Human Resources Technology: Aligning with Organizational Goals

Why You Need to Integrate people, processes and technologies and aligning them with key business outcomes

Implementing human resources (HR) technology in your organization can significantly increase your company’s ability to reach and exceed corporate goals. The alignment with your corporate goals is a twofold process that includes: how to identify and set project goals that align with your corporate goals; as well as understanding what results you can or want to obtain by doing so.  

With an overabundance of options, a limited budget, and workforce goals to meet, HR technology may at first seem overwhelming. Nonetheless, technology’s affect on organizational goal attainment is a driving factor as to why HR technological decisions are becoming one of the most critical business functions. There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to HR technology; to successfully implement this in your organization’s operations, you must find the technology that can help you reach your corporate goals. 

Part One: Align Your Projects with Your Goals 

Choosing, implementing, and optimizing the correct HR technology will help your organization align your workforce’s skills and abilities with the organizational goals, as well as gain insight through workforce analytics to assist in decision-making. This step also insures risk reduction through compliance and leads your organization to a cloud-based data tracking and collection platform. 

Part Two: Steps to Choosing the Right Technology  

Once you’ve established how to align with your corporate goals, it’s time to analyze your options and potential outcomes. The optimal steps for a HR technology evaluation project are to: 

1. Gain an understanding of the strategic and operational needs and the organizational drivers that might impact the project: what are you hoping to resolve in your organization by implementing this new technology? How can you more effectively use your time and resources?  
2. Develop and document comprehensive HR systems requirements that become the foundation for evaluating HR technology solutions during vendor assessment and selection: for example, your organization may only need additional support in core HR and payroll services, whereas, another business might require technology to perform employee performance tracking, compensation and benefits, and time and billing 
3. Understand current HR technology support strategy and determine the future direction of that strategy in order to confirm the best-fit application delivery: every technology provider and software has their differences—it’s important you know which software would best complement your organization 
4. Facilitate vendor demonstrations, including the preparation of vendor scripts, agenda, and scorecards: before signing off on a technology provider, perform an in-depth evaluation of their software 
5. Assess the impact of process and technology changes to the organization: how will these changes impact my organization? Consider potential future changes with your workforce size, client needs, research and development plans and more 
6. Create an executive-level presentation that outlines the findings, short and long-term recommendations, dependencies, and critical success factors: when you finally reach the last stage of the evaluation process, document the most important details of the technology services you are likely to employ 

Takeaways 

Often organizations make the mistake of starting with a complicated mix of disparate HR & payroll technologies combined with older processes. When they begin to look at the vendor landscape, they learn that it is always changing and, therefore, difficult to monitor. At Sikich, we recommend organizations use an independent company to provide unbiased advice and counsel throughout this process, on matters such as product evaluation and contract negotiation. 

About Us 

Our consultants have years of experience with all major software and service providers yet remain completely independent. The Sikich HR team is well versed in systems, software, and business applications covering a wide range of vendors and technology platforms. We work with each of the major vendors and understand their products and service capability, as well as their future direction. If you’re considering adopting a HR technology for your organization, please contact us for help.