How Cloud HR Software Is Changing the Workplace

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Cloud HR software gives your company the agility it needs to survive the rough-and-tumble environment of today’s competitive HR management practices. The workplace is changing dramatically due to evolving worker attitudes, advanced technologies, cultural diversity and globalisation. Online HRIS has become increasingly critical to deliver better user experiences for employees, job applicants and the executive suite. Executives demand more from HR management than passive record-keeping and workforce management. HR departments must increasingly deliver strategic business goals through their recruitment, management and forecasting policies while cutting costs. That’s why companies are willing to invest in technology – the prospect of generating greater efficiencies for fewer dollars. About 84 percent of organisations have plans to upgrade how they handle HR management functions, and many companies upgrade their online HR abilities through cloud based HR delivered as Software-as-a-Service.

Online HR can improve stakeholder experiences, expand usability options, cut paperwork, save time and reduce bad hiring decisions. A ‘survival of the fittest’ approach easily applies to every business process, industry, product and company in today’s business jungle. Recruiting the best applicants has become more competitive in today’s environment of digital empowerment and faster hiring decisions. Cloud HR software gives companies the edge they need to process reams of data to find golden kernels of talent and to charm those applicants who demonstrate the necessary skills.

Cloud HR Software Offers the Best HR Management Benefits

Any objective analysis of the cost-value and performance benefits of HR management software favours cloud HR technology over in-house systems. Proprietary systems are expensive, hard to implement, less efficient and less agile unless you can afford the development costs of full integration. The other side of the equation concerns adaptability and scalability. In-house systems can become obsolete before they’re fully deployed. That’s why cloud-based SaaS applications are such an attractive alternative in today’s rapidly evolving business environment. You can simply upgrade your software or choose another vendor to conform to developing HR management trends.

Technology costs have dropped dramatically over the past decade, but proprietary software still generates hefty capital investment and development costs. However, SaaS applications are bargains for small-to-medium-sized enterprises with limited investment budgets. You only need to pay for those applications and services that you need, and the monthly usage costs are affordable for most businesses. The benefits of SaaS and cloud HR include:

Ease of Deployment

You can avoid the high costs, downtime and long development periods of most software implementations by choosing cloud-based SaaS. Even basic ERP software can take up to two years to implement, test and debug. SaaS online HR programs are ready to use, easy to understand, thoroughly tested and ready for one-click HR management implementations.

Cost-Value Benefits

The total cost of HR management proprietary software ownership can be staggering when you consider the developmental and implementation costs, training expenses and the costs of maintaining, safeguarding, upgrading and testing your software. Ready-to-go cloud HR software immediately begins generating returns on your investment dollars without prolonged waiting and development periods. Online HR software also provides hidden cost savings by generating greater value for your employees, hiring prospects, customers and executives who increasingly use cloud HR to pursue company business objectives such as expanding to new markets, introducing new products and changing a company’s focus or concept.

It’s critical to manage perception of value in today’s recruiting. Your company’s brand perception fosters or hinders employee engagement, brand continuity and successful recruiting. A Glassdoor study found that 84 percent of workers would leave a company to work for one with a better corporate reputation. SaaS applications can be implemented specifically to address many types of value perceptions based on employee, customer and industry profiles.

Mobile-Friendly Access

Cloud HR is inherently mobile-friendly, which is critical in today’s smartphone culture – especially among millennials who are often the targets of a company’s strongest recruitment efforts. About 90 percent of organisations are using at least one cloud application, and online HR is increasingly common for recruiting, vetting, prequalifying and keeping millennials and other employees.

Mobile-friendly cloud HR applications empower faster recruiting, steady submissions of résumés, multiple communication options, online HR translations and fast connections with anyone in any location. Cloud HR can empower employees and company stakeholders to access their records 24/7 and helps to ensure faster corrections to company databases and employment records. Workers can request time off and shift changes or warn their supervisors when they’re running late or stuck in traffic without playing telephone tag. Mobile-friendly access ultimately benefits employers and HR departments even more than employees.

More Support Options

Support options are critical in today’s HR management practices because companies often employ multiple generations of workers from generation Xers to ageing baby boomers. Millennials are usually comfortable using online HR applications and digital technologies for training, onboarding, collaborating and managing their administrative requests, but older people might lack these digital skills. Each generation has its own unique concerns about jobs, the workplace, pay and benefits. Online HR support options can offer each employee profile group answers to their questions, options for connecting with third-party business associates, customer service from in-house and SaaS representatives and expert advice from a wider community of people who use the software.

Better User Experiences

Employees, hiring prospects, new hires and customers share similar views in one area: their appreciation for brilliant user experiences. Weaned on consumer-friendly shopping apps, universal access to their personal information in the cloud and customer-centric apps, people expect more from their employers including user-friendly website features, easy online HR access, faster onboarding processes and cloud HR forums where they can get answers to administrative questions or file complaints.

Workers want to understand their net pay amounts, which deductions apply, how big their tax bite is and what benefits they’re receiving. If withholding takes too little or too much, people want to adjust their tax deductions immediately. Analysing and correcting deductions in the past often generated a bureaucratic nightmare that could only be done during working hours when someone from HR was available to help. Getting excused from work duties for administrative tasks created its own set of problems. Cloud HR allows workers to view and change contact information, apply for benefits and change their authorised deductions 24/7.

Easier Upgrades

Upgrades can prove challenging even for companies with skilled IT staffs. Regardless of promises to the contrary, every upgrade to proprietary software generates extra work, glitches, security risks and other issues even if it’s only extra time to monitor the system. Upgrades can also create problems in SaaS applications, but these tend to be rare exceptions instead of endemic problems. Most SaaS upgrades are thoroughly tested and monitored, and support staff can usually troubleshoot any problems and issues that occur quickly and efficiently. Proprietary system glitches can result in downtime, lost revenue, troubleshooting costs and time-consuming adjustments to business processes.

The other side of upgrades is that it’s ridiculously easy to add new features based on company growth and new recruiting trends. You can add the features you need, scale your operation and respond quickly to competitors’ actions.

Third-Party Resources for Better Strategic Decisions

HR management duties increasingly involve meeting strategic objectives instead of just processing employee transactions. Cloud HR can collect and disseminate information that empowers long-term business decisions such as whether to enter new markets, expand into other regions or change the company’s focus, workforce and products.

Competitive Advantages

The wealth of business intelligence and information that automated online HR applications can collect provide extraordinary insights into industry trends, recruitment best practices, organisational HR management practices and competitor behaviour. Cloud HR offers strong competitive advantages, and without an agile way to incorporate new HR management features, your company could be at an extreme disadvantage. Online HR offers a wealth of competitive advantages such as streamlining the onboarding process, providing focused training and job-advancement resources and prequalifying applicants through online HR testing and surveys.

The Future of cloud HR Software

Cloud based HRIS is at the forefront of paradigm changes in the workforce as companies switch to a service economy from manufacturing. People will soon be able to print any component or product through affordable 3-D printing technology. Accountancy, law and engineering jobs are likely to become redundant when people can research these issues and manage those tasks with technology. However, people and leadership skills will play even more important roles. Most routine HR management tasks can be automated, which places greater emphasis on people. Cloud based HRIS will deliver a more holistic picture of job applicants based on each person’s social media profile, community involvement, outside interests and participation in worthy causes, online communities, conferences and peer-to-peer interactions.

SaaS Makes Sense for HR Management

SaaS technology offers your organisation efficient, affordable and sustainable ways to expand. About 74 percent of companies plan to replace their HR management systems to deliver better user experiences according to Bersin by Deloitte research. If your organisation is expanding into global markets or outgrowing its current HR management system, cloud HR could provide an extraordinary range of benefits that include fostering better user experiences for all company stakeholders.

The statistics overwhelmingly support cloud HR systems in an increasingly interconnected world. For example, companies with ‘best in class’ HR management programs are more than 25 percent more likely to use performance management software, and 75 percent of HR departments employ recruiting and/or tracking software. Job applicants usually research potential employers through social media, and 64 percent of workers use mobile devices to increase on-the-job productivity. SaaS systems can provide online HR management that connects, empowers and streamlines IT operations, and the need for complex integrations and extensive investments in proprietary software that could become obsolete in just a few years.

Nobody can accurately predict exactly what the future holds, but clever managers can anticipate trends and prepare for them. Darwin defined evolution as a continuous struggle where adaptability rewards species with survival. Surviving the exponential growth and change of HR management could well depend on how quickly your company adapts to online HR practices.