HR departments are facing new challenges this year. Millennials now comprise the majority of the workforce and keep re-defining the employment norms and company’s cultures. Standardized managerial practices are no longer working as good as they used to, especially with distributed teams. Annual evaluations are now ditched in favor of peer-to-peer reviews.
Administering all those processes on paper or using multiple tools is no longer a viable option. To cope with organizational change HR leaders are already leveraging new-generation technological solutions.
The 3 Categories of Payroll Software
Conditionally payroll software could be grouped into the following categories:
Employee benefits management software, which includes specific tools for creating and managing wellness/rewards programs.
Employee engagement software aimed at providing better feedback, learning opportunities and predicting the employee’s progress within the company.
Payroll management system that helps to maintain lifecycle records and comes with a dedicated self-service portal for the employees.
Consider these as new add-ons to your existing solution, which already includes a comprehensive payroll software; time & attendance/productivity tools and separate software for recruiting and assessing potential hires. Or the tools to incorporate in a brand new solution.
Now let’s move on to the specific features list for a new web based HR software.
1. People Analytics
Most companies have already realized that their business success depends on the effectiveness of harnessing the employees’ data and building predictive analysis systems. To be precise, worldwide executives have rated people analytics as the key priority this year.
Data-driven decision making in HR has become possible thanks to developing technologies such as machine learning and new approaches to data analysis, including the emergence of Data Science as a Service.
New-gen personnel management software can be now used to accomplish the following goals:
Leverage external employee data – for instance from social media; demographic and industry reports – to predict workforce trends and deploy razor sharp talent targeting.
Create predictive profiles featuring characteristics of high-performing teams.
Predict compliance and security risks.
Analyze individual and team engagement rates and work satisfaction.
Create predictive models for high-value career paths for suitable candidates.
2. Continuous Engagement Management
Lack of employee loyalty and overall dissatisfaction with the traditional managerial cultures has to lead the growing staff turnover rates across different industries.
Arguably, the easiest way to regain an employee’s interest is to continuously ask for their feedback and input on improving the company’s culture and managerial standards.
That’s exactly how human resource management software can help your company to retain staff. In terms of technical features that could be transferred to:
Deploy smart “employee listening” tools such as anonymous ratings, pulse surveys, regular feedback check-ins by managers.
Tools encouraging employees to recognize achievements of others; track bonuses for peer referrals, spreading company’s news and encourage proactive idea sharing.
3. Redefined Performance and Team Management
Part of the appeal of working for new SaaS companies and startups is their innovative approach to managing talent. As the data points out, most millennials workers are now seeking better life-balance and an improved feedback loop from employees. The essential managerial processes within teams have changed too as the diagram above illustrates.
A lot of HR software, however, fails to adapt to the current agile landscape. Team management is now more dynamic. One person can be re-assigned to another project or be part of multiple teams. The way goals are set, tracked and managed has changed as well.
A comprehensive HR tool should now address the following needs:
Offer transparent goal setting and tracking functionality, with both individual and team progress being measured.
Simple check-in functionality for managers.
Built-in online assessment help tools for managers that assist conducting personality assessments; managing difficult conversations and provide better data for decision-making.
Pre-made, data-driven development plans created based on the experiences of other people holding similar roles.
Progress tracking and assessment mechanisms that go beyond merely calculating employee’s desk time.
Integration with personalized task managers for each employee that suggest optimal productivity schedule and daily activities.
4. Improved Employee Review System
HR software has some catching up to do in order to correspond to the modern assessment standards:
Establish a more comprehensive mechanism that would take various factors into account during the annual review such as – employee performance (achieved goals); capabilities (skills developed; courses takes); career (their current progress within the role measured); connections (relationship with their peers and managers).
Compensation performance decisions should take multiple factors into account including labor market changes; the person’s contribution to the team’s success; financial and operational achievements, along with other variables.
Again, a comprehensive HR tool that already gathers advanced analytics about your team could deliver those insights immediately on a larger scale and make the decision-making process in this case less biased and more streamlined.
5. Advanced Security
An “average” cyber hack and data leak costs a company a huge amount of money, not to mention the reputational damage. Employee data is as valuable as your customer and financial data. Hence you shouldn’t neglect to protect it properly.
Allow users to authenticate access to corporate data only through approved Single-Sign-on (SSO) provider.
Enforce module access that would allow recruitment personnel to access only to respective blocks of information and functionality.
Selected menu access depending on the user permission/role.
ISO compliance and full data encryption.
6. Integrating Independent Contractors and Freelancers
By 2020, freelance workers will dominate the workforce. Today, over 53 billion people worldwide have already chosen to work independently instead of seeking traditional employment.
Again, technology comes to the rescue. Here are some HR software features worth integrating in order to accommodate the contingent and freelance employment:
Mobile time tracking, scheduling and reporting tools for working with an on-premises team e.g. maintenance.
Creating a talent record of freelance service providers that could be hired based on the company’s current needs.
Simplified onboarding, compliance training and education for contract workers.
Simple payroll integration designed specifically for contract workers.
The Year of Change in HR
A modern worker doesn’t want to be merely administered. Companies leading the way in HR are now deploying a more comprehensive approach to managing the personal starting with efficient onboarding; continuous employee engagement, improved talent management, backed up with smart data insights on every step.
A comprehensive HR software should correspond the processes shift and empower better decision-making within your department. JustLogin would be happy to advise on implementing innovative functionality, backed-up by our strong technical expertise and continuous approach to web development.