Why Your HR Software Should be on the Cloud

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a massive shift in the way that people work, with remote and hybrid working becoming more and more prevalent for most organisations. What used to happen face-to-face is now generally conducted over Microsoft Teams or Zoom. Organisations have had to rapidly rethink the way they approach most processes, driving digital transformation, automation, and a move towards cloud services.

Nowhere is this shift more apparent than in Human Resources, where the amount of information these departments need to process is only growing. From onboarding to training, to payments and benefits, HR departments are seeing their role shift from back-office processes to standing at the forefront of employee engagement and experience.

Yet many organisations are falling behind, failing to invest in cloud-based HR software and struggling to adapt because of it, with many HR leaders calling for more to be spent to improve employee experience. Research shows that for many employees, poor workplace technology is making them want to quit their jobs.

‘The great resignation’ has created a candidate-driven market. Businesses cannot afford to overlook HR software.

In the current climate, businesses must prioritise employee experience, and must find the right HR solutions to streamline processes, onboard new staff remotely, drive productivity, and manage performance. 

In a landscape of remote and hybrid working, businesses need data management systems that will simplify processes. This is as true for Human Resources as it is for product management. In fact, the better you can manage the HR component of your company with an HR system, the better your entire company can be run. 

This is driving organisations to adopt cloud-based HR software. Let’s look at the benefits of adopting cloud HR software.  

The benefits of cloud-based HR software 

Reduce administrative overheads 

Having all your information and sensitive employee data in one place in the cloud means, at a very basic level, that less time is spent printing, scanning, and storing documents. Data can be accessed instantly by managers and staff alike, increasing the efficiency of HR processes.  

Instead of employees needing to place requests with HR staff to access certain information, the self-service nature of these solutions means that they can access this data themselves, on any device. From booking leave, to accessing payslips, or submitting expenses, your employees can do this themselves, significantly decreasing the time Human Resources need to spend on manual processes. This is especially true with HR systems that are accessible via mobile compatible apps.

Removing the slog of the long waiting times caused by these processes is beneficial for employee experience, with employees empowered by their autonomy and rewarded with instant access to important information.  

Manage staff and help them grow 

The very nature of human resources is the managing employees throughout their entire lifecycle with your business. This means talent management from recruitment, through to training, and rewards.  

Providing easy access and self-service to employees from the very beginning, cloud-based HR solutions streamline the onboarding process, putting relevant documents and learning materials all in one place. 

Employee performance data is also tracked in real-time, automatically, leveraging analytics to provide custom dashboards and reports.  

Performance goals are easily accessible for members of staff, and they can track their own progress towards their professional development.  

With the right HR solution, you can manage an entire employee lifecycle without the need for manual tasks or persistent data entry.  

Improve employee engagement 

High levels of employee engagement will impact productivity, agility, and profitability. Employee engagement can help organisations gain a crucial advantage over their competitors. Happy employees are more willing to go above and beyond for their employers.

Cloud-based HR software allows human resources to easily collect feedback from staff in real time and automate the process of conducting staff surveys, allowing them to track and measure company performance against feedback and employee satisfaction.  

Beyond merely data gathering, the ease of use and efficiency of self-service solutions empower staff to voice their opinions to the business. This not only helps them to feel connected to the decision-making of an organisation, but also shows employees that the business is willing to listen to their feedback.  

The right technology is not merely about capturing this information, but also providing the functionality to interpret this information and act on data about colleague behaviours and preferences.   

Increase security 

Data protection is more important than ever in an age of diffuse and disparate workers. Organisations need to remain compliant and protect sensitive information. This is of vital importance for HR teams handling confidential employee data from personal contact details to tax information. 

Being able to store all this HR data in one place on a secured network immediately allows organisations to breathe a sigh of relief when it comes to security and compliance. Data is much easier to audit because its easy to track and locate any information on all members of staff.  

With the XCD HR solution built on Salesforce, we are able to leverage the world-leading security of the platform, ensuring client data is protected to the highest standards.

With a cloud-based solution, the vendor is able to guarantee the security of your data without your organisation needing to invest additional money into protecting that information 

Become ‘futureproof’ 

Unlike with on-premise solutions, where you have to manage the hardware and infrastructure yourselves, with a cloud-based solution, the vendor is able to manage that for you. This means never having to worry about your system becoming outdated – updates to the system happen automatically, reducing the total cost of ownership significantly.  

Scalability is also built in to the functionality of the solution, meaning that your usage of the software can easily grow inline with the growth of your business.  

Make HR a strategic part of your business 

HR teams have traditionally struggled, owing to sluggish processes, information delays, and a gap in communication.  

With employee experience increasingly significant, Human Resources must lead the way in developing the culture and values for the organisation. HR must be at the forefront of strategic decision-making, on everything from recruitment to retention and the performance of staff.

The right HR system provides centralised, accessible data, instant reporting, and complete visibility of trends within the business. This is how HR teams can grow out of the back-office and into a leading position, playing a significant role in an organisation’s direction of travel.  

Cloud-based HR software & a single platform strategy 

The shift in the way people work has necessitated the adoption of multiple different systems. Beyond HR solutions, there will be a wide range of different software being used across departments. This creates information silos that can leave different sections of the business blind to what is happening in other departments. While some of these systems can be integrated, this will never provide the same streamlining and free flow of data inherent to solutions on a single platform.

Organisations have traditionally been quicker to understand the business opportunities inherent to delivering value to their target audience faster and more seamlessly than their competitors. This is why platforms like Salesforce that provide a single source of truth for sales, marketing, and customer success have been so widely adopted, becoming crucial to the ways that businesses function.  

Yet this same line of thinking has not yet reached critical adoption for internal processes and people management. Having that single source of truth for employee data has not been seen as an equal priority, and it many ways, this was exposed by the pandemic and a lack of readiness to support employees working remotely.  

Taking your HR systems to the cloud is an important step to streamline and automate processes, reduce the administrative burden on HR and improve employee engagement. Yet, its also worth considering how this HR solution will integrate with the rest of your systems. 

Empowering HR teams to play a wider strategic role in the business also requires thinking how the software these teams use will integrate and communicate with the other systems you have in place.  

Whether your business is already using Salesforce or not, there are significant benefits to investing in an HR solution built on that platform.

XCD is the only HMRC-approved, single solution HR & Payroll solution available on the Salesforce platform. Join us at Salesforce World Tour in London on June 29 and find out more about how XCD can transform your HR processes. 

Register free for the event here.