Shopping for new HR software is on most people’s top ten list of things they hate. We get it. The research, the sorting, the weeding out, the demos, the approvals—it all adds up to hours in front of your computer screen or on the phone with vendors.
The good news is that at the end of the process, if you’ve made the right choice, your HR department will function more efficiently and have more time and resources to serve your employees.
In this article, we’re going to walk you step-by-step through the HR software requirements elicitation process so you’ll never again have to make a decision based on guesswork or sales pitches. You need to know that you’re buying the right software product—and we’ll help you get there.
Before you start gathering requirements, you need to have a basic knowledge of the features and functions available to you. There are two ways to do this: the hard way and the easy way.
The hard way is to visit lots of different vendor websites, make a spreadsheet, and start taking notes. The easy way is to take advantage of the work we’ve already done for you.
At CompareHRIS.com, we’ve created a survey tool that walks you through a detailed series of questions about your software needs. At this stage, don’t worry about answering the questions (we’ll come back to this part later). Instead, just read through the listed features and functions to get a feel for what’s on the market.
For those of you who are really in a hurry, we’ve listed a brief summary of major features below:
Now that you have a solid working knowledge of what’s available, it’s time to start gathering requirements. If you already have a system and just need to upgrade, this process may be relatively straightforward. Ask questions like:
If you are transitioning to HR software from spreadsheets and manual processes, it’s going to take more work—but it will be worth it. A fully fleshed-out requirements list will make the buying process remarkably easier.
Determine who will be using the software and speak to key stakeholders in each of those departments. Include training personnel, hiring managers, end users, risk management teams, payroll personnel, and any other team members who need the software to perform their jobs.
Create focus groups to list all necessary software functionalities. Keep these groups small, set a time limit, and create a “no criticism” rule to draw out the most helpful information. Your goal is to move past the obvious surface level activities into the deep functionalities that you use regularly or that you would like to incorporate.
Take a look at your current documents, reports, and interfaces, and document what they need for successful operation. Focus on details like business plans, rules, contracts, training materials, emails, input/output, and boundaries.
Watch how end users interact with the software, take notes, and get feedback. Take some time with this process so you can get a true feel for what various stakeholders do with the software on a day-to-day basis.
Process modeling documents each step in a process from start to finish. Be sure to include both manual and automated versions of the process and break each step down into its individual components.
Use surveys or questionnaires to get feedback from large groups of users. Create precise questions designed to elicit concrete responses that can be translated into functionality. Consider employee needs as well as those of your HR staff.
This is the stage that often takes the most time. You’ll need to work within the parameters of your requirements and budget to determine which vendors most closely align with your needs.
It can take countless hours to view demos, schedule phone calls, and sift through features and functions.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
We designed our HRIS comparison tool to eliminate the lion’s share of the work during this step. Simply answer the questions in the survey based on your research and requirements gathering, and you’ll get a custom-made short list of software vendors that match your business needs. You can request information from the vendors or choose to contact them at your own pace once you view your results.
And the best part? It’s absolutely free.
With your short list in hand, you’re now ready to move on to the next stage of the buying process. To help you make the best possible purchasing decision, we've put together our comprehensive HRIS Buyer’s Guide to guide through the remaining steps quickly and efficiently. Download your free copy and take the headache out of the software selection process.
This HR software selection advice is based on the 15+ years CompareHRIS founder Clay Scroggin spent as a Human Resources Software value added reseller. He and his firm sold, implemented and supported hundreds of software application installs.
