Choosing the best HCM software for your business
When businesses are looking to bring their human capital management (HCM) software up to date, there are a range of issues to be considered.
If the right solutions are chosen and implemented correctly, these processes can become a powerful element in supporting your company’s strategy. But on the other hand, a poorly-chosen deployment may leave you struggling with a range of unintuitive tools that are isolated from the rest of the business and challenging to use and manage.
That’s why selecting the best HCM software is such an important decision for your enterprise. To make the right choice, it will be important to consider the unique needs of your organisation, the profile of your workforce, and how they typically seek to work.
Every company will have its own challenges and requirements, but there are a few elements that will be common across the board. So what are the key factors you need to be thinking about before making your final HCM software decision?
A solution at the heart of a business
Having the right solutions makes life much easier for your employees, which will be hugely important when it comes to attracting and retaining the best talent. HCM software plays a central role in enabling the processes that ensure that your staff members are well-looked after and also helps empower them to do their best work.
To achieve this, you need software that is able to function seamlessly across all parts of a business. Often HR is viewed solely as a ‘back office’ function that has a minimal impact on a company’s overall performance, but with the right solution, it can be so much more than this.
Employees that are well-managed will be much more highly motivated and productive in their day-to-day tasks, which will directly impact the customer experience they deliver. Technologies such as Microsoft Dynamics AX help with this by giving managers the power to conduct all activities in an intuitive way across the business. So whether this is data entry, hiring, team management, calculating budgets or more, tools that are easy to engage with will make all aspects of running your business simpler.
Meeting the needs of a new generation
Another area to consider is the changing expectations of today’s workforce, particularly among younger employees. These personnel, who will have grown up with social tools such as Facebook, have greatly different ideas about how they manage their own careers and companies will often require a new approach in order to not only attract but get the most out of them.
These individuals want to be connected at all times, handle their own personal information and take control of their own activities, without spending time filling in forms or reporting to managers and HR teams. Therefore, software tools such as Dynamics AX that can offer a high level of self-service capabilities will be highly beneficial.
At the same time, being able to meet the needs of a more mobile workforce will also be crucial. Whether this is sending receipts for expense claims or filling in timesheets on the move, the ability to securely conduct activities from anywhere is an increasing priority.
An easy-to-use offering
Regardless of the task an individual is looking to perform, they need systems that are comfortable to engage with and allow them to enter and retrieve the right information. Whatever business applications organisations opt for must therefore be intuitive and not require a large amount of training or instructions in order to get the most out of them.
A big part of this will be providing software solutions that users will already be comfortable with, and that can readily integrate with other tools they use every day. Microsoft Dynamics AX, for instance, has been designed to feel instantly familiar to anyone with experience of other Microsoft products, so this can help deliver a consistent, intuitive experience across all activities.
HCM software that can integrate with other technologies can greatly help productivity. For instance, the ability to readily export data into Excel or use Power BI will be crucial, helping people to easily move from one system to another and ensure they are always using the right data within the best systems for the job.
Whatever the task you need to complete, intuitive, powerful HCM software can make the difference between a reactive company that is only able to meet the most basic of needs and a firm that makes HR a key part of its activities. The right application in this area can ensure staff are better engaged, and make them feel more motivated about their job and their employer.
