HR Systems – why are they all "rubbish?"

I was with a client the other day discussing recruitment needs and we touched on a related subject: "Why are all the HR systems out there rubbish?" (their words, not mine!)

This client is a large UK company with a good proportion of their offices distributed across the country. They are going through the procurement process for a new HR IS, but they are struggling to find a decent system vendor.

How can this be? I thought to myself. There are some great vendors out there.

Our client is already using an industry leading product, but is giving it the boot because it has proved too inflexible, reporting never seems to work, and generally the service they receive from the vendor is of the old fashioned variety: "They seem to charge me £000's every time I pick up the phone to them".

Not good.

I feel a little sad for the client not only because their requirements are really quite straightforward, but I can see they are going to go through a fair amount of pain and suffering. To put this pain into perspective – they are starting the procurement process now and expecting to go-live with the system in March 2010!

Why does software like this need to be so hard?

We all know that software is often over engineered, and it shows. Just look at the backlash for Vista.  The larger a software vendor becomes, the more political it becomes to include in a simple feature. At one software company I worked for, it would take YEARS to add a feature. Good product managers can help, but it is often a software's company culture that can be its worst enemy.

So, my question for the community is: is there a decent HR IS vendor out there? Have you just been through the process and did it work? Have you found a good HR software solution? Leave a comment on our blog and let us know.

-Mike

Comments

[Ronald]

Its not so much the software that is the problem but here in Australia it a lack of understanding of the software completely.

[Actonomy]

Hi,

We (Actonomy) are a leading supplier of new generation search and match technology, supplying this to ATS vendors world wide, and large staffing companies in direct in case they have proprietary systems. We can say we have "some experience" with this issue..

It's good to see people say it's all rubbish, and I mean that. Because there IS indeed a lot of rubbish.
At the other hand, there are also many very good systems.
But all depends on what the cost of it is, and what the value for the user is. As we say in HR: pay peanuts, get monkeys. Ok, there also are overpaid monkeys.. ;-)

However, I do not see any requirements, nor objective complaints (except for "inflexible") from your customer.
Is your customer a staffing company, or a corporate recruiter? Where are they based (can be important when selecting a vendor). Do they store resumes locally in an own database, do they search in external databases? If so, in which? Do they have a firm work flow, or can they adapt to existing work flows?
As there are more than 1.200 suppliers in -let's say- western Europe, of english language supporting software, I would be surprised not to find any suitable system. The art is to find the gem between the plastic, but that can't be too hard.

Feel free to contact me direct for further details via info@actonomy.com.

[Kevin Littlechild]

Hi,

I am a Software Solutions Consultant specialising in software and business strategy for one of the UK's leading independent Performance Management Consultancies and as such have assessed many flavours of HRIS and related systems. When all is said and done one product stands out head and shoulders above the rest, it's highly intuitive, highly configurable, organically designed and built from the ground up i.e. not several disparate products acquired and bolted together which is the norm in this space and the main reason why there is so much rubbish out there.

This is not your normal HRIS product this is leading edge Strategic HR delivered as a true SaaS model, any company with the vision to realise the true value of their people being the main differentiator in today's marketplace must consider this quantum shift in HR or risk getting left behind.

This product and concept is new to EMEA, however it has been proven in the US and APAC Regions with over 2000 Implementations & 4 Million Users.

The ROI for this system is truly outstanding and provides substantial increases in both bottom and top line results.

Are UK businesses ready for Strategic HR....Probably. Do UK businesses fully understand how to utilise the true potential of Strategic HR....Probably not.

Please visit our website for further information that directly addresses many of the pain points currently challenging the HR space.

http://www.getdriven.com

[Bart]

Hi Kevin,

If I read your website correctly, I think your product does not answer Susanna's initial post as your offering competence management solutions (or talent management, performance management) and do not supply recruiting solutions.

Am I correct, or am I missing something?

Kind regards,
B.

[TIm]

I work with some of the major management consultancy / audit firms and they have all gone for one or other of two candidate management systems. I can only give you my perspective from the point of view of an external supplier who has to use these systems and the comments I hear in less guarded moments from some of the Partners. These systems are poor (or to be strictly correct they give poor outcomes so whether it is the system or the people using them, often RPO types implanted in the firm,I cannot tell).

Systems are clearly needed to deal with the volume of transactions going on but the problem is that the standard of interaction that candidates often receive is so poor that it turns the good ones off and so they have sacrificed quality at the expense of supposedly being able to deal with volume.

For what it is worth my view is that probably the technology isn't too bad but the problem lies in not having well qualified staff with a certain degree of decision making autonomy to manage things. The technology is managing the processes rather than the staff.

[Chris Box]

I have come across this posting and found it an interesting read but difficult to believe.

HR solutions have been available for many years and over the past 15-20 years there has been a significant number of solutions and providers come and go. There have also been a handful who have survived for over 20 years, surely they cannot be rubbish to survive this period? 20 years has posed, for some providers, technology changes (DOS, Windows, 16/32 bit, web etc), market conditions, upgrades and now 'educated' buyers who may have selected for the third time.

I believe that there are many robust and capable solutions available but the evaluation process needs to be realistic and not over ambitious. No matter what the initial aim is at the start of the project very few end up with 100% success mainly through trying to achieve too much and forgetting that the project team still need to do their day job.

I know there are good HRIS options and would welcome sharing this with you if needed.

[HR Recruitment Sydney]

The underlying problem may be more about maintaining and operating the system rather than the system itself. What you have to admit is that with the rate of change in technology, you cannot operate efficiently with an outdated platform.

[HR Software]

Expensive software is not always the best software. Before you purchase software, you need to look at your company to see what exactly you need to track. You would then start looking for HRIS and mark off what the program does and doesn't do for your business. Being organized before purchasing is key.

[Mary Ann]

I'm way late to the party on this one; I just saw the link on Guerrila HR. We're not local to the UK, but SharedHR Central is flexible, reporting works, and we offer virtually limitless free technical support. Bugs get fixed immediately and we base our development priorities on what our users request. We're trying really hard NOT to be the stereotype you've outlined.

[BenE]

Like the last poster, I'm a bit late here... just discovered this blog and post. While we (ETS) operate in a slightly different area (HR consulting and bespoke PM/TM, 360s and surveys), it seems to me that the problems discussed in this article are universal. By this I mean that companies are often too eager to adopt best practice - in this case, off-the-shelf systems that work for other companies. We argue that a 'best fit' approach, implementing systems that are tailored to an organisation's specific needs and unique processes, will offer greater success. If of interest, this free insights paper will be useful http://goo.gl/bK85B