With the ever increasing complexity of the Australian employment legislative environment, investing in robust HR systems is becoming more of an essential rather than a nice to have. And, with the plethora of low cost options now available, the access for all organisations has never been this easy.

10 years ago, investing in a technology platform to support HR (commonly known as a HRIS) was a consideration for corporates only – system providers were geared for enterprise versions with enterprise fees (costly implementations, customisations, and ongoing service fees). With the move away from onsite server based solutions to cloud technology, the market has been disrupted and there are now many more providers – and this is a great thing.

 

Technology should be viewed as an enabler, not the entire solution. It is a tool and needs to be considered in the context of the organisations operations, culture, desired behaviours and how sustainable the ideal processes are. When considering a HRIS, some of the factors to evaluate include: what information is to be captured; how and who will have access to that information; what the information will support; and how the system will solve (or improve) current pain points.

 

We get approached regularly by system developers to ‘champion’ their system to our clients. Many of these organisations have great products on offer, so we get to see firsthand what is available, and what their continuous improvement strategy entails. Clients have also asked why we don’t have our own HRIS. My response to this is, if we have our own, we then become a system provider, not a solution provider. There is a big difference. Organisations need an impartial expert to provide them with recommendations for providers (or a provider) based on an assessment.

 

At performHR, our role is to understand what problem/s we are solving for our clients and then to build the solution with them (and part of this is often sourcing and implementing technology solutions). With not only the complexity of the legislative environment with which we work, but also the complexity in the way that we work – virtual workplaces, travel, managing diverse workforces, and how things continue to change and evolve – a technology solution that improves HR process and information in an organisation should support leaders to lead.

 

This is the fundamental reason why the discussion around a HRIS should take place – does the investment, implementation and ongoing use of a HRIS make our leader’s role easier? How you measure that is up to you – however, you need to know your ROI, otherwise, it remains a ‘good idea’.