Every online HR group has this question popping up daily in some form or another, whether asking for a recommendation or just looking for ideas.
The value of the responses is variable, but I am going to drill into the ‘Good’ part.
My starting point, predictably, is AI, and a condensed 30-word summary by 5 popular AI apps is:
“A good HR system centralises data, automates core HR tasks, supports compliance, enhances employee experience, enables analytics, integrates with other tools, and streamlines recruitment, payroll, performance, and talent management.”
GOOD IS NOT AN OBJECTIVE WORD TO BE APPLIED TO HR SYSTEMS (HRIS)
When HR go shopping for HR software they tend to look, quite naturally, at features and functions. At this level all HR systems can be considered ‘Good’, depending on the buyer’s point of view.
Then come the next considerations:
Price? Rapid deployment? Easy to use? are popular, followed sometimes by:
Will it enable transformation of the HR department, have I heard of it and even: is it whizzy? (yes, really!)
SOME GENERAL FEATURES OF HR SOFTWARE THAT EVERY USER CAN CONSIDER ‘GOOD’ FOR THEIR PURPOSES
Rather than go for an exhaustive list of features a useful system should have, I would apply the word Good to:
- You can make a clear business case for it
- It’s in scale with what you need from it
- Ideally it fits inside your budget
- It’s fast to set up and get running
- It’s intuitive, easy to use and requires minimum training
- Reporting is simple to put together
- The vendor will update the product whenever required
- It will last you for at least five years
To this I would add:
Is the vendor likely to sell out or get bought out?
Sad but true, it could happen that your HR system would get phased out or replaced by a flagship product you would never have chosen in the first place. That’s progress, folks.
SOME ITEMS THAT WOULD CAUSE ANY HR SYSTEM (HRIS) TO BE NOT SO GOOD
Things that can stop even the best system from being Good:
– Your data is incomplete or inaccurate
– Your data is out of date
– Your users have been insufficiently trained on the system and new users are not given full training on the system
– You failed to configure the system to harness its full capabilities
(The last two usually as a result of cutting project costs)
So ‘Good’ after all becomes a very personal experience and can’t always be relied on from other sources.
Here’s to making Good choices in our HR software!
