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The Fourth Rule of HR Software Purchasing

The Fourth Rule of HR Software Purchasing

 

Data-driven decision making has been defined as “the practice of basing decisions on the analysis of data rather than purely on intuition.” (http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/big.2013.1508)

 

Increasing the use of analytics is an important step for HR departments to raise their strategic value to senior management, but leading experts believe it is difficult for HR managers to get away from “gut-feeling” decision making even though HR has long collected a variety of employee data. (http://searchfinancialapplications.techtarget.com/feature/Ready-or-not-here-HR-analytics-come)

 

The software HR departments buy and use should help them in becoming more analytical. In fact, our fourth rule of HR software purchasing is: Software that allows you to generate accurate, meaningful reports is worth its weight in gold.

 

But how do you ensure you follow this rule?

 

The first step is to determine what data is “meaningful” to your organization, for what constitutes “meaningful data” varies from company to company. Examine the decisions that are made, then determine the data, that when analyzed, will help you improve the quality of these decisions.

 

The second step is to examine the software closely. For each software product under consideration:

·         Ask questions about how data is analyzed

·         Inquire about the scope of its report capabilities

·         Get a demo, and make sure you are shown how to create a report

·         Request examples of reports

 

Lastly, if you’re buying software for a particular task, such as COBRA administration, you need to be certain that it integrates smoothly with your legacy HRIM system.

 

(Curious about the other rules? Learn about them by downloading our white paper, “The Five Rules of Buying Benefits Software,” at http://www.benefitwerks.com/wp/)