However, if your organization has clearly defined goals—and you approach the initiative with preparation and forethought—a new HCM system can offer a significant return on investment and set your company up for long-term operational success.
Mapping out specific goals
HCM systems are a hub for managing all aspects of internal payroll and human resources. With the right software, your organization can streamline, manage and automate an array of processes, including:
- Payroll
- Workforce management
- Performance analytics
- Recruitment
- Onboarding
- Benefits
- Learning
- Employee self-service
- Compensation
Identifying potential efficiencies to be gained in critical areas, spotting gaps in internal processes and thinking through software features to help achieve organizational goals are essential steps in HCM software implementation preplanning and analysis. Failing to lay the groundwork for exactly what goals you want to achieve with an implementation is an enormous missed opportunity. If you don’t outline your business objectives before starting the software selection process, you could end up hitting more snags than expected once implementation begins, because you won’t understand which options to choose at pivotal junctures.
Accurate data transfer
Since your data is the foundation of your HCM system, it must be set up to optimize long-term outcomes. This is a task that benefits enormously from the insight of a skilled consultant to ensure your data is transitioned into your new system correctly. In our experience, this is where HR departments—especially departments going at implementation alone—hit the most unforeseen snags.
“Scrubbing” your data is important, because if it is not clean and accurate, the new system may have issues right off the bat. This is an area in which in-house implementation teams often uncover obstacles they did not expect. The way the data is mapped and organized in the new system is also important if you expect it to work optimally for your specific business needs.
