Best HR and Payroll Software Features for Tech Companies

Whether you’re an industry-leading tech enterprise or a small business making waves in a more specific tech niche, you’ve likely encountered some of the HR and payroll challenges that occur with a remote-first and highly talented workforce. From recruitment to retention, development to diversity, and payroll to people analytics, there are a wide range of challenges in this sector that relate to your employees.

In this article, we’ll look at some of the key human resources and payroll challenges faced by large and small businesses in the technology sector, and how powerful HR and payroll software can help you overcome them. Here are the best features of a cloud-based HR and payroll system you can’t do without. 

Streamlined and successful recruitment

Tech’s HR challenge: Hiring the best candidates in a candidate-led market.

The solution: HR software that speeds up and streamlines the recruitment process while providing a superior candidate experience.

In the fiercely competitive tech industry, attracting top talent is a significant challenge for HR professionals. With a limited pool of skilled professionals and increased demand, companies must act fast to secure top talent and provide a great candidate experience that makes candidates want to accept the job offer. 

Fortunately, HR software with a powerful recruitment feature can help your in-house recruitment efforts. Allowing HR teams to approve and publish vacancies in a click of the button, HR software makes it easier than ever to instantaneously compare candidates and allocate hiring managers to vacancies for approvals.

On the other end, candidates can use the intuitive self-service candidate portals to upload all their relevant information or check on their application’s progress, helping them feel involved and empowered throughout every step of the process. Then, if they accept the job offer, they can use the same all-in-one HR software to e-sign their new contracts and move straight into the HR solution’s onboarding workflow. 

You may also be interested in: How HR software can improve the recruitment process

High quality onboarding

Tech’s HR challenge: Retaining top talent in the midst of a candidate shortage.

The solution: Creating belonging and engagement from the beginning with a technology-enabled onboarding strategy.

It’s no secret that a strong onboarding process can improve performance and retention of new employees significantly — Glassdoor research suggests that a good onboarding experience can boost retention by a whopping 82%! Yet, many organisations don’t have a standardised onboarding process and lack a consistent remote onboarding strategy.

HR and payroll software with onboarding capabilities is essential for tech companies where new hires expect a smooth and seamless onboarding process whether remote or in-person. Customisable onboarding workflows and checklists make sure that nothing is missed, while integration with your HR software’s learning and development module allows for a harmonious transition into training for the new hire’s role.  

Remote-friendly HR processes

Tech’s HR challenge: Keeping HR and payroll processes running smoothly even when remote and hybrid working are the norm in this industry.

The solution: Cloud-based HR software that gives employees access to the payroll and HR-related processes or information they need anywhere in the world.

As one of the industries where remote work is most desired and expected by employees, technology sector organisations need strategies to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Cloud-based HR and payroll software that can be accessed via the internet from an employee’s desktop or mobile devices is a must-have to ensure that critical processes run smoothly, no matter where the team is working from. 

A mobile HR and payroll app provides access from anywhere in the world, allowing employees to do everything from submit leave requests, photograph expense receipts for speedy reimbursement, or upload timesheets for approval. With the ability to view payslips on the go or update important employee information, employees are empowered to take ownership of their HR processes no matter where they are in the world. It’s a great way to boost transparency and engagement even when everyone is working from different places.

Plus, with remote-friendly mobile systems, the job of HR and payroll professionals becomes significantly easier. No longer needing to chase employees to send in expense receipts or waste hours emailing back and forth over timesheets or leave entitlement, your time is freed up to focus on more important, strategic work. 

You may also be interested in: How HR and payroll software empowers remote working

Employee relationship management

Tech’s HR challenge: Burnout and work-life balance are known challenges in the tech industry. 

The solution: HR software with employee relationship management capabilities offers features to keep everyone happy, healthy, and engaged. 

It’s no secret that working in the tech industry can be extremely rewarding, but it can also be tough. For a happy and healthy workforce that are working at their optimal productivity and are more likely to be retained in the long term, HR needs to take an active role in managing relationships and the wellbeing of employees. 

HR software features that can aid this include configurable company dashboards which provide a centralised space for internal communications, company updates, key documents, and all announcements. It’s a way to build belonging and keep everyone in the loop — far better than email chains that go unopened or risk the dreaded ‘reply all’ from that one guy. With a company dashboard, all remote, hybrid, and office-first workers have a single place for everything they need to know; it’s even a great place to show recognition for outstanding employees with featured employees of the month profiles. 

Another key employee relationship management feature is self-service HR processes, allowing employees to take ownership of their own HR tasks such as managing employee data such as their contact and payroll information, or submit leave requests. Instead of time-consuming back and forth between employees and human resources, a self-service human resources information system allows employees to complete their HR admin with ease.

Intuitive learning and development

Tech’s HR challenge: Maintaining a dynamic team and business where learning and collaboration are encouraged while staying on top of the latest technological advancements.

The solution: HR software with easy-to-use learning and development features builds a culture of learning. 

HR software with an in-built learning and development module is another crucial feature for tech companies that want to upskill staff and create a culture of learning within the organisation. L&D software allows you to centralise all training information and offerings into one place for intuitive access. It’s simple and easy to use for employees who want to enroll in and complete training courses, managers who want to approve attendance and budget, and HR leaders who want to track employee progress and wider organisational impact of learning courses.

For tech industry workers, staying on top of the latest advancements and industry trends is essential to reach full productivity and potential. By incorporating training into your HR software with intuitive eLearning modules and easy access from mobile and desktop, your organisation encourages constant upskilling and learning within the team. Benefitting your wider talent management and leadership development strategies, HR software with learning and development capabilities is a key feature every tech company must have. 

You may also be interested in: Why learning and development is better on single software

Enhanced performance management

Tech’s HR challenge: In dynamic and remote-first tech environments, performance management can be difficult to get right. 

The solution: HR software with specialist performance management features makes performance reviews more collaborative and effective. 

Many tech companies — both large enterprises and small businesses or startups — are eschewing the traditional annual performance appraisal in favour of more continuous and informal performance management. Shifting to a format of continuous feedback and mentorship can have advantageous results. HR and payroll software with built-in performance management tools can be invaluable in making this transition successfully. 

With a cloud-based HR and payroll solution, performance management becomes a reflective and continuous practice instead of a one-off at the end of the year. Employees and managers can upload their discrete contributions to their performance appraisal forms, which are highly customisable based on the employee and role type. Your team can automate alerts reminding employees and managers to complete these performance tasks, reducing the amount of time human resources staff needs to spend chasing for completion. 

Real-time productivity data enhances human resources’ capabilities, helping your department demonstrate value and gain buy-in from senior leadership. Plus, performance data can easily be linked with compensation management, ensuring employees get the rewards they deserve for all their hard work. 

Data-driven diversity and inclusion 

Tech’s HR challenge: Among large and small businesses alike in the tech industry, achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion goals needs greater focus.  

The solution: HR software with advanced analytics capabilities can help support a data-driven DE&I policy. 

Research shows that unfair treatment in the workplace is the tech industry’s biggest cause of turnover, costing companies up to £4 billion each year. With women and BAME employees underrepresented in the tech workforce and a continuing pay gap, taking steps forward in diversity and inclusion is a priority.

How can HR and payroll software support DE&I initiatives? While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to enhance diversity and inclusion in any business, tracking and using the right data is a good place to start. With AI-powered people analytics HR professionals can gain greater visibility over the progress of DE&I efforts to better move towards goals.

You may also be interested in: How HR & payroll software helped the The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health boost retention and D&I initiatives

Perfect payroll every time

Tech’s HR challenge: As in all industries, errors with payroll can have a detrimental impact on staff morale and engagement. 

The solution: Powerful HR and payroll software automates all payroll processing with accurate calculations and complex configurable processes to ensure everyone is paid correctly and on time. 

Businesses lose up to £150,000 a year as a result of payroll errors, with 91% of UK and Irish businesses making payroll errors every single month. It’s a widespread issue, damaging the business’ bottom line as well as causing stress and a detrimental effect on employee engagement as employees are paid late or the wrong amount.

To ensure the speed and accuracy of payroll processing every time, powerful payroll software is essential. By allowing payroll professionals to process pay from a single screen, automate calculations and tax deductions, stay on top of the data with instantly created reports, and reduce information bottlenecks, payroll software can cut the time spent on payroll by days each month. Automated workflows even make pension management a breeze on your payroll software with hassle-free auto-enrolment, additional voluntary contributions, opt-outs, and more.

Configurable payroll software is also essential for complex payroll needs, such as multiple and flexible payroll periods, self-validating BACS processing, court orders and student loan integration, RTI submissions, irregular work patterns, and much more. Choose a payroll system that is fully HMRC compliant to ensure that your payroll service remains up to date with all HMRC compliance changes with a complete audit trail. 

Conclusion

With the many challenges facing payroll and HR teams in the tech sector, powerful HR and payroll software isn’t just nice to have — it’s a necessity to stay competitive. XCD’s payroll and HR system built on the Salesforce platform gives you the flexibility and features you need to optimise your operations. Powerful, secure, and AI-enabled with Salesforce technology, our feature-rich HR and payroll software helps keep you a step ahead of the competition.

Want to try XCD HR and payroll solution for yourself? Book a free demo today or contact us and our friendly experts will walk you through our all-in-one solution. Or, to find out more about the benefits of XCD HR and payroll software, check out our range of case studies.