Modules of a Human Resource Management System

Finding the Human Resource Management System that is best suited for your company might seem like an unending series of obstacles to overcome. Knowing precisely what features, functions, and modules you need is one of the first steps, and it is one of the most crucial steps as well. In other words, you need to know what you need the system to be able to perform in order to support your strategic business objectives.

The difficulty lies in the fact that “HRMS” turns out to be a pretty nebulous phrase once one begins investigating the many HR software and technology options that are now available. Some vendors use terms to define a basic personnel database with limited capacity that may have a number of suitable modules bolted onto it. These modules each provide software support for one of the several HR services that are outlined below.

Some people use it as a catchall term for a more comprehensive system that in reality incorporates the vast majority of the following modules, if not all of them, into a single streamlined package. When properly implemented, an HR management system may make all the difference between an HR department that runs like clockwork and one that is cumbersome, inefficient, and prone to making mistakes. An HR system that consists of many HR modules may be able to solve problems that require extensive amounts of time and physical labor.

Why Should You Make Use of HR System Modules?

The primary purpose of HR software is to improve the effectiveness of your organization’s HR procedures. Many of the tasks that consume the vast majority of your HR department’s time may be automated with the help of a software platform that has integrated modules. Modules of HR systems are able to:

Make use of workflow automation

By reducing the need for human data entry and so removing the associated risk of mistakes, automated technologies help businesses save both time and resources. Your HR procedures may be supported by unique workflows that can be created using HR modules. For instance, you can configure enhanced workflows in order to create a database for Employee Record Management, or you can create a step-by-step process for your workforce to follow during Open Enrollment that includes automated communications in order to keep workers focused on their tasks. Both of these examples are possible. You may also simply review reports that show you when any of your workers are getting close to reaching their overtime limit, or you can make a rapid repair if your payroll has become noncompliant with the time and labor rules of your state. Both of these options are very convenient.

Maintain your data in a safe environment

Using HR software may help maintain the confidentiality of sensitive data pertaining to your personnel. Not only may lapses in security cause you to lose the confidence of your workers, customers, and partners, but they can also ensure that you are in compliance with the many regulations that govern data protection. The components of a cloud-based HR system already come equipped with many levels of security to safeguard all of your data, such as access restrictions and two-factor authentication.

Give workers the ability to manage and control their own data

Your human resources managers will have more time on their hands if you provide workers with a gateway via which they may maintain their own personal information. Employees, for instance, are able to bring their life-change events (marriages, babies, and the like) up to date, as well as locate their benefit statements and pay stubs, and make requests for time off and sick leave. Putting this paperwork in the hands of your workers enables human resources to concentrate on key initiatives with a high effect, including benefits packages, performance evaluations, and new employee orientation. Employees are able to see the benefits they are eligible for, reminders are sent out when important dates are getting close, and forms are automatically updated. This not only helps maintain compliance but also helps maintain employee morale. For instance, during tax season, you may configure each employee portal to automatically obtain tax forms like 1094-B, 1095-B, 1094-C, and 1095-C based on the healthcare plan that the employee chose.

Regardless of how one defines it, the following are quick explanations of the sixteen most frequent modules and features organized according to HR functions, along with the essential components of each. The following are some of the most often used HR system modules and/or features:

HRMS module 1: HR database

A Human Resource Management System will keep your personnel data. This is not so much a feature as it is a basis for all of the other features. This might include information as fundamental as a name, address, telephone number, and employment function, all the way up to a comprehensive work record that includes performance management evaluations and training that was completed.

Because it stores personal information (possibly including bank details for payroll purposes), the question of the system’s data security is fundamental. Although this may be the most straightforward feature of your HRMS, it is also in a sense the most important feature because it stores personal information.

HRMS module 2: Recruitment

A recruitment module should take care of all of your organization’s internal form-filling and authorization processes; permit managers and/or HR to post advertisements and supporting documentation online; offer applicant tracking and even initial sorting; and allow managers and/or HR to post advertisements online. There is a possibility that there may also be capabilities to create talent pools, which can then be “trawled” for eligible individuals if a position opens up.

To a greater degree than any other HR technology, recruiting modules have embraced social media. For instance, interoperability with LinkedIn and other platforms is increasingly available as standard, and social capabilities are an important issue to discuss when interrogating providers.

Common recruiting module characteristics include:

• Pipelines that are tailor-made for each individual job.
• Posting job openings and job descriptions to many job boards with only the press of a button.
• Totally automated evaluation procedures, including setting up interviews.
• Monitoring of applicants.
• Resume parsing.
• Metrics and analytics of a standard kind for applicant profiles.
• Mobile app.
• Gamification (though opinion is divided between the pros and cons).
• Social media interface.
• Management of offers using digitalization.

HRMS module 3: Onboarding

Once you have your new employees in place, the next step is to walk them through the onboarding and induction processes that are required by your company. This process can benefit from automation, which will significantly reduce the burden on both managers and the HR team. For example, new recruits can be “introduced” to the necessary people and to the organization itself. Additionally, there may be automatic notifications to relevant departments for issues such as building access, user accounts, security passes, and so on. In a perfect system, the activities of onboarding would also interface with the performance management and talent management modules.

Features such as these are often seen in onboarding modules:

• The preparations are made before the first day.
• Setting up correct employment records is a breeze (and may be done electronically).
• The necessary information required on the firm and its key individuals is provided.
• Learning via gaming.
• The required appointments are automatically scheduled.
• Observance of the requirements imposed by the legislation.

HRMS module 4: Performance management

This module should combine your competency framework, job standards, and/or any other applicable systems in order to automate the evaluation process, record and monitor objectives and targets, and keep track of progress toward those goals.

Common performance management module characteristics include:

• Establishing and monitoring one’s own personal performance objectives.
• Connections to a set of competence standards.
• Meetings for performance evaluation and analysis will be scheduled.
• Feedback on performance from all 360 degrees.
• Tools for providing “at the moment” feedback.
• The collection of Big Data in order to provide a more complete picture of individual performance.
• Functional connections between the areas of personnel management and succession planning.

HRMS module 5: Benefits administration

When it comes to employee benefits, benefits management is all about helping workers make informed decisions and giving them access to relevant information in a timely manner. This module’s responsibilities include the management and monitoring of employee benefits, including healthcare, pension/welfare packages, tracking enrollment choices, and any financial repercussions.

Features often seen in modules for benefits administration include the following:

• Online open enrollment.
• Communication of enrollment alternatives and information that is done automatically.
• A comparison tool between several plans that employees may use to help them make decisions, including cost and contribution breakdowns.
• The benefits life cycle is managed automatically via its events.
• Conformity with the legislation applicable to your jurisdiction.

HRMS module 6: Workforce management

This module’s primary purpose is to handle scheduling, however, it should maintain strong ties to, and often is integrated with, time and attendance and leave tracking. In a similar vein, real-time functionality may entail links to other business intelligence systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) in order to adapt workforce deployment to changing requirements.

Features that are typical in workforce management modules include the following:

• Keeping track of shifts and making schedules.
• Monitoring of the workflow.
• A management dashboard that displays data and metrics in real-time.

HRMS Module 7: Time and Attendance Tracking

Aside from payroll, the time clock is perhaps one of the HR operations that has been fully automated for the longest amount of time. In today’s world, such systems frequently make use of biometric identification to prevent practices known as “buddy punching.” Additionally, such systems will link directly to (or be an integral part of) the workforce management module, with information links to your payroll and accounting software. Moreover, such systems may also include a number of other features.

Features often seen in time and attendance tracking modules include the following:

• Monitoring employees’ presence at work.
• Management of the time clock.
• Systems based on biometrics.
• Functionality for professionals who are on the go or working remotely.
• Legislative compliance (e.g. minimum mandated rest breaks).

HRMS module 8: Absence and leave management

Again, this function is often related to time and attendance tracking as well as workforce management tasks. Your leave management module is an automated means to assign, book, and authorize absences from the workplace while also tracking and monitoring them. It might be for a vacation, a compassionate cause, a sickness, time off with the kids, or even jury duty. The procedures of making requests and getting approvals have to be expedited, and the results ought to be included in team calendars whenever it is suitable to do so.

Features such as these are often seen in the absence and leave management modules.

• Self-service leave requests.
• Integration with features for managing (and scheduling) the workforce as well as keeping track of time and attendance tracking.
• “Account management,” including the monitoring of accumulated vacation time and its use.
• Metrics and analytics, including counts of absences and patterns in their occurrence.

HRMS Module 9: Learning and development

This module may produce individual training plans for staff, deal with bookings (for training courses and other learning options), and manage the follow-on evaluation and feedback process, all while tracking training expenditure against budget allocations. Often, the outcomes of the performance management process are used as a starting point for this module.

The following are examples of characteristics often seen in learning and development modules:

• Portal for education.
• Recommendations for training aligned with a person’s desired job, competence, and career path.
• Individualized lesson programs for each user.
• Setting and managing objectives.
• Connections to a set of competence standards.
• Administration of learning that is more streamlined (reducing the HR overhead).

HRMS module 10: Talent management

This module should help with establishing talent pipelines so that your business can prevent crucial skills and experience shortages that might potentially damage performance. The session focuses on identifying people who have potential and should help with setting up talent pipelines. There should be no break in continuity between performance management, learning and development, and recruiting efforts.

Common talent management module characteristics include:

• Alignment with the strategic and operational objectives of the company.
• The mapping out of individual career trajectories and the planning of individual careers.
• Integration with significant recruiting drives.
• Benchmarking should be rewarded (internal and external).

HRMS module 11: Succession planning

The concept of succession planning is closely related to the concept of talent management. Succession planning involves having an organized procedure to place the appropriate individuals into certain career pathways that lead to particular job responsibilities and positions. The objective here is to make sure that all of your most important tasks and duties in the company are constantly being filled. You are, in essence, futureproofing the workforce, and the appropriate Human Resource Management System may help you get closer to that objective.

The following is a list of key actions involved in succession planning that may be supported by an HRMS:

• Identification of workers who are either already qualified for promotions or have the potential to become qualified based on data from performance management.
• Established professional routes that are adapted to meet the demands of your company and business.
• Procedure mapping in relation to an internal competence framework.
• Study of the gaps and the design of organized personal development plans that are specific to the people who have been identified.
• Monitoring one’s progress in relation to their professional objectives and future plans.
• Program administration for mentoring and coaching relationships.

HRMS Module 12: HR analytics

Reporting capabilities (frequently in the form of libraries of HR metrics and benchmarks) assessing and analyzing the data gathered and stored with the Human Resource Management System (and other business systems) to provide strategic and predictive insights that can be used to guide the business strategy of the organization are provided by HR analytics. These insights can be used to direct the business strategy of the organization. HR analytics are frequently incorporated as functions within other modules.

HRMS module 13: Payroll

A fundamental payroll function will compute and pay salaries for each employee, deduct and withhold the appropriate taxes and deductions, and organize either the printing and delivery of paychecks or pay via direct deposit into employee bank accounts. In addition, the payroll function will withhold the appropriate amounts for taxes and deductions.

In the past, automated payroll was often taken care of by a distinct piece of software that was designed for the purpose. On the other hand, including payroll functions inside your Human Resource Management System seems to be becoming more and more prevalent.

The fact that the key employee data required for processing payroll is presumably already held by the HRMS is an obvious advantage of using that system (personal identification, banking details, a record of hours worked, etc.) A single portal or access point that provides access to all of your people-related activities is another advantage of using an HRMS to manage payroll. Other advantages include improved data security and accuracy, a lower risk of making mistakes, and compliance with applicable laws.

HRMS Module 14: Employee wellbeing

The health and well-being of workers have risen up the priority list for a growing number of companies and their human resources departments over the course of the last few years; this trend is likely to continue in light of the ongoing epidemic. This includes the implementation of wellness and fitness programs, information campaigns, and the provision of incentives for healthy behaviors such as improved nutrition and exercise routines. A workforce that is present and far more likely to be functioning effectively and productively is one that has a higher level of overall health.

Setting wellness objectives, communicating important information, and providing health reminders are all things that may be accomplished with the help of a human resource management system (HRMS). You also have the choice to include wellness-related prizes and perks as a component of your total remuneration package. This choice is available to you.

HRMS Module 15: Multi-Territory Workforce Management

When it comes to HR policies, processes, and procedures, as well as how they are implemented throughout the workforce, maintaining consistency is essential. When your company has locations in a number of different nations or regions, coordinating this aspect of its operations will be more difficult. When you cross a border, the employment laws and regulations on the other side of the border will be different. Even if it is merely in terms of payroll administration, there is change, even if it may not be to a significant degree.

You may skip over this portion of the document if all of your workers are neatly housed inside the confines of a single nation’s borders. On the other hand, due to developments in telecommuting, working from home, and the formation of virtual teams, an increasing number of companies now employ people from other countries. Unless you want to use a different HRMS for each region, which would defeat the most important purpose of using a Human Resource Management System in the first place! You need a system that is able to handle numerous tax regimes, varied labor restrictions (for example, variances in working hours limitations), and changes in the requirements for compliance reporting.

HRMS Module 16: Tracking Time Taken Off

This is a crucial module that will assist in automating the process of allocating time off, booking said time off, getting approval for said booking, and monitoring said absence in your company. The Core HR module enables you to simply accept or refuse requests for paid time off (PTO), examine time off accruals, and create rules for accrual, among other capabilities.

HRMS Module 17: Administration of Learning

The Human Resources department is able to conduct training and keep track of whether or not employees have completed it thanks to a module called “learning management.” Through the employee portal, required training such as those on sexual harassment may be assigned and accessed at any time, day or night. The Learning Management module not only offers enterprises the possibility to submit their own individualized learning programs, but it also makes available internet information. Training compliance may be maintained by the completion of courses on a variety of topics, including diversity and inclusion requirements, safety standards, leadership and ethics, and more.

HRMS Module 18: Employee Self-Service

To conclude, employee self-service is not so much a separate module as it is a foundational (and necessary) element, and these days no Human Resource Management System is considered to be complete if it does not include it. If you want the influence and advantages of your HRMS to extend any farther than the HR department and the boardroom, then it’s pretty much an absolute need to have this feature.

It may be as easy as giving each employee the ability to put in a request for paid time off. Or, you could go all the way and implement a full HR portal, complete with a personalized dashboard for each employee. This would give the employees access to a wide range of HR services, such as choosing their own benefit options and scheduling (and virtually attending) the most recent training and development.

It is essential to point out that some of the modules and characteristics described above will probably overlap in terms of the operations or categories they belong to. For instance, the management of benefits may be considered part of payroll, and payroll itself might be “filed” under the more general category of compensation management, which would include the administration of more comprehensive reward and recognition programs.

In addition, there are other functions and features that may be found in Human Resource Management System (anyone for artificial intelligence and HR chatbots?) in addition, there is a huge amount of leeway in the manner in which the aforementioned features can be implemented. For instance, one recruitment module could analyze the applicants’ resumes, while another could put them through a series of gamified tests as the initial stage of the evaluation process.

To put it another way, there is an almost unlimited number of possible combinations, each of which emphasizes a distinct set of components. Before you even begin to delve into the (sometimes confusing) realm of HRMS, the phase in which the project is being planned is where you will find the answer. It is necessary to do research and analysis, as well as communicate to key stakeholders about what a new Human Resource Management System needs to enable. For example, what features does the HRMS require, and what must those functions do?

It is essential to begin the HRMS decision process with these sorts of foundational questions that concentrate on you and your organization in order to avoid being sidetracked and swayed by the most recent “must-have” in the industry. These kinds of questions may be found here. Now that you have the answers, you are ready to begin your search for the HRMS that will meet all of your needs.

The cloud-based HR software solution offered consists of HR modules that are used in HR Management, Talent Management, and Payroll Processing. It can be scaled to match the ever-evolving needs of your business thanks to the pre-built connectors to more than 300 different partners. You have the option of purchasing the platform in its whole, or you may get it on a module-by-module basis to better fit your requirements. It is possible to combine it with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, insurance providers, payroll processors, business intelligence tools, and a great deal more.