Is Your HCM System Fixed or Flexible? Answer These 3 Questions.
Traditional human capital management (HCM) tools may not be up to the task of keeping pace in an ever-changing business world. These solutions, often fixed and rigid, likely limit the way complex organizations can operate. Instead, businesses need flexible solutions capable of both meeting current needs and quickly adapting to future requirements.
Many organizations are considering investing in an HCM solution purchase or upgrade soon. It's projected that 362,000 businesses worldwide will spend more than $34 billion on HCM solutions over the next 12 months, into 2025.
If your company is considering making such an investment, be aware that "new" or "more" doesn't necessarily guarantee more value or a better user experience - especially if the platform can't be personalized for employee needs, adapt to specific workflows, or seamlessly respond to internal and external change.
Flexibility and adaptability in HCM technology allows organizations to have a buildable foundation for the future; they are vital components for enterprise human capital management solutions to ensure business continuity, despite changing environments.
3 questions to evaluate your current HCM technology
To determine if your current HCM system can help you keep pace or if a change may be warranted, these three questions are critical to ask:
1. Is the solution flexible enough to support how your teams work?
Enterprise teams and workflows aren't one size fits all – so why should HCM technology be the same? Internal processes for payroll, time and attendance, employee transfers or policy acknowledgements aren't static. And these workflows become even more intricate when involving global employees and matrixed teams.
For example, if you hire new employees or have current staff move to new roles, org charts should be automatically updated to ensure leaders know who's working where, what projects they're taking on and which leaders are responsible for progress. What happens if the team leader abruptly leaves the organization for personal reasons? If this change isn't automatically captured, it leaves the team without a leader and without a point of contact for c-suite executive visibility into progress
However, outdated HCM systems often make this process cumbersome, and manual transfers or updates take time away from people leaders and HR managers who would like to focus on strategic business initiatives. Whether work gets done in formal teams, informal groups or across dotted lines, flexible org charts in HCM can equip leaders to see how people actually work together, helping them dismantle silos, assess teams, increase engagement and proactively prepare for people changes.
2. Is the system externally adaptable?
As regulatory landscapes evolve, businesses need tools capable of keeping up with evolving local, national, and global legislation. Having a solution supported by regulatory experts can be the difference between HCM that helps you mitigate risk, and one that may leave you vulnerable to costly compliance mistakes.
"It's critical for HCM partners to help their clients increase productivity while maintaining top-of-the-line security standards to help reduce risk and promote growth in a sustainable manner," said Yeshwanth Chandraskhar, Senior Vice President, ADP.
For example, with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), businesses may be fined for privacy violations. In Colorado, new legislation under the Job Application Fairness Act (JAFA) prevents employers from asking age-related questions of prospective employees, such as their dates of graduation from educational institutions. Failure to abide by these rules could lead to legal action.
Multistate compliance for remote workers continues to be a hot-button issue as states pass laws, workforces become geographically dispersed and employers realize their obligations are multi state regardless of where their headquarters are located.
If your HCM system today isn't backed by trusted global privacy professionals, who proactively monitor changing regulations, you may be leaving your organization at risk.
3. Can you seamlessly alter workflows and capabilities?
As you scale your business or grow your workforce, you might need more - or less - HCM functionalities. But adding or removing capabilities shouldn't feel timely or complex. An HCM solution should be able to meet your organization's unique needs today and adapt to employees in various workgroups, geographies, or other circumstances. For instance, it can adjust to different work schedules, time zones, or even cultural norms.
Workflows and policy personalization, ideally, should adapt to specific employees and their roles, or organization specific rules and regulations. This ensures consistency and confidence that your employees are following the right steps and have the right information during events such as onboarding, time-off requests, reviewing travel and entertainment expense guidelines, or aligning pay profiles.
If current tools don't offer a pathway to improve existing capabilities or add new features, it may be time to consider an upgrade.
The future is flexible
As the rhythms of work continue to evolve, your organization's ability to adapt to change only becomes more important. Whether you're hoping to expand your market share, hire internationally, open a new location, or transfer employees to new teams, your HCM technology needs to keep up. The need for investments in flexible and adaptable tech to manage enterprise organizations has never been clearer.
Can your human capital management solutions satisfy current internal requirements? Are they capable of adapting to new regulations? Can they evolve as businesses grow, shrink or otherwise change?
If the answer to any of these questions is "no," or "no, but," consider whether your existing tools may be more of a hindrance than a help. And whether it may be time to revamp in favor of flexible, future-proof solutions.
