Est. Read Time: 3 min.
As organizations mature and grow, managing day-to-day requests and questions from employees can become a full-time job for HR professionals—holding them back from more strategic projects. This isn’t just bad for HR; it’s also bad for employees, who often have to wait hours or days for their request to get routed to the right person, often with little visibility into what’s happening.
Modern HR case management tools can alleviate these issues and improve the experience for all by creating a streamlined and transparent workflow that all requests go through. Employees submit their queries, and the system rapidly routes them to the appropriate person, reducing manual effort on the HR team’s part and making it easier for people to track the status of their requests. If the system includes a searchable knowledgebase, employees can also check to see if their question has a readily available answer before they reach out to HR, saving even more time.
Of course, not all software is created equally, and not all HR case management tools are the right fit for every organization. Here are a few core product considerations to take into account when choosing the best HR case management software for your business.
1. The ease of integration
Most companies don’t plan to overhaul all their HR systems when they adopt HR case management tools—they want software that will work in tandem with the tools they already rely on every day. This makes it essential to choose software that will integrate seamlessly with your current systems and with any tools you may choose to adopt in the future. Otherwise, time-consuming workarounds and frustration are inevitable.
Since many employee requests contain highly sensitive and private information that often needs to be documented appropriately, it’s also important to ensure your new HR case management software is compatible with your system for storing, generating, and managing employee files. Many leading tools even offer features to support and enhance these processes.
2. The potential to scale
Adopting any new technology involves an investment—in terms of both dollars and time. The last thing you want, then, is to outgrow your HR case management tool a year or two down the line, forcing you to go shopping for another.
Look for a tool that will evolve with you. Does the provider continually release product updates and enhancements that are easy to integrate—with minimal downtime? Can the tool be personalized at scale? If not, it may start to feel increasingly constrictive as your company grows.
3. The level of personalization
Employees don’t need access to every piece of policy and process documentation you have in your system—especially if those policies vary by location, employment type, and so on. In fact, too much access can become overwhelming, making it harder for people to identify the specific information they need. That’s why it’s worth exploring the level of personalization an HR case management tool allows, since this can have a huge impact on the user experience.
The best software will not only display the content most relevant to any given employee, but will automatically update the type of content it shows that person if their circumstances change (for example, if they relocate). HR professionals should also be able to access everything they need to answer employee requests, from simple templates to an employee’s file, depending on their role and the permissions that come with it.
4. The ability to integrate and ramp up quickly
HR case management software can take months to get off the ground—or mere weeks. Tools that offer cloud-based deployment tend to be much quicker to implement than more traditional solutions, owing in large part to the fact that about 80% of the platform can be pre-configured in advance, allowing HR teams to hit the ground running.
While every tool is different, as a rule of thumb, if it was designed by HR, for HR, it’s likely to be easy to implement without relying too heavily on IT resources.
5. The benefits of the cloud
Cloud-based HR systems offer countless benefits—from instant access to information from anywhere to a reduction in physical paperwork that’s difficult and costly to store.
Unlike hosted or on-premise options, cloud-based tools can also be more cost-effective and low-maintenance. Choose a provider that delivers automatic updates on a rolling basis, reducing reliance on IT support and ensuring your team is always dealing with the most up-to-date version of the software available.
6. The depth of insights available
Another potential benefit of HR case management software that should not be overlooked is the level of data analysis it can provide.
If a tool has rich analytical capabilities, HR can gain invaluable insights into things like the most common questions employees ask and how long it usually takes to resolve cases. This can help teams tighten their processes, identify opportunities for improvement, and objectively measure how big an impact the technology is having on the workforce. These features are only useful, however, if they’re easy to use and generate information that’s straightforward to evaluate.
7. The capacity for proactive compliance
Compliance is a crucial part of an HR professional’s job. The right HR case management software enables HR teams to proactively manage compliance by pairing seamlessly with the company’s document management solution.
There are countless moments in the employee life cycle that result in new employee documents being created—from maternity leave to lateral moves. By integrating their HR case management and document management solutions, HR can ensure that new documents are automatically being stored in the system. That way, the team can quickly and easily keep track of documents to confirm they’re up to date—keeping the company compliant.
Choose HR case management software that supports your workforce
The right HR Case Management tool can transform an HR department, making your team’s lives easier and improving the employee experience. By weighing up these considerations, you can identify the tool that best meets your needs—helping you achieve the greatest return on investment.
For more tips on choosing the best HR Case Management software for your organization, download our Buyer's Guide.
