Why optimising your HRIS should be your first consideration…

Whether you’re newly arrived in your senior HR role or have been in it for some time, there are a range of reasons why you would want to undertake a review and improve the utilisation of your current HRIS, some of which are outlined below.? It may be tempting to consider the idea of starting again with a new system, but it is important not to underestimate the time and financial resources which need to be available to do this successfully.

Just as it can be more cost effective to tailor a piece of clothing to make the fit perfect, so it should be a consideration when you are reviewing your HR system to understand whether it can be adapted to improve its functionality and add more value for the team and organisation.

When you want to build on what you achieved during implementation

During implementation and in the first 6-12 months of business as usual, the system is still embedding into the organisation.? Over time there will be refinements that are needed in the ways things are done.? Having the system may also highlight where improvements can be made in other areas of the organisation such as Finance or Operations, and once these are in place the system needs to be updated to bring it into line.? It is also common to have a list during the implementation of areas that you want to develop later but which cannot be prioritised during the implementation itself.

When organisation expectations change

The world around us is evolving and the expectations of the data the HR team can provide shifts over time; we have seen this in recent years around things such as gender identity and chosen pronouns.? It is essential to match the evolution of the systems we use to meet these expectations and requirements so as to be able to provide relevant data and insights and make sound strategic decisions.? If the systems in place continue to fail to provide what is needed, the credibility of the system can become undermined and individual team members may have more manual work to do.

When you want to develop and innovate

There are often ways that HR can add more value to the organisation if insights can be taken from the data available to teams.? The data that we capture may need to be enhanced or completely new elements of data be collected in order to gather the intelligence to make strategic decisions.? The beauty of using the HR system to gather this information is that it can be rolled out to large numbers of employees quickly and easily so data sets can be enhanced with minimal effort.

When there has been turnover in the HR team and knowledge has been lost

In instances where the original team who undertook the implementation have moved on, and there has been insufficient knowledge transfer to their successors, it can be easy for the usage of the HRIS to reduce as the focus centres on what is absolutely required for it to function rather than the value-add information that it can hold.

There may also be development areas that were always intended to be built into the system over time, but which get forgotten with staff turnover.? New team members may not be aware of the potential capabilities of their HR system and just assume that because something has not been configured at all or in the right way, there is no further adjustment that can be made.

When you want to ensure you are up to date with product innovation

All HRIS vendors are continually working to enhance the capabilities of their systems, and this can move forward significantly even in the space of 12 months.? It is important that you understand what is on the development roadmap and what has moved into production and become available, as you may find that your needs can already be met by your current vendor.

How to move forward

Optimisation objectives

It can be built into the HR team objectives to review optimisation activities each year with the view to enhance efficiency, automation, data insights, user experience, personalisation, etc. to constantly build on the value that the HRIS can add to the organisation.? There is (sadly) no unicorn system that will work perfectly in every way for you and your team, so it is important to focus on what is business critical, good to have and what would just be a nice touch to add.

Review and document your needs

After undertaking a review of what is working well and what is not good enough, it is time to look at what would be an improvement and what would be the ideal outcome. Once this is documented you can start the conversations to make the right decision about how to move forward and make investment in time and money.

Customer Success Managers

Engaging with the Customer Success Manager from your HRIS vendor will be a great place to start to understand what opportunities there are for developing and improving the use of the system to further enhance business processes.? The CSM may also be able to take your ideas forward with their development teams, after all, if you are wanting an enhancement there is a good chance that other customers are asking for the same thing.

You can then explore the time and cost resources which might be required to achieve your goals and to compare that to the potential resources required for a project to change HR system entirely.? While it is not always possible to consider keeping the incumbent system, engaging with the vendor to understand if there are improvements that could be made is a really worthwhile first step as you may well be pleasantly surprised and able to use your resources more efficiently and still achieve the changes that you require.

If you’d like to talk to us about how we can help, them book a call with us now