According to Forbes Advisor, 96% of Indian industrial units belong to small companies. Another impressive fact: AI and cloud could help Indian small businesses generate about 46 million jobs by 2030. What does this mean for HR tech? The market will soon be inundated with HR software for small businesses.
Small business is actually big business with immense potential for employment. The stakeholders owners and HR teams of emerging businesses are responsible for keeping employees happy, engaged, and productive. Only when employees perform does the business perform. Today’s small businesses are increasingly adopting different technologies for different functions. HR software is one among them. Since the software handles their most significant asset, people, it’s become the bedrock of their business.
This blog post explores the different types of HR software, how they help, the criteria for choosing the best HR software for small businesses, and the features of greytHR full-suite HRMS. Keep reading!
HR Software: What’s Inside?
An HR software is a suite of tools designed to handle all the HR management processes in an organization. Most of the software packages have different modules for different HR functions, and the market also has standalone tools for different functions. Some vendors specialize in HR software packages for small businesses, while others offer software that suits all kinds of organizations.
What Are the Different Types of HR Software?
On-premise HR software tools have been around for years. Nowadays, many small businesses are adopting cloud-based HR software. The type of HR software depends on the challenges the companies want to address and the features they need. Usually available on a subscription basis, these software suites have flexible pricing plans. They can also scale as per the business requirements. These are the primary reasons small businesses prefer cloud-based software over on-premise software.
HR Software for Small Businesses: How Does It Help?
When the stakeholders of a small business deploy an HR software, they get to streamline and simplify their HR processes. Automation helps them in multiple ways. These are the key benefits of deploying an HR software in an emerging business:
Minimized manual work: Manual or spreadsheet-based HR work could result in delays and errors. Since they may lack the financial resources to hire a full-fledged HR team, multiple people might double up as HR. In this case, there is also scope for inconsistency and inefficiency. Automation can streamline and speed up processes, so the HR/admin personnel will have the bandwidth to perform other value-added tasks.
Simplified documentation: Every business, big or small, has to handle multiple documents, letters, reports, payslips, and more. Small businesses may not always have the skills and tools to manage them systematically. A modern HRMS will help them upload, store, and share everything on the cloud. This digitization facility eliminates excessive paperwork and simplifies the documentation process for their HR and employees.
Informed decision-making: Business owners and HR teams have to make well-informed decisions to survive and thrive. Smaller businesses may find it harder to generate data from multiple sources and leverage it smartly. Data related to employee activity, salary, performance, and turnover are crucial for their operations. An advanced HR software will provide information, dashboards, and reports that help stakeholders make the right decisions to ensure HR productivity, employee satisfaction, and statutory compliance.
Empowered employees: Employees hate onboarding complexities, documentation errors, payroll discrepancies, and delayed responses from HR. All these issues are likely to happen with manual/offline processes. An employee self-service portal (ESS) can sort out these issues by letting employees access information and perform basic HR tasks. An AI-based chatbot can provide instant answers to their queries. An empowered employee is a productive and happy employee.
Hassle-free compliance: HR has to abide by different laws for different activities. The compliance requirements in a region revolve around employee data collection, work contracts, payroll, work hours, leave management, and exit management, to name a few. Small businesses may manage all of this manually or with limited resources. Compliance delays and goof-ups could result in penalties and brand image damage. Today’s HR software solutions have built-in functionalities to handle complex compliance requirements.
Reduced costs: HR performs a wide range of tasks. However, not all businesses can appoint different people for different HR tasks. Team members also spend much time and resources analyzing, printing, storing, and mailing. They might have a finance or an admin person who multitasks to complete all the above tasks. This could lead to delays, errors, and rework. Time is money! Errors may also become expensive! New-age HRMS platforms can digitize documents and automate multiple tasks to help save time and resources.
How to Choose the Right HR Software Package
When scouting for an ideal HR software, business owners could be spoiled for choice! They are also likely to find umpteen HR software packages for small businesses.
However, they can make a well-informed decision by evaluating the most popular options available. While choosing an HR software, the stakeholders must keep the below factors in mind before taking a call:
- Number of employees
- Present locations
- Expansion plans
- Required features
- Integration options
- Cost (fixed & recurring)
- Ease of use
- Ease of deployment
- Support
greytHR, the Full-Suite HRMS
A comprehensive, full-suite HRMS platform, greytHR has 40+ tools to streamline, simplify, and automate HR processes across multiple functions, including:
Core HR
Payroll Management
Leave Management
Attendance Management
Employee Self-service
Employee Engagement
Performance Management
Recruitment
The AI-powered greytHR platform also provides an employee self-service (ESS) portal with a mobile app for remote access by employees. HR can use the built-in workflows, tasks, policies, checklists, and reports to simplify employee lifecycle tasks.
greytHR is much more than a software. It’s an entire ecosystem with a vibrant HR community, webinar series, podcast channel, and resource library.
When it comes to pricing plans, greytHR is flexible and affordable. There’s something for everyone. Many of greytHR’s customers were initially searching for an HR software for small businesses. When they found a comprehensive full-suite HRMS platform, they switched without batting an eyelid!
Ending Note
Small businesses face multiple challenges due to their headcount and budget limitations. An advanced HR software helps address them by automating many of their people operations and compliance requirements.
Do these businesses really need an HR software? Can’t they make do with manual processes or a basic HR software? Is it easy to zero in on the best HR software packages for small businesses?
Although the answers depend on their business plans, a comprehensive HR software will help them address the essential HR requirements from the get-go. However, they must choose the right software based on their needs and the criteria mentioned in this blog post. Usually, an AI-driven full-suite HRMS, like greytHR, would have the functionalities to help a business address multiple HR challenges. The result? Improved HR efficiency and enhanced employee productivity. The overall impact? Smarter operations for faster business growth.
If you are running a small business or planning to set one up, don’t forget to choose the right HR software or HRMS. Start with a free trial or request a demo to explore more.
