Whether you are considering investing in a new Human Resource Information System (HRIS) or have already invested in one, there is one thing you need to know - HRIS systems are different. Some of them even create more problems than they promise to solve.
You might have talked to a salesperson from a company selling an HRIS and the solution sounded amazing. Or even read about one from a website. However, it is important to note that this does not always translate to a good user experience.
One way of avoiding this is by not relying solely on the information provided by vendors. Instead, you can look at some review sites that collect reviews from buyers and publish them for other people. That notwithstanding, here are some common HRIS integration challenges and how to overcome them;
Customer Service Challenges
The challenge with customer service is not easy to realize especially at the initial stages when you are getting your HRIS integration. This is because customer service is not given priority in the initial decision-making process.
This leads to issues with customer service when the systems are already in place. If you look at most companies using an HRIS integration, they will tell you that they wish they paid attention to customer service when signing up for HRIS integration.
To overcome this challenge, you need to pay attention to your customer service needs when looking at the scalability and features of the systems you want. Make sure that before signing up, you have evaluated your customer service needs to see that they are well taken care of.
Related: What are the Benefits of HRIS for Employees?
Integrating Several Systems
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With time, your company is going to grow. When this happens, your requirements when it comes to human capital management will also grow. Within the same time, you will have a vendor for almost every other service in your company.
For instance, you will have a vendor for recruitment, another one for payroll, and even a different one for reporting. Each of these solutions operates independently of the other. This forces you to collect data from different sources if you want to get a view of your company.
To overcome this solution, you need to get an HRIS solution that brings all these solutions together into a single platform. This puts all the components together in a bid to make them work simultaneously with each other, giving you complete and rich data for your company.
Cumbersome Testing and Upkeep of APIs
An effective HRIS integration means that you are using APIs to allow the different systems in place to communicate and share information. This is a tricky part because you have to make sure that everything works well throughout all the systems.
In addition, you have to constantly test all the APIs to see whether they are meeting all your performance expectations. If you find any faults, you might have to deal with multiple APIs instead of just one.
Fortunately, you can overcome this challenge with the help of API management companies. These companies offer API management platforms that centralize the control of your API integrations to ensure that they meet high security and performance standards.
Reporting Challenges
Now that you have a good HRIS integration in place, how is your reporting? It does not make any sense even when you have all your employees working from the same office but still have to spend a lot of time and resources compiling reports.
You might even have to wait for hours for your reports to be generated. With slow access to reports, you might have to deal with outdated information before you even generate any reports.
To overcome this challenge, you need to make sure that your HRIS integration is robust, timely, and accurate. This means that you need a solution that can generate reports in real-time, combining data from the different integrated systems.
Functionality Challenges
Imagine getting an HRIS solution and then a few days, weeks, or even months down the line you find that there are core functionalities that you need but the solution does not have. This is when you realize that you cannot get everything from your solution.
If you have any solution that does not meet the requirements of your business, then there is no difference between yourself and a business that does not have a solution at all. You might even end up getting more solutions to take care of the missing functionalities. This creates disjointed and expensive solutions.
You can overcome this challenge by first understanding that you can rarely find a solution that fits all your requirements. After that, look for an HRIS integration system that first covers all the basic needs of your business. To do this, factor in all the critical factors of your business including functional role, business size, and industry.
You will find a lot of challenges with HRIS integration. However, you can easily overcome them and make sure that your solution does what you want it to do without any problems.