No Mobile Device Support is Why Your HRMS Sucks

Mobile is no longer a nice-to-have feature for your HRMS. The mobile trend in computing and IT-enabled services in general is showing no signs of slowing and HR is no exception. These days, employees and managers don’t want it all, they expect it all: email, calendar, time and attendance, workforce management, employee directory, access to recruitment campaigns, finance apps (e.g. processing expenses), training, talent management, the list continues to grow. If your HRMS is lacking or deficient in the way it handles mobile functionality, then whether or not you think it ‘sucks’, it’s certainly not giving you the full range of benefits.

Recommended Reading: HRMS Software Guide - Find the HRMS Software Offering Mobile Support

Hopefully, by now those benefits are well-established. Employee productivity is enhanced by anywhere-anytime access to systems. People transactions requiring approvals used to be slowed right down if the ‘approver’ was out of the office; no longer. Shared calendars (and more social-oriented features) enable and enhance collaboration; once again, something that used to be reliant on actual bodily presence in the same office. As HR functions, such as training, are increasingly managed with a ‘federated’ methodology, with different departments managing their own specialised training needs, an appropriately sophisticated mobile HRMS can ensure that the corporate training records are maintained (and can be accessed) as a single block.

Choose the Right Mobile HRMS

But what sucks worse, is having badly-designed, badly-implemented mobile functionality on your HRMS. In this scenario, your people have been promised mobile access to HR transactions and services, their expectations of a brave new HR world have been raised. And then those expectations are dashed due to a poor or non-existent BYOD policy leaving everyone with incompatible devices. Or insufficient security protocols on downloading apps permit the entry of a virus to the system. Or a shoddy device management system means that when a device is left in a café or on a train, everybody’s data is public knowledge. Or… and so on.

Of course, no mobile, no benefits. That certainly sucks"

Finally, even when it’s well done, there is a downside to 24/7 mobile HRMS access to be managed: when a system is in constant use, when do you get chance to upgrade, update, tinker, fix, or maintain it? The updating and maintenance timetable could be the factor that makes the system fall over just when the user experience is depending on it.