With technology driving nearly every aspect of our businesses, having the right set of tools is vital to our efficiency so we can focus on the most important aspects of our roles. For Human Resources (HR), we want to focus on fostering human capital, but administrative tasks can take time away from the work that matters. Having the right tech stack can help streamline those tasks and processes.
When building out your tech stack for HR, whether you’re starting fresh or revamping your current system, there are several things to consider before jumping into the new software.
What Are Your Priorities?
What areas could be improved by new tech and what are your strengths? It’s important to find technology that will supplement those strengths, not be a hindrance, and improve the areas you need help in.
Some of the common areas of improvement in HR are:
- Recruitment
- Employee Training & Development
- Employee Relations
- Compensation & Benefits
- Risk Management
- Policy Formulation
What of these areas could you use the most help in? It’s important to keep in mind there’s rarely an all-in-one, one-size-fits approach to tech stacks.
There are plenty of different solutions that can cater to each of the previously mentioned areas, some exclusively or some as multi-solution products. It’s essential to investigate solutions that will give you the best return on your investment.
Everything doesn’t have to integrate, but they should be product agnostic. Having a product that’s agnostic means having a tech solution that’s able to interact with any systems or any products in the same category. For software, being product-agnostic means being able to interact with all file types or able to exchange data with any other software.
Integration is great when it’s there, but it’s not essential that all of your preferred solutions have to seamlessly work together. There’s a danger of buying into solutions that are part of an exclusive ecosystem, making it harder to explore new solutions as the company grows and changes. Allowing your tech stack to be modular will allow you to be more agile as you revamp.
Are Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) an All-in-One Answer?
The field of HRIS solutions is big, but the many choices out there are anything but standard. Different products are available for different needs. Some solutions may be a better fit for different industries, while some solutions are better for different-sized businesses. With this wide variety of solutions, you’ll find that there’s rarely a one-size-fits-all product out there for your business.
Find an HRIS that’s great at the thing you need most. Whether you need an HR solution that focuses on recruiting and talent management, benefits, payroll, etc., you may find it lacking in other important aspects and leave you to deal with certain processes manually.
While an HRIS may be able to handle your employee attendance and payroll management, you may want a separate solution to handle onboarding and archiving employee files. A document management solution can pick up where the HRIS leaves off to deliver a fully automated organization and management tool.
Access and Compliance Should Be a Priority
You should assemble your tech stack with compliance in the forefront. Having company and employee files accessible at short notice is important since they may be requested at any time by different parties, including employees or courts searching for discovery.
Failure to retrieve and deliver request documents, especially under subpoena, can lead to liability for your company, as well as you personally, so it’s no trivial matter. It’s also important to have documents ready in the case of an internal investigation.
Having documents readily available is important, but you also can’t just let anyone waltz into the room where they’re kept and open an unlocked filing cabinet to view whatever document they please. At the very least, you need to keep records under lock-and-key, with only a handful of authorized personnel having a key. However, digital solutions are a much easier way to control access to employee files.
Most compliance standards require organizations to retain certain employee records well beyond their end date of working with the company. For example, the federal government through the Fair Labor Standards Act requires that businesses retain payroll information no less than three years after the employee’s end date.
With that in mind, the data and records that travel through your tech stack are subject to these standards and should be centralized in a solution that can account for the security and privacy regulations your company needs to adhere to.
Looking for the right combination of solutions for your company’s tech stack is all about making your own position not just easier, but enabling you to focus on the aspects of HR that uplift the company. Start with the areas that are most redundant and take away from those aspects, and remember to keep compliance and versatility in mind.
