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Human Resources (HR) is one of the essential functions of a business. HR handles employees, processes new applicants, computes leave balances, assists the Finance team in processing salaries and deductions, manages employee databases, processes government registrations of new hires, ensures that all employees follow the company’s protocol, and many more. Before a business can do transactions with external stakeholders such as customers, creditors, and manufacturers, it should first manage transactions with its internal stakeholders – the employees.
A growing company can’t function properly without Human Resources. HR is the bloodline of a business because it helps the business gain talented and hard-working employees who serve the company’s purpose.
Since the pandemic, software developers have been working nonstop to provide highly efficient software for businesses. Some software is needed for a company to run smoothly, and without this software, it will be difficult for the company to complete a transaction within a specific amount of time.
The HR department is one of the busiest and most fast-paced departments in a company, mainly because they process many vital documents for other departments. Most of these documents are highly confidential. Aside from the IT and Finance departments, HR is in high need of digital support for multiple administrative functions. This is one of the main reasons why HR software for small businesses comes with numerous benefits.
Those who work at HR are multitaskers, and each of their workloads can get heavy over time, so software developers have made several HR software that can help ease the workload of HR staff.
If you’re a new business owner or someone who has been in the industry for so long but hasn’t acquired any HR software yet, you have to know how important it is to start using HR software to ensure smooth, mistake-free transactions every day.
Here we have jotted down six reasons how HR software can improve your business transactions:
#1 Manage Databases and Safe keep Records
Due to certain restrictions brought by the pandemic, most employees cannot exactly go to their offices as often as before to process documents and safely keep vital records. The only way to continue doing these administrative tasks is to transfer and manage all of these online. With the number of documents and databases, an HR staff needs to maintain, you need software that can transfer, receive, retrieve, and store large sizes of documents simultaneously without lagging as if your computer is about to shut down without warning.
Employee information, requirements of applicants, leaves reconciliations and balances, licenses, certifications, promotions, contracts, compensation and benefits, government papers, government registrations, birthdays, and many more are only some of the records HR needs to process and organize regularly.
A Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is software designed to store large documents to manage and organize files regularly. There are various HRIS software available in the market today, so it’s important to be meticulous in picking software that has good ratings and feedback.
#2 HR Software Reduces Time
Employees request a hefty amount of files and other HR-related documents from HR every day. Working 8 hours a day isn’t enough to process each request at once, even if the HR staff works overtime. You also need to consider the amount of time to be allotted for necessary approvals that are needed for requests such as Certificate of Employment (COE), Employee Verification Requests, study leave requests, bereavement leave, and more. Digital support is needed for HR to accomplish these requests on time, and process supporting documents and approvals while processing other HR tasks on the side.
#3 HR Softwares Complete Employee Experience
If there is software that is used for engaging with clients and other external stakeholders, then there is also software for employees.
Employees need access to HR software to manage important matters that aren’t exactly related to their job description but are related to their employment. These include the following:
Reimbursement Requests
Aside from the salaries employees get, they’re also entitled to several employee benefits, like flexible benefits.
Flexible benefits, as defined by Carla Yudhushthu, Vice President of people operations at Mammoth HR and ThinkHR, said, “generally pertain to employee needs associated with work, home life, and planning for the future.”
Most types of flexible benefits such as personal leaves of absence, reimbursement of parking or transportation costs, flexible scheduling, professional development training to gain helpful certifications, time-off benefits, and more, all undergo several processes, and HR software helps speed up these processes.
Most commonly used reimbursements concern the medical use of employees such as dental service, eyewear, anti-flu medications, hospital fees, and other related medical fees. HR software helps to ease the process so employees can request reimbursement without having to wait for a long time.
HR software stores and organizes old and new data, which lessens the workload of HR staff. All employees have to do is process their requests for their benefits through the software, and wait until an HR staff accepts their request for further review and approval.
Daily Time In and Time Out
There is no way a manager can strictly monitor the attendance of employees without HR software. Since most people work in the comfort of their homes due to Covid-19, managers need help to track daily attendance accurately so they can monitor the time of the employees.
HR software can not just only track the attendance but also keep records of daily tasks performed by employees, so their bosses will be able to monitor their progress on each project and task assigned for the week. Aside from monitoring tasks assigned, managers will be able to tell which job an employee is having a hard time with, mainly because the manager sees how long the employee has been working on the project.
Having software that can help the bosses monitor how an employee has been working can also promote productivity. A work-at-home setup can be demotivating to some, especially to those used to working on-site and interacting with the team. Software that monitors attendance and productivity can help the employees avoid slacking off. They know that even with the current setup, their team is aware of how each of their tasks progresses and what help they will need for each task.
Easy Access to Training
HR is responsible for the consistent improvement of employees, which can happen through regular training. Employees can access online training, conferences, and more through HR software, making it easy for employees to train and monitor their growth over time.
#4 HR Softwares Reduce Errors
Businesses know how much an error can cost them, whether the error is big or small. It’s okay to make mistakes but it’s never okay to continue making mistakes and not improve.
There are numerous documents that HR needs to process regularly. Because these documents are essential for daily transactions, especially for employees, HR could not afford to have multiple mistakes.
For further understanding, here are the reasons why HR can’t have multiple mistakes:
Avoid Unstructured Salary Increase Plan
Performance reviews are highly essential for HR because it’s associated with salary increases, and one wrong mistake can cost the company a lot, especially since employees can be very expectant with salary increases. HR software helps identify and organize qualitative and quantitative measurements that will guide an HR staff’s decision on when they should increase a salary and how much would the increase be.
HR Software Gives Way For A More Organized Onboarding Process
Onboarding is a crucial part of an HR staff’s work. A new hire can make out their first impression of the company through the onboarding, which is why it’s important to have it organized and well-planned.
One of the biggest aspects of the HR job that the Audit team checks thoroughly is the Onboarding process. There is an HR software that can help speed up the onboarding process in a systematic manner.
Some parts of the onboarding process that highly needs HR software are the following:
- Profile creation of new hires
- Online submission of requirements
- Company ID picture taking
- Government registrations
- Online training during the first few months
Poor Management of Databases
As mentioned in the first parts of this write-up, HR works on large sizes of data every day. One simple mistake on one of the databases can cause a domino effect on the succeeding data, and this can become a problem if not managed properly.
Microsoft Excel is helpful in keeping employee data, however, bigger data needs a much more proactive application to be processed smoothly each day. HR software can keep and organize massive data while allowing HR to retrieve data in just one click, and this helps avoid delaying transactions with employees and serve them better.
Not only can HR software make sure that HR tasks and assignments are being done accurately, but it can also increase productivity.
#5 HR Software Keeps Your Data Secured and Safe
Gone are the days of filing documents on cabinets after cabinets. Most HR staff have completed transporting important data on HR software, mainly for easy access and retrieval. Databases on HR software can be accessed anywhere and at any time, which is convenient for HR’s daily transactions.
Cloud-based HR software has improved security which is highly needed for storing large amounts of important data. It also protects your documents from physical catastrophes such as floods, earthquakes, and other fortuitous events.
HR software also gives you an excellent document management solution. Aside from this, storing documents on software means a lesser need for printing files, and this can improve the sustainability of the company and eventually lead to a paperless working environment.
#6 HR Software Improves Regulatory Compliance
Compliance with the company’s regulatory requirements will be improved because of the number of files and information HR needs to manage and keep.
Data security regulatory compliance, health and safety training compliance, and many more safekeeping documents-related and confidentiality compliances.
If you don’t know what HR software you should begin with, we have listed some helpful HR software that is commonly used by most companies:
1. BambooHR
BambooHR is a cloud-based software that has different portals for different users. It is used for keeping employee records such as names, phone numbers, titles, photos, and emails – basically a company directory. Not just that, but it also has a time-tracking feature, allows employees to check how many leaves they used, easy retrieval of documents to HR, and it allows employees easy access to their payrolls.
BambooHR is very helpful for small and starting businesses.
2. Deputy
This HR software is best used for scheduling shifts. It has a simple interface that’s very user-friendly and easy to navigate. This software helps HR deploy and redeploy tasks and projects without wasting time. It also can monitor progress towards tasks assigned, and can even calculate overtime of staff.
The best feature of this software is it allows an employee to request to take over a task that has been canceled by the first employee who was assigned to it. It’s very convenient to use, especially in a fast-paced environment.
To summarize what Deputy can do for you, it’s a workforce management solution that makes employee scheduling, workplace communication, and timesheet management easier and more convenient.
3. Gusto
Gusto specializes in payroll services, despite being relatively new to the market. Because of its ratings, it has added a few HR management solutions that are necessary for a business, such as hiring and onboarding, paycheck management, payroll run flexibility, and more.
Gusto has been recognized and took home an Editor’s Choice award for small business payroll services because of its mobile access which is an advantage during the pandemic, customizability, efficient setup tools, and payroll management services.
This software is highly recommended for new small businesses that have at least 1 to 10 employees.
HR software mentioned above were just some of the few that are helpful for starting businesses. There are many HR management solutions that are advantageous to have, mainly for work-at-home setups.
An HR staff doesn’t have to be tech-savvy to know how to use HR software, they just have to be computer literate. More often than not, HR software is designed to be user-friendly because it will be used by all members of the company. It’s designed for easy navigation and mobile access.
In today’s time where everyone processes everything virtually, we need supporting applications and software to make our jobs more convenient and productive. Having software not only makes daily business processes convenient to work on, but it helps provide excellent service to both internal and external stakeholders of the business.
