HRIS Success Starts with Co-Creating Tailored HR Solutions

However long you’ve been in the human resources (HR) industry, you’re likely seeing and feeling the growing pains of a rapidly changing HR function. Over the past few years, HR (and HR software) have expanded far beyond traditional payroll, benefits, and recruitment into all aspects of the employee experience. That includes engagement, retention, and learning and development, just to name a few.

The good news? You’re not alone. However, addressing these growing demands requires you to be well-armed with the right equipment to get the job done.

As we move from what Josh Bersin calls a “push” model to a “pull” model of the HR function, HR leaders need viable solutions capable of helping them tackle the tactical and achieve strategic nuance that will fortify their organizations for years to come.

“We can no longer think of HR as a function that creates ‘programs’ that people adopt and use. We have to design and deliver ‘experiences,’ just like we do for customers,” writes Josh Bersin, founder of Bersin & Associates, now known as Bersin by Deloitte. “In the new world of HR, we think about employees first,” Bersin points out. “The entire focus is on employees’ needs, not the process design itself.”

In other words: meeting these demands in your organization means knowing how to equip yourself with tools that are developed with your end users — your employees — in mind.

All-in-One HR and Payroll Software (But Not Off-the-Shelf)

Achieving organizational growth and harmony starts with a powerful and comprehensive HR and payroll software. But, let’s be honest. When it comes to solutions that have all the bells and whistles you might be looking for, off-the-shelf tools rarely create the return on your investment you had hoped because they’re not the right fit.

Oftentimes, leaders plug out-of-the-box HR and payroll solutions into their organizational ecosystems and assume they will deliver the results they need, only to find that they don’t provide all of the desired functionality — or extra functions that never get used. Or both.

What’s more, off-the-shelf solutions may provide data that’s difficult to pull or turn into actionable insights that can be truly useful to your organization. This leads to wasted dollars and resources, and ultimately the need for new solutions (and another disruptive transition) within just a few short years.

Tailored HR and payroll solutions, on the other hand, help your business create and maintain processes that make sense for your organization and get you where you want to go. This all-in-one technology brings payroll, workforce management, recruiting and onboarding, and benefits into a single interface with the ability to view and report data easily and give employees self-service access.

Plus, these solutions increase the likelihood that unique HR goals and business needs will get met and make it easier to generate a culture that attracts and engages the best talent.

Best of all, these customized solutions offer real-time data so you can make real-time workforce and organizational decisions.

The Benefits of Co-Creating Your HR and Payroll Solution

Are the differences between off-the-shelf and custom HR and payroll solutions really that significant?

The short answer is “yes.”

Think about it in terms of renting an apartment versus building a house. Though both meet your need for shelter, you have little control over an apartment beyond paint colors and furniture. The layout, flooring, appliances, cabinetry, and the look of the exterior are predetermined. You can’t renovate it, build on it, or customize it. You adjust to make the most of what’s available. When you build a house, you work with a team that includes architects, contractors, and other specialists to bring your vision to life.

In the corporate world, businesses partner with the “customer as co-creator,” and it’s the driving force behind creating the best possible solution for your company. The solution is configured to fit your needs and not the other way around.

Forbes contributor Christine Crandell defines customer co-creation as the “purposeful action of partnering with strategic customers, partners or employees to ideate, problem solve, improve performance, or create a new product, service or business.”

There are myriad advantages in collaborating with your HR and payroll software provider to create a customized solution for your business, which we explore below. 

1. The nuances of your industry and company are addressed from the outset. When it comes to finding the right fit for your organization, an off-the-shelf solution may not have all the features you need right now, let alone the ones you’ll need in a few years. Working with your vendors empowers you to determine exactly what’s necessary to achieve business goals, so you have everything you want — and nothing you don’t.
   
   
2. You can perfect the process over time. From the moment your solution launches and beyond, the spirit of the co-creative process is to provide your vendor with continuous feedback about what’s working and what’s not, so you can continue to perfect your solution to fit your business needs.
   
   
3. You can tailor the solution to integrate with current software. Working with your HR and payroll solutions vendor means you can design something that’s compatible with the programs, apps, and other HR software that your organization already uses.
   
   
4. You can eliminate redundant, disparate systems. According to GoTo’s research, the cost-savings of standalone solutions — for learning and development, communication, and performance management, for example — ultimately result in too much technology, not better. “[E]mployees are constantly toggling between work and personal topics on any one of the hundreds of apps and devices they use. Our survey showed that 54% of people have at least five different computer programs - including workplace tools, apps and management programs – running on any given day.”
   
   
5. Your business gets the competitive advantage. Implementing customized HR and payroll solutions means you get everything you need to bring the best out in your business, which translates to providing even more value to your customers. By targeting specific aspects of your organization to maximize growth and efficiency, you set yourself apart from the crowd — both in terms of engaging your workforce and satisfying your clients.

Why Modernize HR? The Proof Is in the Pudding

In the human resource information system industry, also known as HRIS, it’s no secret that stepping into the shoes of the client is a big deal when it comes to facilitating a high-quality relationship between customers and vendors.

At Paylocity, we test and prove solutions in-house before implementing them in our clients’ organizations. Additionally, when developing our learning management system (LMS), we had our own employees complete tens of thousands of hours of courses before disseminating to actual customers so we were sure we hit the mark.

This way, we were able to perfect the systems before launching them, while simultaneously building a thorough understanding of the strengths and nuances of our various products.

Boost Business Results with Tailored HR Solutions

Today’s HR leaders need tools that not only drive the essential, tactical functions of HR, but also empower them to glean deeper people-centric insights. They need robust, all-in-one solutions. Only then will leaders be able to tackle the critical components of HR while creating, improving, and supporting an enriching and engaging employee experience.

By using HRIS software customized to your business needs, you’ll be able to outshine your competitors by delivering more value to your customers.

Want to learn more? Get a guided tour of Paylocity in action with a solutions expert.