Upgrading your HR software?

Here are 6 factors to consider when you’re looking to upgrade

There are many factors to considering if you’re upgrading your HR Software, or if you’re looking to move from spreadsheets to a cloud-based HR Software solution for the first time.

Price is the obvious starting point, but there are a number of other factors to consider too. We’ve drawn up a shortlist of some helpful factors to consider when review reviewing potential HR vendors.

6 Factors to consider when upgrading your HR Software

1. Price

The most obvious consideration and often, the most important. Vendors often take different approaches to pricing what they offer; some may charge a flat per-user, per-month fee; some charge based on a company’s total number of employees, while others charge only for employees who’ll be covered by the system. Additionally, other vendors only charge for the HR staff who’ll use the system (this is most common in ATS or recruiting software).

When you’re researching, ask about volume discounts; some vendors provide prices for customers with more than a specific number of employees or users. Some solutions offer tiered features and pricing, so you can start out small and increase the tiering as and when your workforce increases.

2. Demo's & Trial Accounts

Demo’s are good starting point for getting an idea of the look and feel of the user interface and generally offer a good taste of what the Software can do.

A majority of cloud-based HR Software solutions for small businesses offer some kind of limited-time free trial. Many let you convert a trial account to a paid one so you can save any data you inputted during the try-out period.

3. Employee Files

Chances are you’ve got personnel data stored somewhere, even if it’s just in Microsoft Excel or Google Drive. In most cases, uploading the data to a new vendor’s platform will be easier and faster than re-keying employee data or having employees sign in and fill out profiles themselves.

A lot of HR platforms for small businesses have built-in functions for importing data from Microsoft Excel and other formats that costs nothing extra to use. If you’ve got hundreds or thousands of employees, it might be best to have the vendor upload the existing employee information into the new software for you., however, there is generally an implementation fee for this, so do check.

4. Security & Updates

There’s often reports in the news of businesses being hacked and personal data being leaked out. It’s pretty obvious, but do check the vendor is compliant with the latest GDPR and data security requirements – if anything, ensure the data processing stays within the UK.

Additionally, do check that the vendor isn’t planning any significant software updates which may effect the User Interface, plus find out how frequently they make software updates and what impact that might have on your business.

5. Mobile Apps

For some HR software vendors, Mobile Apps are either unchartered territory or they’ve embraced it. Most of them offer apps for both Android and iOS devices, but not all apps cover all the functions of vendors’ web-based solution. Some vendors opt to make their websites mobile-responsive instead of creating separate apps.

Whether one is better than the other depends on your company, the type of employees you have, and how those people work.

A majority of HR Software apps are free add-ons that customers get when they sign up—but not always so be sure to check.

6. Customer Support

Vendors of cloud-based HR Software for small businesses go out of their way to provide free support through guides, video tutorials, webinars, FAQs, user forums, blog posts etc. and other online material as they’re a cheaper option than having an account manager on stand-by for you.

Check with the vendor what kind of support they offer and whether you’ll be comfortable figuring things out on your own. If you’d prefer to talk to someone when you need it, that could be deciding factor between going with a vendor that provides what you need and one that doesn’t.

Also, find out what support, onboarding, and training are covered in the platform’s subscription fee—and what you’d have to pay extra for.

Depending on your business, you may have other factors to consider. These can include:

Does the platform cover non-UK currencies and holidays?
Is it available in languages other than English?
Does it have an open application programming interface (API) that makes it easier to integrate with other software you’re already using?
How much time and money is a vendor devoting to adding new features and fixing bugs?

Obviously, there are tons of other factors – but these are equally important and shouldn’t be overlooked.

In Summary

For small businesses (<100 employees) the chances are all you need is a simple and straightforward HR solution that covers all the essentials (along with the security) to keep a vast majority of your workforce happy. Even with these, you can bolt on a module or 2 if something is missing, and it can still be a very cost-effective solution.

However, if you have a slightly larger workforce and/or a lot more variables in your team, you may need HR Software which has more functionality and modules already included (opposed to buying them as add-ons). Obviously the cost for these is higher, but sometimes this is a price worth paying if the software does a lot of what you need.

Or if you’re really stuck and confused by all the options out there – we can assist with our HR System Selection Service. Working with you to find out exactly what you need, and which vendor ticks a majority of the boxes for you.