Human Resource department is the workforce of any business organization. Human Resource Management is one of the top priorities for any organization aiming to maximize employee performance and productivity. HR personnel are required to execute many activities to include – recruitment, training, development, performance appraisal, and most importantly employee benefits.
These activities though might look very simple; they are quite difficult to perform. Hence, an automated solution is required to perform these tasks smoothly. Nowadays, such an automated solution is readily available to be customized to business needs in the form of HR software.
The software can efficiently carry out all of the above-mentioned tasks with minimal manual effort. Currently, a number of HR software is available in the market. However, it is very important to purchase only the right software with all the must-have features and modules included.
Given below are 10 must-have modules in any HR software for a robust and reliable HR management system. Check them out:
1) Recruitment Management: This is an important part of HR management. Employee database, attendance, payroll, employee appraisal and much more can only be performed when a company has employees. Hence, recruitment becomes very important module in any HR software.
This module provides an interface to HR Managers to let them invite, filter, scrutinize and shortlist applications based on the requirements of the organization. The central repository helps the HR managers to search for qualified candidates easily.
2) Employee Management: One of the most important aspects of an HR management system is employee management. This module should have a comprehensive database that should be able to store all information, about all employees with all common fields filled. All data collected will be stored in a central or local server, from where it can be accessed and edited if necessary.
3) Payroll Management: This is yet another important module of the HR management system. Many software providers give an interface of this module on the primary software’s dashboard and sometimes integration to the third party payroll software. This module consists of data related to employee paychecks with all important fields and some optional fields.
4) Attendance Management: Traditional attendance system like signing in a register and managing it daily today is a waste of time, energy and paper. The swipe system introduced using HR software technologies helps easy management of attendance and storage of employee data in a comprehensive database. HR personnel can then easily extract this data from the database whenever required, including all other details of the employee.
5) Email Alerts: Email alerts are the key to let t employees know about the ongoing or future activities in a company. An integrated email application will allow both employees and the HR personnel to track employee birthdays, certification dates, training due dates and send alerts accordingly.
6) Employee Self-Service: This module allows both managers and the employees to access the database using the local intranet after acquiring the required permissions. The Employee self-service module will allow for employee updates, modify and add data according to the requirements and permissions. Through this method, employees need not contact the HR Manager every time they want to ‘tweak’ anything. The database is auto-updated according to the changes made.
7) Performance Management: This module, as the name suggests, is a very innovative module of any HR software. Manual analysis of employee performances and the time spent on the same are all nullified with the implementation of this module.
This module consists of a unique content management system with predefined criteria. The CMS system calculates the point automatically and enters the detailed analysis of each employee’s performance from a central location. Later, the decision makers can prepare reports required for performance appraisals and increments.
8) Learning and Professional Development: Training and online courses should be provided to employees for self-development and professional development on a regular basis. This is required such that every employee can give his/her optimal performance for the organization. The HR software makes training easily available for all employees as it enables e-learning. Thus the employees can register and attend courses from the comfort of their desk or from home.
9) Accounting: Budgeting and forecasting abilities of the Human Resource Management (HRM) Software enables consolidation and centralization of financial information. This makes it easier for managers to provide more accurate budgets and perform scenario analysis (what-if analysis) for HR based expenditures.
Also, while dealing with bills and invoices, especially in the case of contracts and clients, automating accounts payable/accounts receivable (AP/AR) will simplify the overall workflow.
10) Security and Compliance Management: HR-related regulations such as Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Tax Filing need specific paperwork and tracking. HR software automation helps the HR personnel to generate proper reports. This will ensure that there are no hurdles in any workflow. This will subsequently improve companies’ efficiency. Given below are some sub-modules that come under compliance management:
Must-Have Features of HR Software
As a business owner should purchase software only after ensuring that it contains required features by your business. Otherwise, the software with useless or less features will not add any value to your business organization.
Hence, it very important to enlist all the required features and then select an HR software on those basis. Given below are some must-have features in any HR software:
1) ‘On The Go’ accessibility – The software should be accessible from anywhere, anytime. Be it an airport, another office, another country, train, or even home, the software should be accessible from anywhere. This is a non-negotiable part while selecting any HR system.
2) Attendance Management – The software should effortlessly record, track, calculate, benchmark and report on time, attendances and leaves. It should be able to highlight any problem areas and indicate it to the HR for corrective actions immediately.
3) Self Service – The employees should be able to login to the HR system securely, update and maintain details, submit presence, leave requests and fill appraisal forms directly. These should be automated.
4) Powerful Reporting – The system should have templates for all kinds of report generation such as attendance, performance, joiners, leavers, etc. These reports should be simply downloadable instead of any manual work.
5) User-Friendly – There are so many HR software in the market which provide many functionalities but compromise on the user-friendly feature. The software you select should be highly user-friendly, easy to navigate and learn.
In conclusion
Any software, not only HR, is incomplete and useless without the right set of modules and features. Premium software requires investment – whatever that amount may be. And hence it is very important to plan in advance whether the software you are looking to purchase, provides you ample RoI (Returns on Investment).
And this planning is only possible through one method – analysing the modules and features of the software.
The article above is an effort to ease your decision-making process. So if you are still confused about the type of HR Management software to purchase, just relax and check whether the shortlisted software contains the above-listed modules and features. If yes, close your eyes, and sign on the dotted line.
Author credit: Chirantan has spent the prior 6 years deeply involved with SEO focused on large, technically complex sites such as Softwaresuggest.com and most recently work at AppitSimple Infotek Pvt. Ltd.
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Content rights: The views expressed in this piece are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the publication’s view on the subject. This article is not edited for reference checks by HR in Asia and in case of plagiarism content, the author is solely responsible. The author is not remunerated for this guest contribution.
