What are the C-suite's requirements for a new HRMS?

The final green light for your HRMS project comes from the C-suite, of course. After all, they are the ultimate budget-holders and steerers of the corporate ship.

However, aside from their role as financial gatekeepers, let’s consider them as stakeholders in the system itself. What does your C-suite actually need from a new HRMS?

More efficient (and impressive) recruitment

This is not about streamlining your hiring processes (though the C-suite will no doubt appreciate any reduction in your time to fill metric) but more about having technology that contributes to a more positive corporate image that in turn encourages talent pools and pipelines, attracting the cream of tomorrow’s applicants.

This might be through enabling easier access to new social media avenues, or the administration of a dedicated recruitment portal. In the Digital Age, such factors help an organization to be perceived by job candidates as an employer of choice. And which senior executive doesn’t want to be leading one of those?

Better resource management

For those sat at the boardroom table, efficiency is everything. An HRMS that offers managers access to real-time workforce performance and attendance data can allow for  instant automated (or semi-automated, allowing for managerial input to decisions!) re-scheduling of staffing in response to changes in availability. This minimizes waste and under-performance, particularly for customer-facing roles and teams, and that’s catnip to the C-suite.

Guide: how to sell your HRMS project to senior management

Another resource benefit of any adequate HRMS package should result from employee self-service and the automation of day-to-day HR queries and tasks, thus freeing up the human resources team to dedicate extra time to more strategic issues. Any strategic benefit of your HRMS should be noticed at C-suite level.

Improved succession planning

Systems that integrate recruitment, talent management, performance and learning & development are geared to result in better succession planning which is, by definition, a longer-term strategic concern of the C-suite. Anything that makes identification of potential high-flyers easier, connects development activity to career paths, nurtures the  leadership (and C-suite) of tomorrow and links the whole process to the organization’s specific needs and key roles will find favor.

Predictive analytics

All of which brings us to the increasingly sophisticated predictive analytics tools offered by many HRMS packages. The collation and cross-referencing of all corporate data to identity trends and produce deeper insights into performance, productivity and efficiency is fuel for better decision-making at the top level of the organization.

Finally, every organization is different. It would be highly unusual if your C-suite did not have a strong stake in the above issues but… they’ll each have their own specific roles and interests (even hobbyhorses) and the only way to find out what they are, is to treat them like any other stakeholder, and ask.