Why core HR functions are soaring in the cloud
A centralized HR platform can help enhance growth and employee experience.
Core HR functions overview
In the past 50 years, there’s been little variation in how we define core HR functions. Payroll, timekeeping, and employee data management remain central to human resources operations and HRIS tools. What has changed is the way in which those functions are now viewed: as potential drivers of profitability, innovation, and business growth.
Today, remote workforces are spread far and wide. Finding – let alone retaining – the best people is a serious challenge. To compete, organizations need to integrate and unify their operations. This means having the ability to analyze employee data and centralize global processes on a single HRIS platform. When core HR functions can be accessed and connected in real time – across every region – companies benefit from more streamlined practices, as well as the powerful data-driven insights and people analytics that come from cloud-based core HR solutions.
Growing demand for cloud-based HR systems
As today’s organizations face unprecedented levels of competition, economic uncertainty, and staffing challenges, business leaders are asking some hard questions: Can we better use employee and payroll data to trim excess and ensure we are offering competitive rates? Can we do more to make our employee-facing HR systems more relevant and user-friendly? Can we improve our current processes to minimize our compliance risks?
Fortunately, the answer to all of those questions is “yes”. But to achieve those goals – and to integrate with all the departments and data centers necessary to do so – HR teams need centralized, agile software solutions. In other words, HR needs systems that integrate and operate in real-time, connecting and unifying all business operations in the cloud.
What makes cloud HR a win/win?
The best cloud HR solutions help you see problems and challenges, but more importantly, they help you find the best way to solve them.
Improved employee experience. Cloud-based HR solutions are mobile-friendly and offer a more streamlined user experience– including the capacity for personalization and real-time data integration. This provides greater visibility into payroll, benefits, schedules, training, career development, and more. When employees can more easily access these tools, their experience is better, and managers have the data they need to better recognize and upskill valuable team members.
Improved productivity and efficiency. Errors and inefficiencies waste resources and add to team stress loads. Integrated, cloud-based HR solutions help automate and streamline processes. Pre-packaged integrations and standardized HR processes also enable more effective workforce planning and more coherent workflows for new and existing teams.
Global and regional integration. Traditionally, organizations have wasted a lot of time reinventing wheels and trying to make disparate rules and workflows fit into a common system. Cloud-based HR systems help standardize international processes. This frees teams from the time-consuming drudgery of fitting their systems together – and instead empowers them to focus on the more important business of sharing ideas, skills, and creative solutions.
Risk reduction. Cloud connectivity, embedded localization features, and intelligent technologies together help keep things current and aligned. Real-time updates and intel about laws, rules, and compliance issues mean that all your teams – wherever they are – can automate their compliance tasks and be alerted to change. These findings and updates can then be more easily implemented to help create a better, safer workplace, from the C-suite to the shop floor.
Lowered costs. HR processes are complex and comprise multiple operational areas, regions, and roles. When they are unified from end to end on a single platform, it is far easier to get the big picture and avoid bottlenecks and delays. Running costs and implementation times can also be pared down when localized best practice content is embedded in the system.
How does a centralized HR platform deliver the global goods?
Findings from the American Opportunity Survey, conducted by McKinsey and Ipsos, confirm what we’ve all been observing: the fact that flexible and remote working has grown by “anywhere from a third to tenfold since 2019”. This includes a rise in gig and freelance workers as well.
Of course, even between states, provinces, or regions there is a myriad of different laws and labor codes. With manual systems in play, centralized global HR compliance is near impossible. This is an area where cloud-based core HR really takes off. The best integrated HRIS solutions can:
Use a single platform that looks at all regional and global worker types and organizes them with a consistent and standardized set of processes.
Localize benefits, time off, and other timekeeping and scheduling features – updating automatically in the cloud as and when these regulations change in any region.
Manage payroll and invoicing in all the currencies you work in – with exchange rates that adjust in real time.
Support organizational management and best-practice capabilities in a variety of languages.
Integrate with other essential business systems, such as cloud ERP, to create and deliver custom financial and labor analysis reports, combining different regions and data types.
Global HR in the cloud: Compliance and risks
In the past few years, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in payouts for workplace class action suits, as well as a rise in individual lawsuits and formal complaints. Organizations are grappling with multi-regional workforces and attempting to navigate safety and compliance for off-site and freelance workers. Furthermore, we are in a time of rapidly evolving attitudes and demands around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B), addressing hot-button issues and definitions related to gender, race, and identity. For HR teams, trying to manually keep pace with these trends is unrealistic.
Organizations know there’s no longer a safe margin of error in HR compliance– and getting it wrong can result in irreparable financial or reputational damage.
The good news is that cloud HR solutions can offer a lifeline to help support and protect both companies and employees. When HR applications are integrated with your other business systems, you can leverage the power of advanced data analytics to stay ahead of uncertainty. Your HR system can even notify you of the latest legal and regulatory information in real-time and allow you to refresh your compliance, across all regions and countries.
When is the best time to move your core HR functions to the cloud?
Gartner predicts that by 2025, 85% of businesses will have adopted a primarily cloud-based infrastructure. Why the shift? When you move to the cloud, you can integrate your HR solutions with your ERP and other connected business systems, augmenting your entire global operations with HR-specific features, intel, and data. So whatever stage you’re at in your cloud transformation journey, the time is now to prioritize your HR operations and leverage the value of your core HR data and functions.