What is an HRIS?

An HRIS or a Human Resources Information System is software designed to help businesses meet HR needs and improve productivity. An HRIS uses automation in order to reduce redundancies in your business. It can help employers manage:

• benefits administration software to manage employee benefits
• payroll management tools for compensation management
• workflow, scheduling, or resourcing tools
• self-service portal for employees
• a centralized database to store employee and organizational data (think org charts, handbooks, best practices)
• applicant tracking systems (ATS) to streamline the recruitment
• a performance management function to track employee performance and ensure that departments are working towards accomplishing the strategic goals of the business
• workflow analytics

By handling all of these tasks, an HRIS can be a very useful tool for any business.

Why HRIS is important

Having HRIS software is important as it frees up your HR team to work on different tasks. It can make them more efficient at what they do and eliminate any human error that could happen within the department.

The software helps businesses use technology to enhance their people processes. In other words, your company can use this technology to do a lot of tasks that are often seen as simply filling in forms, crossing the “t”s and dotting the  “i”s.

This means that human resources can work on things that will enhance your business such as creating learning and development programs.

Learning and development programs are one of the ways in which to increase productivity, increase employee retention rates and allow your employees to be more engaged.

When your HR department has more time to focus on developing people, the entire company benefits.

What are the benefits of HRIS?

In addition to increased productivity, increased employee retention and engaged employees, having an HRIS system can benefit in the following ways.

Data management and streamlined employee onboarding

With an HRIS there is no need for large files full of data as everything is stored on the cloud. The software takes away your need for physical files, meaning an easier way of finding old files and simplicity when adding new ones.

Also, when someone is newly hired the process of onboarding them is much more streamlined and easily stored. The new employee simply has to fill in some online forms and all of their information is saved and secure in the HRIS system.

Another advantage is that HRIS is an environmentally friendly way of organizing all your data. You no longer need papers stored all over the office which can be very wasteful and take up a lot of room in order to store.

Time savings

Many HR processes can take more time than required when working with an HRIS. Instead of needing a lot of paperwork for things such as time off approvals, everything is done electronically, saving valuable time for the HR manager.

Scheduling can take a lot of time when there are numerous employees requesting time off or calling in sick. By using an HRIS you save time on all of these tasks as everything is handled automatically by the software.

Also, team members can collect their hours and direct reports from the HRIS platform, making scheduling, payroll and tracking hours a lot easier.

Compliance

Human resources information systems solutions make HR compliance easier by having all the required information and documents stored, organized, and easily accessible. That means that when the time comes for government audits or a legal matter arises everything is easy to find and the likelihood of there being a human error in the paperwork is close to nill.

Automated alerts can be set up to keep on top of the latest regulations and deadlines regarding taxes and any other government policies. Tax time or year-end can become a lot easier as everything has been set up for you within the HRIS.

Become data driven

Human resources teams are tasked with putting their time and resources into issues such as employee engagement, employee retention, onboarding success, and company morale. 

The right platform can help your HR team see how well they are performing these tasks. An HRIS system can create customizable reports so that you can see just how successful different programs are and in what ways they might need to be changed.

Using an HRIS, helps HR teams collect and analyze organizational data and get valuable insights into how successful they have been. The HRIS can help track the effectiveness of company-wide initiatives by collecting data on:

• headcount
• salaries
• retention rate
• employee satisfaction

This data can then be used to decide on organizational structure and processes, identify opportunities for improvement and have more accurate workforce planning.

By becoming more data-driven, companies can spend less time on making decisions as it will be obvious in which direction to go. Issues will be quickly solved when you are able to use a human resources information management system.

Employee experience

The HRIS software tends to be very user-friendly, meaning employees will be happy to have the system in place. For example, an HRIS can make tracking your hours of work very simple and you are no longer required to do much more than type in numbers into an online form.

The ease of this type of task makes employees happy as they are able to spend their time doing their work rather than doing repetitive administrative tasks. Having happy employees can mean more productivity, better retention rates and higher morale around the office, which are all things to be strived for.

When looking at the above benefits it becomes obvious why companies are investing in these systems.

But at what point should your company invest in HRIS software?

When to get an HRIS

Once you get to a certain size, it becomes almost impossible to keep track of all your employee information through spreadsheets and word documents. Most HRIS companies will recommend that companies with 25 people or more should start using an HRIS.

If you think about the logistics of this it makes perfect sense. As we have stated, you do not want your HR person to be bogged down with paperwork when they could be working on something more important.

Also, when thinking about the implications when it comes to processes such as payroll, you can see that the benefits of this type of system start almost right away. With an automated payroll system, it is a lot easier to make sure that mistakes do not happen, which is important to everyone who works for your company.

This is also very important when thinking about your budget. Small errors in simple accounting can mean your budget is blown and without an HRIS system to automate this process, it can be difficult not to have some human error.

All in all, an HRIS could be a very helpful software to invest in for any small or medium-sized business.