Surprisingly, even small businesses can benefit from HR manager software. According to Small Business Computing, the typical number of workers in which companies begin to receive a return on their investment after buying software like this is 50 employees.

It may seem counterintuitive that a company buying potentially expensive software would actually save money instead of lose it, but what must be remembered is that human resources management is an area where companies can’t afford to make mistakes. There are too many regulations and numbers to keep track of for a company to safely believe it’s keeping track of the federal rules as they change – not to mention ensuring every dollar of insurance and each hour of paid time off is accounted for properly.

SBC reported that smaller companies benefited from their human resource management system software primarily because of its time-saving features. Instead of using a spreadsheet and paperwork, which can take hours of time for a human resources office that is better focused elsewhere, companies can invest in a system that makes human resource planning simple and effective.

Employees will also appreciate the ease of applying for paid time off. Without an online system in place, someone would have to send an email, and an HR professional would have to take a look at the spreadsheet to see how many hours the employee has and whether he or she can take the time off or not. Instead, with a computer system, everything is streamlined into one system that automatically shows all the information an employee could want about his or her hours and paid time off, allowing for greater transparency.

What to keep in mind when using an automated HR system
Many larger companies make the mistake of relying too heavily on automated technology for something like assigning shifts for employees. This can be a problem because computers can never be made fully aware of what someone has in his or her schedule that is a special circumstance. According to Quartz, Starbucks introduced a schedule automation device that accidentally gave a woman named Janette Navarro, who has a young son to care for, the hours between the store closing and the store opening. This meant she would stay until the store closed and open it the next day, which resulted in a great deal of trouble. The situation was only resolved when Starbucks took a more proactive stance and allowed supervisors greater control over schedules.

Smaller companies may not have to worry about this issue as much because employees might have a closer relationship to the HR department. The key takeaway is that companies must always have a human component behind the machine to care for issues that crop up and can’t be predetermined through a system’s algorithms.

Benefits of HR systems
SBC wrote in a separate article that one of the major benefits of HR management software kits is they increase productivity. For example, a feature of some software is it can restrict the websites employees can visit, so they will stop going on Facebook or Twitter, and stick to the business at hand. However, SBC said this can backfire, as employees may become disgruntled or find ways to game the system.

This blog post was originally published by the Sage HRMS team.