Why Moving HR into the Cloud is a Smart Move

A growing number of businesses are realizing the potency of cloud technology and are subsequently taking the necessary steps to incorporate it across a variety of departments. Human resources is one area that can see major functional benefits from the outset of moving into the cloud.

A PWC technology survey found that around 73% of businesses had at least one cloud-based HR process in 2017, which is a big increase from 68% in 2015. They also found that an increasing majority of businesses were satisfied with the technology’s ability to meet their needs.

Since HR departments usually deal with vast collections of employee talent and financial data that needs to be efficient, accurate and regulatory-compliant, a modern solution like cloud software makes perfect sense. In order for a HR department to thrive, it needs to be able to interpret its data to attract new talent and improve current talent.

It is evident that technology is by far the best solution for key HR functions like time management, employee compensation, performance tracking and analytics. The structural benefits of cloud technology support these important functions and reduce the amount of work required to maintain them.

Not convinced? Let’s take a look at a few more reasons why moving HR into the cloud is a smart move.

Security

Your HR department holds some of the most personal information in your business’s possession. This can include banking information, home addresses, financial data, salary details and other identifying personal information. When you store this data on local storage devices through spreadsheets or databases, it becomes extremely vulnerable.

Not only can your local computers or network be the victim of a cyber attack, but the data can also be lost due to user error, natural disasters or a simple drop of a hard drive. Traditional means of backing up this data are unreliable and easily forgotten if there isn’t an automatic routine in place.

In the cloud, however, your data is immeasurably safer. This is because cloud services rely on enhanced security features to gain the upper hand over their competitors. They use strong encryption and hybrid security solutions to ensure that your data is always kept safe.

Integration

A major selling point of cloud technology is its ability to integrate with other business software. This can include your payroll, accounting and other finance applications, as well as time-trackers and productivity tools. Unlike on-premises systems, which are inefficient at best, cloud software offers real-time integration without data redundancy issues.

This can save you a great deal of time and money, as almost every HR operation can be based around a single central process. You will no longer have to waste time jumping from one application to another, importing and exporting data, transferring files across devices and hoping that nothing is corrupted in the process. The cloud is free from these issues.

Simplicity

Cloud software is about as simple as it gets. Unlike legacy systems, which seem to always break down and require time-consuming updates, cloud services do this automatically in the background, thus saving you crucial time. You also don’t need to pay for expensive license renewals every few years like you would with most traditional services.

Cloud technology predominantly operates on the SaaS (software as a service) model, which means you only need to pay for what you’ll use. From a financial standpoint, this is great. Gone are the days of having to pay for features and functions that you don’t even need because the higher tier package has one or two things that you require.

This increased level of simplicity can almost negate the need for an IT department or at least reduce it to a large extent. Your employees are also likely to prefer digital solutions to being paid as opposed to envelopes with checks in them. Once again, cloud technology makes this easier by offering a wider range of digital payment solutions.

Of course, it may take some time to fully understand and properly utilize cloud technology as it gets introduced into your HR department. Perhaps, this is a good time to further your education and better equip yourself to make the most of new technologies for HR. Consider this master of human resource management course, which can be taken online.

Regulatory Compliance

Legacy software has the tendency to misread or misconstrue data, which can lead to inaccuracies. For example, if a remote employee is owed a raise and it doesn’t show up on the system, they won’t be all too happy when they receive a lower pay check than they expected. This type of situation can also happen with meeting regulations in your business.

Cloud technology’s ability to detect anomalies and prevent data errors or redundancies can, therefore, go a long way in ensuring that your HR department is complying with regulations on a business and legal level.

Productivity

Just like in any department, every second counts in HR. In order to make the most of what time is available in a day, every employee needs to be as productive as possible. It can be increasingly difficult to manage processes such as on boarding, time tracking, checking employee information and reviewing performance when one person has to do it on a legacy software system.

Cloud software solves this by empowering employees with the ability to perform self-service tasks. Since you’ll always have the option to update the data when it changes, accuracy is always maintained. In addition to making your employees more productive, cloud services can automate many of the operations you perform daily.

Reducing Absence

Finally, cloud technology can even reduce employee absence. This is because it is significantly more capable when it comes to tracking where employees are each day. Employees are able to make requests themselves when they want to take a day off and management can choose to approve or reject the request.

Conclusion

Incorporating cloud software and services into your HR department will transform it into a significantly more productive, efficient and accurate component of your company. With such low entry costs, there’s really no reason not to invest into the cloud as soon as possible.