(authored by Reverb consultant, Eliza Polly)
Choosing an HR Information System (HRIS) can be a daunting task. There are so many players in the space, all competing for your business. How do they differ? Which is better? Which do you need? The answers vary from company to company and from product to product. Before embarking on the selection process, it’s important to get clear on what pain points you’re trying to solve and what your priorities are, now and over the next few years. Switching systems is quite labor-intensive and disruptive for employees, so it’s a good idea to look ahead and do what you can to minimize the chance of quickly outgrowing the tool you choose.
Narrowing the Pool: Do Your Research
There are several steps you can take to create a subset of potential contenders.
- Online resources: There are websites, like G2, that provide reviews and a wealth of other information on business software.
- Opinions and recommendations from peers: There are several groups on LinkedIn, local chapters of SHRM, and your own network that you can tap into to get insights from real users on products they use or have tried. Ask people who lead companies of a similar size and scale.
- Pricing and target market: Pricing isn’t always readily available but at a minimum, try to find out the target market of products in the space, e.g are they focusing on the small business market or enterprise companies? Their target audience can greatly impact pricing and choosing a tool that’s designed for companies like yours helps ensure it’s a good match
- Product Demos: You may want to narrow your list even further or schedule several demonstrations to see the product first-hand. This can be a time-consuming task, so here are some tips to maximize your time:
- Salespeople will often want to cover more information than you may need, with the hope of convincing you to purchase more than you originally planned. So, it’s a good idea to tell them upfront what your particular needs are and ask to see only those features. You can always get a deeper dive later on to learn about additional features. If the salesperson doesn’t honor your request, move on.
- Ask if they have a product sandbox available – a version of the tool that you can experiment with. A sandbox can be a great way to get to know a product better on your own time. It can be very helpful to explore the functionality and user experience first-hand.
- Ask about the implementation and customer support model. Will you have a designated person to help you navigate? Do they measure response times and provide you with that data? Are there options to chat, email, and call with a request or issue?
- Ask if they will provide their product roadmap for the year. It can be interesting to see where the company is investing their resources. Are they mostly working on fixes or new features? For the former, why are there so many fixes? For the latter, are the new features of interest?
Product Fit
What you need from an HRIS depends heavily on your current tech stack and what you are hoping to accomplish. At a minimum, an HRIS should support onboarding and offboarding efforts. Particularly in companies that are growing or downsizing, failure to automate employee “paperwork” can be time-consuming and error-prone. One of the primary goals of onboarding is to get new hires up and running as soon as possible, and a good HRIS can help with that.
If you currently use other products that you want to keep for payroll, performance management, benefits administration, etc. you will want to consider the integration capabilities. This has become increasingly important in a world where the use of HR technologies has grown. Having the right connectivity with your HR Tech stack (aka tools talking to each other) can be a game changer for decreasing administrative burden, preventing data errors, and minimizing disruption during implementation.
If you don’t use any other existing HR software, you should consider all the modules the HRIS has to offer. Even if you don’t intend to roll them out now, it’s important to know what options you have for the future that could prevent you from having to purchase other tools from a different vendor and try to integrate. Whether you choose to centralize several HR functions into one platform (pay, performance, feedback, engagement surveys) or just integrate an HRIS with your current products, it’s important to get as much information as you can. Your IT department will thank you!
Finally, be sure to evaluate employee self-service capabilities. Allowing employees to access and update their own personal and tax information makes people self-sufficient and reduces the burden on HR. The employee user experience is also important. Consider asking a small group of employees to try out the product(s) you’re considering and get their feedback. Attractive and straightforward user interfaces lead to higher adoption.
Choosing the right HRIS for your organization
Choosing the right HRIS for your organization can be time-consuming but ultimately will free you up for other value-added work and give your employees a positive and helpful experience.
| Core HR: Small Business | Core HR: Mid-Market | People Success |
| Bamboo HR | Rippling | Lattice |
| Gusto | HiBob | Leapsome |
| JustWorks | Paylocity | 15Five |
Small Business: These products are best suited for companies with 50 or fewer employees. They typically provide the critical functionality to set up and maintain workforce data and processes, but may not provide significant customizations or reporting and analytics capabilities.
Mid-Market: These products are better suited for companies of 50-1000 employees and are typically more expensive. In addition to providing critical HR functionality, they offer more customization, more robust analytic capabilities, and often more features.
Core HR products include some or all of the following functionality: employee records, onboarding and off-boarding, time and attendance, payroll, benefits administration, employee self-service, and reporting.
People Success software includes some or all of the following functionalities: performance management, engagement surveys, recognition, goal setting, career development, and learning.
Reach out to Reverb, we can help!
