HR Software for Small Business
Human resource software solutions for small businesses are integrated systems designed to assist with everyday HR-related administrative tasks as well as employee recruitment and onboarding. When it comes to small businesses, shifting from spreadsheets to a fully-fledged HR system is an indicator of the growth of the organization, particularly in terms of the number of employees. Most traditional human resource management systems are well suited for mid-sized and larger markets. However, lately, a range of HR software products have become available for small businesses.
These solutions, in general, are focused on helping small businesses collect and organize all of their employee data. They often include several features to help in hiring, onboarding, preparing compensation and building company culture.
For small businesses thriving on growth, you need to keep track of many processes. Through having an efficient HR system, tasks such as providing labor compliance and handling performance issues become easier to manage. Furthermore, an effective human resource software solution helps centralize staff information and automates streamlined processes.
BambooHR is a fully-fledged HR software that specifically caters towards small businesses. The solution collects and organizes information from the entire employee life cycle. This data can then be used to streamline hiring, onboarding, time tracking, benefits management, and culture management.
Small businesses in need of HR software often make use of spreadsheets and filing cabinets with paperwork before coming across an alternative solution. Using these methods results in manual labor-based errors and inefficient, time-consuming processes. With this in mind, HR solutions help in improving the organization and administration of the entire business.
Human resource solutions can provide a variety of different core functions suited to small businesses. They commonly feature the ability to track and monitor employee data to better streamline HR processes and communicate across various channels. Furthermore, these solutions can provide organized employee profiles, online document storage and employee trend reports. Through implementing HR software, small businesses can focus more on reaching business goals and reduce the time spent on HR tasks.
Several key features of HR software are catered to a variety of responsibilities the HR department faces every day in their jobs. They are not just in charge of hiring, training or tracking employees—they are also in charge of payroll, certifications, schedules and disputes. As such, an effective HR software solution can keep the small business running from the back-end of the company.
For example, BambooHR, a cloud-based human resource software, provides small businesses with a range of HRIS (human resource information system) tools. This includes features that deal with People Data and Analytics, Hiring, Onboarding, Compensation, Culture and Packaging. Through this package deal, the HR solution helps small businesses focus on more important matters—their people.
In light of this, a fully-featured HR software solution provides the following functionalities:
One of the main functions of an HR system is to handle employee applications. It’s in a company’s best interest to find the well-suited candidate for any job opening. The applicant tracking system (ATS) feature serves the purpose of tracking candidates from the very start of their application process to the day they get terminated from the company. What an ATS also provides is the ability to easily post newly created positions across various job websites once the availability comes through.
An ATS also helps in providing a central location and database for a company’s recruitment efforts. Additionally, it aids in detecting and aligning what the applicant offers in their resumes to what the opening job requires. This lessens the time in manually going over dozens of applications and increases the chances of hiring the most qualified person.
Benefits administration refers to the creating, updating and managing of benefits for the workforce of an organization. Software solutions with implemented benefits administration involve the creation and management of enrolment profiles for every employee record. These include details such as the date they were hired, their marital status, their number of dependents, the total hours they’ve worked and their attendance logs.
Furthermore, benefits administration capabilities help in making it easier for HR administrators to plan events. They also can provide automated access for employees to enroll in benefits such as medical, dental, life insurance and more. As such, this is a useful tool to have for small businesses expanding their benefits to meet the demands of a growing workforce.
One of the most associated software features for human resource management, performance management, entails managing and evaluating the performance of each employee. It helps the HR department to provide compensation and bonuses to deserving workers based on their employee record. Additionally, it helps in giving proper credit where it is due, especially in areas such as for certifications and skill advancement.
Performance management features also have the ability to let users create and define their own custom workflow for the performance review process. They also eliminate the need for manual and redundant tasks, such as performance appraisals and employee evaluation. The system itself entirely accomplishes it for you. With the help of a number of subsequent approvals and evaluations, you can ensure all of your employees are well compensated for their efforts.
HR solutions can also provide scheduling and shift planning features in their suites, especially for businesses relying heavily on managing multiple shifts of employees such as those in the retail or hospitality industries. Through these features, it becomes easier to integrate an employee’s schedule with their attendance and payroll. This eliminates the need for spreadsheet-based shift planning that most small businesses traditionally use.
The feature automatically works alongside your business planning to schedule shifts based on an employee’s availability. Many HR solutions featuring scheduling and shift planning can also provide mobile access, making it easier for the employees to view their shifts from their smartphones through web-based or mobile applications. This facilitates easy communication between employees and their managers, making it much simpler swap or change shifts. For small businesses, this is a key feature to have as it helps in managing the needs of the business while also being mindful of the employee’s availability.
HR software solutions may have implemented training and development in their applications. Most of these modules are customized to the specific needs of the employee’s position, rather than acting as a more fully-fledged learning management system (LMS). For small businesses growing in number, this can be a useful tool to have to maintain an efficient standard throughout the training process.
Online training and onboarding features, therefore, help to make certain that training is formalized and tracked properly by the HR department. They enable users to schedule, deliver and evaluate the progress of employees by training them through an integrated software solution. The result is an efficient tool that prioritizes an employee’s development into the workforce.
Small businesses, regardless of their small number of staff, should have an efficient HR software solution to keep track of their workforce and to easily regulate the benefits entitled to the employees. Without an HR system in hand, a small business might place too much focus on manual administrative tasks. This takes up the necessary time and effort one should reserve for making their business grow in profit and sales, which is especially important in small businesses where employees are often required to wear multiple hats.
Overall, HR software for small businesses improves the company’s ability to streamline work on HR tasks by providing an integrated and automated system that not only makes it easier to keep track of employees but allows them to access their company privileges as well.
