The case for an integrated HR suite is clear. With so many choices, spotting the right one isn’t so easy.
In a rapidly changing competitive environment, internal visibility is currency. If you don’t know what your team is doing, you can’t effectively evaluate, coach, or hold accountable its members.
Used properly, a comprehensive human resources management suite can help your management and executive teams identify competitive threats and opportunities, ensure that they’re placing and keeping the right employees in the right roles, and reward and retain the high-potential talent you’ll need in the quarters ahead.
The case for an integrated HR suite is clear. With so many choices, spotting the right one isn’t so easy. Still, you’ll want to choose a suite that can deliver on all six of these points.
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Robust Integrations
How well does each candidate integrate with other essential, adjacent functions, such as payroll and recruitment? The more seamless the integration, the better. Bonus points for suites that incorporate these functions internally.
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Excellent Customer Support
Managing people is a messy business. You trust your human resources team to put out small-scale conflagrations, but you can’t lean on them for everything. Look for a human resources management suite with a robust customer support apparatus that includes a comprehensive knowledge base and hands-on support from human experts. Betterworks’ customer support portal merges these two poles, for instance — great news for users looking for quick answers and those who need extra help.
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Ease of Use
Usability matters. Every hour spent training your HR team on a cumbersome new human resources suite is an hour you can’t devote to more important things, like onboarding new employees or rolling out a new benefits package before year-end. Look for suites with deservedly user-friendly reputations.
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Industry-Leading Security
According to Breach Level Index, more than 9 billion data records have been compromised since 2013 — nearly 2 billion in the first half of 2017 alone.
Given the sensitivity of the data they collect and their proximity to end-users most critical operations, human resources suites are perennial targets for cybercriminals. (Though one could say the same about virtually any cloud software application at this point.)
Look for an HR suite that takes security seriously, going above and beyond industry expectation and regulatory requirement.
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Powerful Feedback Mechanisms
Today’s best human resources suites are built around the concept of continuous performance management (CPM). Central to continuous performance management is a powerful feedback platform that allows for near-effortless coaching and information exchange between managers and their teams. CPM helps managers and HR leads drive employee performance, ensure tight alignment with departmental and organizational goals, and keep employees engaged at every step.
Choose Your Own HR Adventure
Your company’s human capital is its most precious resource. How you choose to manage it is of the utmost importance and the utmost sensitivity. You’ll be well served if you approach the process of selecting your next human resources suite as you would the process of recruiting for a key vacancy — with diligence, discretion, and a healthy dose of humility.
