HR Information Systems Buyer's Guide

Aspects of HRIS software

Take the time to evaluate more general characteristics of the HRIS you're considering, in addition to specific features. Among the most important are ease of use, reporting, employee self-service, security, and integration.

Ease of use
When evaluating HRISes, don't concentrate solely on features. Getting your staff to adopt a new system can be difficult, so it's essential to choose software that's easy to use. Of course, every salesperson will tell you their software is easy to use. You need to decide for yourself what "easy to use" means, but here are some examples:

Features to look for:

• Are basic menus and screens easy to grasp?
• Is entering information easy and understandable?
• Can you include non-standard information?
• How much is automated for you?
• Can you customize labels and options to match your HR policies?
• Can you easily find specific information on individual employees?
• Does the flow from section to section match your workflow?
• How many steps does it take to perform basic actions?

No matter how easy the basic functions are, users will always have questions, so investigate the built-in help features as well. How much contextual help is included? Are there pop-up "tool tips" to explain various buttons? Is the help system useful? Make sure your employees will be able to get the help they need.

Judging ease of use is much more effective when you get hands-on access to the software: when the sales rep just shows you how things work, everything can seem easy. Ask for some time to try the software out for yourself.

Reporting
An HRIS may include dozens of standard reports, from top-level HR overviews to detailed payroll and benefits analyses. Get sample reports from each vendor so you can compare the level of information included in each one.

The sheer number of reports can be overwhelming, so don't try to investigate them all. Instead, look carefully at the top level reports and "dashboards." These reports should give you the essential information you need at a glance.

The ability to customize reports to your liking is a big benefit. Most HRIS software supports customization, either through built-in report editing features or by supporting external reporting software. Look for a system that lets you export data in a format you can use, whether that's Crystal Reports, Excel, or some other format.

Employee self-service
Employee self-service provides a huge reduction in administrative work for your HR staff. With self-service, employees can get information and make changes to their HR information and benefit elections themselves, instead of calling an HR rep or completing a paper form.

Self-service applications work through secure web sites, either over the Internet or on an intranet. Subject to the policies you set up, they can allow employees to handle many types of HR transactions:

• View paychecks and make changes to direct deposit or withholding
• Check vacation and sick day balances, make time off requests
• Change health and other benefit elections during open enrollment or upon qualifying life events
• Monitor retirement plan accounts
• Update personal demographic information

Look for applications that handle all of your employees' common requests and are easy to set up and manage. Also, make sure that the user interface is easy for novice computer users to understand.

Security
Any computer system that contains confidential information needs to be reliably protected against unauthorized access and malicious attacks, and HR information is some of your most sensitive. Legitimate HRISes incorporate password protection and other precautions as a standard layer of security. Many offer audit trails that track all changes made to employee and payroll data and who was responsible for each.

Also, look for the ability to assign users to groups that have varying rights. That way, individual employees can only see their own information, managers can see data for their staff, and HR employees can view and change any employee's information.

Integration
Chances are you'll need your HRIS software to work with some other software you're already using. This may include your existing accounting system, payroll service, or time tracking software. Make sure you let potential vendors know what types of integration you'll need so you can get a sense of the complexity involved.

However, don't just ask the vendor if their software can be integrated with your existing systems – ask how they'd do it. Some companies provide built-in APIs or plug-ins to connect to popular software, but charge steep hourly or project fees for more complex or customized integration. In other cases, the integration may be limited to an export feature that creates a text file to be imported in the other program. This can get the job done but isn't as efficient as an automated process.

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