HR Software designed for a small business may not have highly advanced features, such as PTO tracking, as the ones designed for Fortune 500 organizations may have, but it surely has enough features to keep your organization running and making considerable growth steadily while solving all issues, new and recurrent ones, in a timely and seamless manner.

The basic idea to select the right HR management software for an organization is to figure out what its needs are and what could propel its HR to succeed and move ahead of its peers, in the present and future. Following issues should be addressed and resolved:

• General HR concerns – shortening the duration of recruitment cycle and organizing employee records and documentation.
• Projected tasks – designing effective process for the next five years.
• Organizational goals – Creating brand value and increasing employee satisfaction.

Once these issues have been recognized, the next step is to decide HR actions that can address these challenges. E.g., issues arising out of suboptimal employee records management can be improved and even solved by centralizing the record management. Therefore, such an action list should be created after identification of challenges.

Salient Features of an HR Software for a Small Business

Key features, the ones mattering the most as per statistical surveys, for an HR Software required for a small business are:

• Employee experience

A single, secure employee database is extremely important for an organization aiming to offer excellent employee experience and a positive work culture. It helps the HR people stay organized, focused and adhered to the standards and set practices which help take care of straightening up the process flow curves.

Employee self-service assists employees to help make any changes themselves within the database instead of taking their questions to the HR every day, thus saving both the parties a good deal of time. This leads to a smooth, easy experience for the employees and the HR team can use time available to them in a better, more organized way without having to worry about the daily usual barrage of questions from the workforce.

• Performance & engagement

Surveys have shown that about a third of the employees in an average organization are satisfied with the performance management process of their organization. Some typical issues faced by the employees in this perspective are inaccurate or fewer performance reviews.

A progressive small business trying to grow and expand beyond its regular confines must not undermine the importance of meaningful and regular feedback. This can be handled with considerable ease by an HR Software in the following ways:

• using automatic scheduling and reminders for tasks and projects, followed by feedback sessions.
• by standardizing official evaluations so that managers and team leaders can improve upon the reviews of their subordinates.
• using HR Software to generate performance reports which allow employees to keep a track of their performance over a period of time and gauge their performance graph.

• Applicant Tracking System

Attracting and hiring top talent is a high priority for organizations, but it a complicated and a cumbersome process, especially for small business. A small business has to be quick and agile in attracting a desirable candidate while simultaneously trying hard to maintaining his / her interest. Balancing these tasks requires quick and efficient management.

An HRIS consists of a built-in applicant tracking system which allows the organization to post its open positions to be able to reach prospective candidates. Once candidate applications start to arrive, an applicant tracking system efficiently stores candidate data like applications and resumes, thus making way for easy collaboration by hiring managers and facilitating easy communication to the candidates. Upon candidate selection, an automated job offer letter can be sent to the candidate detailing his / her onboarding process.

• Effective Onboarding

One of the biggest reasons which poses a major marketing concern to small businesses is an ineffective onboarding process, or a lack of one. Automated onboarding, which comes as a part of an HR Software, takes care of onboarding woes by using an automated onboarding checklist to inform people about their tasks. This may include tasks like setting up of IT systems, organizing a introduction with relevant teams and staff, etc.