• HR software today has the power to unlock your business' full potential by automating many of your HR processes so you can focus on building and empowering your people.
• This can have a knock-on effect on employee satisfaction and increase the performance and productivity of your employees. HR software also makes the lives of your HR team much easier to make more room for strategy and business planning.
• With so many HR tools to choose from, how do you begin the search? Keep reading to discover five hacks that make choosing HR software a whole lot easier.

As businesses strive in competitive marketplaces, HR has gone from being a back-end administrative bore to the forefront of business strategy and solutions. Human resources has the power to make or break a business in any industry, and thankfully businesses are starting to take notice.

HR tools have the power to automate and digitize many HR processes from feedback cycles to employee appraisals. They can optimize HR processes so your employee satisfaction soars and productivity booms.

But with so many tools out there, all offering varying functionality, it can be tough to make the right call for your business.

How to Choose HR Software

Here are five hacks to help you find the best HR tools for your business:

1. Define Your Problem to Find the Solution
2. Seek Validation
3. Create a Roadmap
4. Take Advantage of Product Demos
5. Explore Your Shortlist With End-User Stories

1. Define Your Problem to Find the Solution

When you take steps to recruit it’s easy to get lost in an ambitious mindset and start seeking a tool that can do it all. However, this rarely exists in real life and if you go in trying to tick too many boxes you’ll likely end up disappointed.

To avoid making this mistake take steps to clearly define the problem in your business that will be solved by your new HR platform. Once this is identified you’ll know exactly the characteristics you’re looking for. Consultants call this scoping, and really what you’re doing is narrowing the search so you can find the optimized product to fit your business.

2. Seek Validation

Once you’ve made a decision about what you want to achieve in HR, make sure everybody is on the same page. Once you’ve established a goal it’s extraordinarily easy to assume that everybody else wants the same thing - in fact, human nature will help us hear what we want to hear when having goal-oriented conversations.

Avoid this pitfall by creating an open forum where you can assess what other people want to achieve, and bring them around to your way of thinking. With a unified goal, it’s so much easier to make the changes you need.

3. Create a Roadmap

“HR tools are capable of streamlining and optimizing so many processes,” says Humberto Jewell, HR blogger at Writinity and Research Papers UK, “and once a process is automated everyone in your corporation will start seeing results.” However, there is often resistance to change.

Helping people understand how an HR tool is going to optimize processes removes a huge barrier to efficient business and creating a roadmap that articulates that process will help get everyone on board. That doesn’t mean you need to spend weeks investing in explaining the process whilst neglecting the process itself, but one rule in HR is that a little communication goes a long way.

4. Take Advantage of Product Demos

Functionality is great, especially if one HR platform can automate multiple systems in one fell swoop. But if user experience on an HR tool isn’t up to scratch, you can lose more time overall due to slow uptake and in-house resistance.

In addition, once you have a tool in place you can find yourself working closely with the operators, so make sure you understand the company’s culture before you get into bed with them.

A good HR tool will offer a thorough demo and this should be leveraged to ensure that the platform is a good fit for your business.

5. Explore Your Shortlist With End-User Stories

When you’ve narrowed it down to two or three final platforms that you think could be right for your HR processes, it’s time to take a deep dive beyond the sales pitch and into the products to find out exactly what works best for you.

Sarah Ramos, career writer at Draftbeyond and Last Minute Writing recommends “coming up with an end-user story and then requesting a walk-through of the platform in question is the best way to get a real-life preview of the HR tool.

By sticking to the story you’ll shed all the sales language and get an honest preview of the tool you’re thinking of integrating with your HR processes.” You should end up with a clear view of the functionality, and an obvious solution to your HR needs.

The Last Word

The power of an HR tool to optimize your human resources and boost your business cannot be underestimated. These five HR hacks will guide you to the perfect platform and your employees will thank you for it.

Ashlee Jones is a recruiting manager at Glasgow Writing Service and Gumessays.com. Ashlee believes that a business is only as good as its employees and enjoys writing on human resources analysis and tech integration into HR.