
Let’s talk about that trusty HR software you’ve been using since, well, forever. It’s been the backbone of your HR operations, but lately, you’ve been finding that it’s holding you back rather than lifting you up. Sound familiar?
In today’s fast-paced world, sticking with outdated HR software is like trying to run a marathon in your slippers – even a fancy Havianas pair isn’t going to cut it. Your company’s evolving, your team’s growing, and your HR needs? They’re changing faster than you can say ‘onboarding.’
But fret not. We’re here to help you spot the signs that show your current HR solution is more deadweight than a helping hand. From clunky features to complicated and boring interfaces (that are so last decade), we’ll break down exactly why it’s time to upgrade and make a switch.
Is your current HR software a help or a hindrance?
When evaluating your current HR software, it’s helpful to first take a step back and ask yourself — what’s the biggest challenge with your current HR system? Are there any glaring red flags? Remember, your HR software is supposed to make your life easier, not harder.
Here are some guiding questions to help you evaluate your current software:
1. Is it user-friendly?
- Do employees and your HR team find the software intuitive and easy to navigate?
- Are tasks like onboarding, time and attendance, and performance reviews more straightforward, or are they cumbersome and time-consuming?
2. Does it scale with your company’s growth?
- Can the software accommodate your company’s growth in terms of employee numbers, geographical locations, and evolving HR needs?
- Are there limitations to user capacity or features that hinder scalability?
3. Does it integrate well with other systems?
- Like payroll, accounting, or CRM platforms. Or do you find yourself constantly dealing with data silos and double data handling?
4. Is it up to date with compliance requirements?
- Does the software help you stay compliant with changing labour laws, data privacy regulations, and industry standards?
- Are there any gaps in compliance features or reporting capabilities?
5. Does it support remote work and mobile access?
- In an era where remote work is increasingly prevalent, does the software offer robust mobile access and support for remote HR processes?
- Can employees easily access HR resources and submit requests from anywhere, anytime?
6. Is it customisable to meet your specific needs?
- Can you tailor the software to match your company’s unique HR processes, workflows, and branding? Or are you constrained by rigid templates and predefined settings?
7. Does it provide actionable insights and analytics?
- Does the software offer meaningful analytics and reporting capabilities to help you make data-driven HR decisions?
- Can you easily track key metrics like employee turnover, engagement levels, and workforce demographics?
8. Is it cost-effective in the long run?
- Are you getting good value for the price you’re paying for the software?
- Are there hidden costs or unexpected expenses associated with upgrades, support, or additional features?
9. Are users satisfied with it?
- What feedback are employees and HR staff providing about their experience with the software?
- Are there recurring complaints or pain points that indicate dissatisfaction?
10. Does it foster employee engagement and empowerment?
- Does the software offer features like self-service portals, social collaboration tools, reward and recognition features and employee feedback mechanisms?
- Does it help create a positive employee experience and empower employees to take ownership of their HR-related tasks?
By asking yourself these questions and evaluating your current HR software against these criteria, you can gain valuable insight into whether it’s truly serving your needs, or if it’s time to start exploring other options.
10 signs that show you’ve outgrown your current HR system
Feeling unsure on whether your frustrations are justified? Let’s help you get further clarity on what you’re experiencing and whether it’s time for an upgrade.
1. You’re struggling with a legacy system, not a cloud-based system
Software solutions that migrated from desktop applications often come with legacy baggage, as they inherit tech debt from their desktop origins. These systems may have infrastructure limitations in terms of user capacity, storage, and processing power, making it challenging to support a larger workforce or additional functionalities as the company expands.
As such, if you’re using HR software that has evolved from desktop-based solutions, they tend to be less flexible and adaptable as compared to cloud-native solutions. They may rely on outdated technology or architecture that makes it difficult to customise or integrate with other systems, which can hinder innovation and agility when responding to changing business requirements.
Legacy HR and payroll systems often require significant ongoing maintenance and support to keep them running smoothly, which can involve expenses related to hardware upgrades, software patches, and troubleshooting issues. In contrast, cloud-based HR solutions are managed and maintained by the vendor, reducing the burden on internal IT resources and lowering overall maintenance costs. If you find yourself constantly forking out more money to keep your HR system going, switching to a cloud-based solution is definitely the way to go.
2. You’re not enjoying any new updates or AI enhancements
In short, there’s limited innovation. Legacy HR software that originated as desktop applications may struggle to keep pace with technological advancements and industry trends. Without the agility and scalability of cloud-native solutions, these systems fall behind in terms of features, user experience, and integration capabilities.
If you’re still using such systems, it places you at a disadvantage in terms of efficiency, competitiveness, and employee satisfaction. Cloud-based solutions on the other hand, are constantly investing in research and development to enhance their existing features, add new features, and integrate AI into their platform — without passing on any of that cost to you. It’s a no-brainer to switch to one.
3. Your HR software is causing more inefficiencies, not reducing them
You may be using HR software, but is it really helping? The wrong HR system causes more problems than it solves. Remember, one of the most basic goals in using HR software is to streamline processes and automate routine tasks, freeing up precious time so your HR team can focus on more strategic activities.
If you find yourself doing more admin work, having more data errors, experiencing difficulty in accessing important data, policies and information, missing payroll integration, constantly duplicating efforts and more, it’s a sign that your current HR system isn’t keeping up with your workforce management needs. The right HR software should be decreasing your workload, not increasing it.
4. You’re struggling with its limited scalability
Do you find that as your organisation grows, your HR system struggles to keep up with the increased workload and complexity? Or does it have limitations in terms of user capacity, storage, features, geographical location, and more — hindering your ability to support a growing (and possibly global) workforce?
Your HR software is supposed to support you in growth and expansion. It’s supposed to evolve with you as your needs change and the number of employees increase. If it’s straining under the pressure of your accelerated growth, it’s time to consider an upgrade.
5. Your employees grapple with poor user experience
Are your employees and HR staff consistently expressing frustration with the usability and interface of the HR system? Tasks take longer than they should, and users struggle to find the information they need, impacting productivity and morale.
Having an outdated user interface that’s dull, hard to navigate or overly complex can be a huge roadblock and negatively affect day-to-day processes massively. Rather than enhancing the potential of your HR teams, sticking to clunky software that doesn’t really help just hampers workflows and makes normal tasks more painful than they should be.
Opt for a user-friendly HR software instead that’s much more simple and straightforward to use, so you won’t have to spend all your time guiding and training employees on how to navigate around the HR platform.
6. Your HR system operates in isolation
Does your HR software offer publicly available APIs for their platform? Without open APIs, you’ll find your organisation locked into a single vendor for your HR software needs. This limits your ability to integrate with other business systems like payroll, accounting, or CRM platforms.
When you’re locked into utilising their platform solely, it results in data silos, duplicate data entry, and inefficiencies in cross-departmental workflows. Plus, you don’t get any flexibility to maximise the full potential of your tech stack.
7. You’re experiencing frequent system downtime or glitches
Do you run into any system downtime, slow performance or technical glitches constantly? These are normal and bound to happen once in a while for all tech solutions, but if it gets too frequent to the point that it disrupts daily operations significantly, or causes your business to be non-compliant when it comes to crucial regulatory deadlines, that can be really frustrating. These reliability issues indicate that your current system may no longer be dependable enough to meet your needs.
8. Your HR software operates on a pay-per-module structure
There’s nothing wrong with a pay-per-module cost structure, but doing so can lead to costs quickly adding up, especially for companies that require access to multiple modules or features within the HR software. This piecemeal approach often results in cost inefficiencies, due to higher overall costs compared to a tiered pricing plan, where companies pay a fixed fee based on their usage tier and/or the number of employees.
With pay-per-module pricing, it also leads to budget unpredictability as you may struggle to predict your HR software expenses accurately. When new modules or features are added and your usage increases, costs can fluctuate, making it challenging to forecast expenses and allocate budgets effectively.
Pay-per-module pricing can also be complex and confusing, with different modules priced at varying rates and additional costs for add-on features or usage thresholds. This complexity makes it difficult for you to understand and compare pricing options, leading to potential overspending or underutilisation of the available features.
In addition, pay-per-module pricing can create misaligned incentives between the software provider and your organisation. Your provider may be incentivised to upsell additional modules or features to you, even if they are not essential to your company’s HR operations. If you find your business spending unnecessarily on multiple modules and being coaxed to purchase more, that’s not really sustainable and it’s not delivering value that aligns with the company’s priorities and objectives.
In contrast, a tiered pricing plan offers a more transparent and predictable pricing structure, with fixed fees based on usage tiers and/or the number of employees. This approach provides greater flexibility, scalability, and cost control, enabling you to align your HR software expenses with your budget constraints and strategic objectives more effectively.
9. You have inadequate reporting and analytics features
Are you able to access meaningful insights and analytics from your HR system to inform strategic decision-making? If your reporting capabilities are limited, that makes it difficult to track key HR metrics and trends.
Generating reports shouldn’t feel like taxing work — the HR software should be able to generate the data you need in a few clicks. Making data-driven decisions is a core element of strategic HR — you can’t let your HR department fall behind on this aspect. Stay one step ahead with powerful HR software that delivers useful insights and accurate data efficiently when you need it, so you can analyse them and make the necessary adjustments.
10. Your HR system doesn’t support modern performance management practices
Modern performance management emphasises continuous dialogue and real-time feedback, which is essential for employee development and engagement, so they can address performance issues as they arise. However, traditional HR software may lack features that facilitate ongoing feedback and coaching between managers and employees, like one-on-ones. Without the necessary tools and features, companies may struggle to foster a culture of feedback and improvement.
In addition, traditional HR software may be limited in the types of performance metrics it can track and analyse. Modern performance management emphasises a broader range of metrics beyond just productivity or output, including factors like employee engagement, collaboration with others, and innovation. HR software that doesn’t support a comprehensive set of performance metrics, or doesn’t provide the ability to customise performance management processes, will provide an incomplete picture of employee performance.
Modern performance management emphasises the importance of aligning individual goals with organisational objectives. HR software that doesn’t support goal-setting, tracking, transparency and company-wide alignment can make it challenging for employees to understand how their work contributes to broader company goals, leading to disengagement and decreased productivity.
Recognising the importance of employee engagement in driving performance and productivity is also vital. Your HR software should support features such as pulse surveys, feedback loops and more to help you monitor and improve employee engagement levels. Without these tools, you may struggle to identify and address issues that impact employee morale and motivation.
Last but not least, traditional HR software may lack features for tracking performance metrics and rewarding high performers effectively. It’s essential to recognise and reward employees for their contributions, whether through monetary incentives, promotions, or other forms of company-wide recognition. A good HR software should be able to help you do all that.
How often should you re-evaluate your HR software needs?
The frequency with which you re-evaluate your HR software needs can vary depending on factors such as the size of your organisation, the pace of technological change, and shifts in your business priorities. However, as a general guideline, it’s advisable to re-evaluate your HR software needs at least every year, if not more frequently.
By re-evaluating your HR software needs regularly, you can ensure that your HR technology remains aligned with your organisation’s objectives, supports your evolving business needs, and enables you to achieve your HR and talent management goals effectively. Check out our Guide to Choosing The Right HR Software if you need more tips on which HR software to switch to next!
Make the switch to an all-in-one HR and payroll software today
If you relate strongly to any of the signs mentioned above, you’ve probably outgrown your current HR software. Choosing a new HR solution can be hard amongst a massive pool of options, but let us make it easier for you.
Say goodbye to manual processes, because Employment Hero’s cloud-based platform can support you in everything you need – from onboarding to offboarding, and everything in between,. Our interface is sleek, modern and user-friendly, and can be easily accessed from any device, anywhere, at anytime.
We’re constantly investing in research and development as well as rolling out feature enhancements, to provide you with a best-in-class solution that’s agile, flexible and customisable. The employee self-service tools will definitely delight your employees and your HR team too.
With a tiered pricing structure to provide more affordable options for SMEs, there’s something for everyone. Keen to find out more? Get in touch with us today!