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As a human resources professional, you’re more than likely very interested in using HR software within your organization. But first, you have to convince your supervisor that it’s a good idea.

How can you get management on your side? How should you construct your arguments? Here are a few ideas and statistics to help you along in the process.

 

6 reasons why you should be using HR software

 

What are the advantages of using HR software? Deep down, you know that it will benefit the organization greatly, but here are a few facts that could help you convince your management team to get on board.

1. Optimize existing processes to improve efficiency

Sometimes, when the HR team is swamped, the impulse is to hire a new employee to lighten the workload. However, going from 2 to 4 human resource employees won’t necessarily increase the team’s efficiency.

Before jumping into hiring mode, why not take a closer look at the processes that are in place and try to optimize them?

Here is a concrete example related to performance evaluations:

You send an email to the person being evaluated, their peers and managers. You spend your time running after everyone trying to get them to reply and then you copy/paste everything into an Excel spreadsheet. You spend countless hours creating files for each employee, which will probably get lost by the time the employee’s manager wants to see it the following year. By using HR software, emails are sent automatically, with reminders sent to employees who haven’t yet completed their evaluations. It also keeps a record of everything in an employee’s personal file, so you don’t need to create one on your own.

Using HR software saves so much time for the whole HR team. You can then invest this saved time in finding new strategies on how to improve corporate culture, increase employee recognition efforts or organize activities that will help with employee retention.

 

2. Save money

Most HR software has a cost associated with it, but you shouldn’t think of it as an expense. On the contrary, using HR software is an excellent investment for improving employee engagement. Since the HR team will save time on manual tasks, they will have more time to take care of employees. Employees are much more committed to a company if they feel listened to and supported in the workplace. On the other hand, a high turnover rate costs a company a great deal of money.

According to a recent studya company has to pay 30% to 50% of a junior employee’s annual salary (who earns about $40,000/year) to replace him. This percentage increases to 400% for a more specialized employee (who earns about $120,000/year).

 

3. Reduce risk of error by automating manual tasks

According to a study conducted in the United States, 33% of companies spend billions of dollars every year on careless mistakes that are made while processing payroll. People make mistakes. It’s impossible for human resources personnel to avoid the occasional thoughtless mistake. However, these small errors can be avoided by using HR software that automate redundant tasks.

Implementing HR software that integrates with your payroll system reduces the risk of manual errors. The same goes for errors related to statistics calculated manually, paper documents that can be lost, incomplete files, material oversights when integrating a new employee… the list goes on!

 

4. Reduce hiring delays

The hiring process takes time. Some specialized positions give recruiters a run for their money and they need to be very well-organized to adequately respond to all the candidates.

Recently, an HR manager told me that she hired 100 people on her own in just one year, without the help of HR software. When I asked her how she managed to complete this colossal task, she admitted that she had cut corners in terms of finding quality candidates and that the turnover rate had reached record highs.

According to a study conducted in 201575% of recruiters use an ATS system to manage their applicants and 94% of those saw significant improvements in their recruitment process.

A good ATS system helps you manage your candidates in one place, send reports and statistics in real time to managers and post your job offers with just a few clicks. It can help to simplify the recruitment process by increasing the response time when replying to candidates and, in turn, reduce hiring delays.

 

5. Evaluate the HR team’s performance

Assessing how hard your human resources team is working isn’t as easy as calculating the ROI of the company’s finances. It will be a challenge to calculate key HR performance indicators manually.

Turnover rates, absenteeism rates, the evolution of the total number of employees and time and cost per employee hire. These are just some of the examples that highlight critical elements for the company’s long-term sustainability when using HR software.

It has been proven that when employees are motivated and engaged, the turnover rate will be 40%  lower than companies where employees don’t feel committed to their workplace.

Using HR software will allow you to collect a wide range of statistics on your employees in a few seconds, whereas it would take you several hours to calculate them all manually. You can access the average age of your employees, the number of training sessions followed, the number of years of experience per employee, and more. In general, if ever your HR software can’t provide the more advanced statistics that you might need, you can still access all the data to do the calculation yourself.

 

6. Keep employee data protected from the elements

It’s very risky to keep all of your documents sorted in paper files. No one is safe from fire, theft or flooding. Moreover, if you move offices, you risk losing documents along the way.

By storing all of your employee data in the cloud, you will keep them protected from the elements. You also do something great for the environment by saving trees and cutting down on printing costs.

 

 

4 tips on how to get management on your side

 

1. Talk business: use facts and statistics to defend your argument

When it comes to convincing business people of an idea, intuition rarely works. And yet, it is intuition that allows you to shed light on the some of the company’s challenges. Nonetheless, it’s not enough to justify incurring costs and even in some cases, time.

Share real statistics about the benefits of using HR software, how they’ll save money and time. No CEO can argue against the idea of earning more money. Come up with concrete data on the savings possible for the company, but also on the added value that can be brought about by using HR software.

 

2. Prepare to be clear, to the point and precise

Don’t meet with your supervisor without being well-prepared. Draft a document outlining your desire to implement HR software, the issues you hope to address, the opportunities it can create, etc.

It’s a worthwhile exercise to try to foresee the counter-arguments that your boss could bring to your attention, so you have an appropriate response when the time comes.

Being well-prepared will give you confidence and credibility, especially from management’s point of view. When you start working at a new company, it is often the first projects you tackle that are the most difficult to present to management. Once you have a relationship of confidence, they will be much more open to listening to and moving forward with your ideas.

 

3. Show management the time you’re spending on manual tasks that could be automated

Here’s an effective way of convincing the CEO or CFO of the value of HR software: explain which manual tasks you’re spending (wasting) the most time on. An Excel spreadsheet can be very convincing if it’s accurate and clear.

Include the type of task, a short description, the time you allocate to the task, the frequency and then calculate the total. Enter the number of hours per week assigned to these tasks and your hourly wage. These figures will be very convincing.

For example, if you spend 15 hours per week on manual tasks and your hourly wage is $40 per hour, that’s the equivalent of $600 per week, or $31,200 per year. Now that’s probably enough to get your CFO listening to what you have to say!

If you have several members on your team, do the same exercise for each of them. No HR software should cost more than the total amount used for your administrative tasks and those of your team.

 

4. Present your information in a way you know your boss will like

Chances are that you know your boss pretty well, unless you’re a very recent hire. You know his likes and dislikes. If he’s the organized type, schedule a meeting on his agenda clearly stating the topic you want to discuss, like “How HR software can benefit our company”.

If he’s more of a spontaneous person and likes casual discussions, suggest that you meet for a coffee and talk about your project then.

If he gets heart palpitations when he sees an Excel spreadsheet, put your charts in a Word document instead. It all comes down to adapting your plan to his preferences. Your content is definitely important but presenting it in the right format will increase his interest in reading your information.

If he prefers documents that are an easy read, give him a one-page summary that he can hold on to after the meeting. If he likes to analyze and grasp all the details, give him a more comprehensive description.

 

Lastly, be sure to schedule a face-to-face meeting. Your enthusiasm about your HR software will be infectious. If your boss sees how convinced you are about your proposal, he’ll be more likely to listen. If you choose a software that has no monthly cost like Cangaroo HR, he’ll have a pretty hard time saying no.

Remember to be confident. If you’re well-prepared and have the facts to back up your arguments, you’re more likely to convince your manager that it’s the right choice. If your relationship with your boss is somewhat fraught, ask another member of the management team to present your project to your boss, even if it’s not an easy thing to swallow. You will be rewarded for your hard work in the end.