As the world’s number one CRM, Salesforce is selected as the technology of choice by organisations all over the globe. Known for it’s stringent security, excellent flexibility, and far-reaching integration options, it’s not difficult to see why.
With Salesforce technology benefitting so many teams, it’s difficult to see why there isn’t a greater push for HR, considering how directly the benefits of Salesforce align with the daily challenges of people teams. Salesforce for Human Resources could not make more sense – below, we outline why.
Technology should work for your organisation, not the other way around. You want software that doesn’t put you in a box, and can incorporate the unique processes that make up the fundamentals of your HR operation.
A Salesforce HR system should be supremely flexible and configurable, allowing us to overcome specific vertical challenges on a powerful platform with a set of well-understood programming principles – not only solving your current challenges, but futureproofing.
Additionally, organisations with a Salesforce stack and the in-house skills to drive it properly can do this themselves, leveraging the vast number of third-party applications in the Salesforce AppExchange ecosystem to address challenges and customising them to create their own bespoke solutions.
Salesforce enables organisations to leverage the value in their data. For HR, who sit on a treasure trove of people data, often with little way to mine it for insight, running reports with a Salesforce HR system can transform their strategy.
The platform allows you to build and share reports in minutes that would otherwise take days to put together. The user interface is designed to be intuative, you don’t need an advanced degree in statistical analysis.
The wealth of information that the xcd solution puts at your team’s fingertips – ranging from real-time snapshots of your business to yearly summaries – is one of the reasons our customers are so successful. By always knowing where you stand, you can spot trends early and make the best decisions for your company.
“The reporting side has been really helpful,” says Anna Haldane from CAP. “Things like gender pay gap reporting were taking a huge amount of time before. We wanted to provide better reporting functionality across the whole charity which, without the system in place, was just impossible to do.”
For organisations that already use Salesforce in other areas of their business, the implementation of new, on-platform tools negates many of the adoption barriers commonly associated with new software. Built on a familiar scaffold, the user interface, functionality and basic architecture are already well understood.
Single-sign-on across all Salesforce apps means HR sits alongside all the important operational tools your people use every day. This improves engagement with HR and allows completion of key tasks – like feedback surveys or compliance documents – more seamlessly.
Originally built as a CRM (Customer Relationship Management Tool), Salesforce was designed to supercharge data-driven customer experience, and its growing world dominance is a testament to it’s success. A Salesforce HR system will leverage the same fundamental principles and focus them internally on employee experience.
This means personalised employee experiences can be delivered at a scale that would’ve been unthinkable not long ago. CRM to ERM. Customer Relationship Management to Employee Relationship Management.
In 2024, the UK Government Cyber Security Breaches Survey revealed that 50% of UK businesses had suffered a cyber-attack or security breach in the previous 12 months.
Containing sensitive and confidential people data, your HR system must have robust security. The outstanding data security provided by Salesforce gives the option for businesses to encrypt the data that is being stored in your system, and is in data centres around the world, so you don’t need to worry about data sovereignty. The platform also offers various role-based security and access options that ensure only the right people can view sensitive data, and audit controls that enable admins to track what is accessed and edited, by who, and when.
Much of the HR software industry is built on the simple fact that HR processes grow and accumulate organically, meaning no two businesses look the same when it comes to digitisation. To find tools that cater to your unique needs, there have traditionally been two options.
You can look at layering multiple systems alongside one another. This means your unique processes can be delivered as you intend, but the cost of multiple subscriptions can quickly escalate, and there are several challenges associated with this approach. Integrating multiple specialist tools is complex, while not integrating them results in a time-sink data consistency nightmare, with no synching between systems, and all the reporting and automation pitfalls that come along with that. Meanwhile, multiple system log-ins and interfaces create onboarding headaches and user experience grumbles. For smaller organisations it’s a workable strategy but becomes unwieldy as you grow.
The other option is to choose a generalist HRMS platform that does everything, but inflexibly (and usually, where you need granular functionality specifics, to an average standard). And because processes change and grow, this option can leave you stuck with a rigid system, potentially looking for specialist tools to fill gaps as they arise in the future – basically taking you back to square one.
It’s the specialist vs general conundrum, and there’s no definitive right answer. But many aren’t aware that there’s an option that offers the best of both.
The xcd people platform is a single solution for HR and Payroll built on Salesforce technology. Founded by a global HR leader and Salesforce expert, both bought their experience and knowledge to create a Salesforce HR system that was would benefit from the enterprise level infrastructure of Salesforce without the associated costs, while providing a solution that catered the the day-to-day realties of HR, providing the tools to slash admin, evidence HR’s impact, and generate time-savings.
Request a demo with one of our internal experts to discover how the xcd people platform could transform your HR strategy.