Understand the numerous benefits of employing the use of an HRIS system. Find out why it is important you adopt one now and how it will help your company thrive in the post-COVID world.
Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, a KPMG report revealed only 39% of HR leaders have embraced the use of technology to enhance their business functions. The advent of the pandemic, however, forced many companies to fasten this process by making them apply 5 years’ worth of digital transformation in just 2 months.
As normality returns, more companies will adopt the use of technological solutions to run their operations. This rise in technology, coupled with the increase in remote work, means now is the right time for SMBs and Startups to employ an HRIS system.
Faster recruitment, lower costs, and better employee management are just some of the benefits companies stand to gain from using an HRIS system. Delaying your company’s adoption of this could be detrimental to its growth after the outbreak.
To help you better understand why your company needs to employ an HRIS system, we will start with the question:
What is an HRIS system?
A Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is online software that combines human resources with information technology for seamless HR activities to occur. It helps big, medium, and small businesses streamline operations related to human resources, employee management, and payroll through data entry, data tracking, and data information.
A sophisticated HRIS complements HR personnel in their day-to-day activities. It leads to increases in efficiency when it comes to making HR decisions. Then, these decisions lead to a boost in the productivity of both employees and managers. An HRIS also saves company costs as it allows HR to perform better without the need to allocate extra resources to them.
7 benefits of investing in an HRIS
Here are some benefits your company will enjoy by investing in an HRIS:
- Instant access to information: Manually searching through employees’ records for evaluation or payroll purposes leads to loss of productivity time. An HRIS centralizes all your data in one place and allows custom settings to authorize access for the right person.
- Automation: Automation is a powerful function of an HRIS that helps eliminate recurring HR tasks by integrating business workflows into the platform. By automating critical administrative tasks such as approval or denial of time off requests, shift changes, and payroll management, HR personnel will have more time to focus on strategic issues. This can help to increase team productivity and operational efficiency.
- Easier recruitment: Whether it is due to a higher turnover rate or faster growth, SMBs and Startups usually experience a constant need for hiring new employees. If there is no organized system in place their recruitment process will be slow and complicated.
With an HRIS - that integrates recruitment in place, the hiring team can easily centralize all the hiring sources and track candidates in the pipeline to speed up the process. In addition, the online collaboration between the hiring team becomes efficient without spending too much time sending emails back and forth. - Self-service function: An HRIS platform allows employees to take care of HR-related tasks whereby they can personally check their records and make needed changes. It can be done on any device and at the comfort of an employee’s home; making it particularly suitable for companies with remote workers.
Enabling employees to update their personal information helps to take the workload off the HR team's shoulder, reduce administrative effort of data entry, and any error that may come with it. - Engagement: An HRIS combination of a simple mode of communication and easy accessibility makes it a great way to enhance employee engagement. By closing gaps between employees with a built-in digital directory, org chart, or company news, employees can easily stay updated and connected. Plus, an HRIS can improve a company’s culture by allowing real-time feedback between peer-to-peer or leader-to-peer.
- Employee experience: Beyond the immediate benefits, implementing an HRIS helps create a better employee experience from onboarding to offboarding. In practice, HRIS maximizes employee experience by providing increased control, empowering personal growth, improving staffing, and better engaging employees.
- Save cost and time: Using an HRIS to manage your employees will reduce the hours that it would take HR personnel to perform the functions manually. It will also save operational costs by preventing bad hires, fastening the recruitment process, and helping you get the best talents.
But why now?
Despite knowing the advantages involved, many companies may decide to put off the digital transformation of their HR until later. However, experts believe NOW is the best time to invest in an HRIS for your business. Reasons for this are:
1. Post-COVID recovery
According to the McKinsey article “The COVID-19 recovery will be digital: A plan for the first 90 days”, the migration to digital technologies caused by the pandemic will only continue. Businesses that want to rebound quickly from the outbreak must adopt technology now. Improving business operations by digitizing HR processes is one of the most critical recovery efforts.
By automating manual tasks and workflows, HRIS will help SMEs reduce operational costs and focus on recovery. In addition, companies will be able to manage their employees effortlessly as they go back to their workplace after the outbreak.
2. Build a foundation
For startups, it is essential you cultivate great workplace culture from the beginning to create an environment that values open communication, collaboration, and feedback. Implementing an HRIS system at an early stage is key to achieving this.
An HRIS will help a Startup streamline its hiring process to help attract the right talents and provide them with seamless onboarding. Furthermore, it will empower HR to better manage employee welfare with automated payroll function, time off, and more.
Lastly, collaboration among employees will be enhanced by having a centralized system of communication. All these will lead to the creation of a workplace with a happy and productive environment.
3. The rise of remote work
The COVID-19 outbreak has forced a shift and accelerated many companies’ adoption of remote work. This trend will become a new norm for workers. There is a need to have a system in place to help manage their remote employees if businesses want to join the trend.
An HRIS will improve the way companies engage and motivate their remote employees. Providing real-time feedback, measuring their productivity, and collaborating as a team is now made easier for managers.
Ultimately, this provides a competitive advantage for a company as they will be able to attract remote talents from different parts of the region and save operational costs managing them.
4. Empower employee
Businesses need to empower their employees by providing them with the necessary resources and tools so they can develop themselves and contribute to the organizational goals. A Techaisle survey reveals that 42% of SMBs believe digital transformation is key to employee empowerment.
An HRIS offers a path to empowering your employees via direct access to their information. This leads to the autonomy to make changes to personal information when required. It also fosters communication between colleagues by making it easier for employees to contact themselves, learn about events, and provide instant feedback - all at their convenience
Lastly, HRIS empowers managers to track employees, create checklists for employees, and make data-driven decisions for the benefit of the organization.
Make the decision
As a business leader, now is the time for you to make the decision of adopting an efficient HRIS system for your company. Digitally transforming your HR processes can be a difficult transition for some businesses. However, with the right HRIS platform, SMBs, and Startups making this transformation will find it easy to implement.
The Grove HR platform will help your company hire the best talents, onboard them properly, and provide your employees with an overall better experience. You will be able to better manage your employees’ information and help them reach their full potential thereby leading to business growth.
Lastly, our HRIS will streamline all your HR processes and help you prepare for future crises. Grove HR is free forever for businesses under 50 employees. Sign up for free here.
