3 Myths About HRMS for Small Businesses

Are you a small business owner or are you responsible for HR in a small business? When margins are tight, an HRMS might be the last thing on your mind. However, there are many misconceptions around HRMS for small businesses and viable solutions aren’t the white whale they used to be.

An HRMS Is Too Expensive

Many years ago, an HRMS was considered a major expenditure, an investment that took years to implement and pay for itself. Such a project would require a committed budget to support the licensing fees and consultants required to implement it. However, in today’s market there are a wide spectrum of HRMS for small businesses, from the ‘basic’ and ‘minimal’ HRMS options through to the full-service, top of the range applications. The HRMS market is no longer one-dimensional, especially when it comes to cost.

All HR Technology Requires IT Staff

Do you remember a time when an HRMS was a black box of mystery, understood only by the IT team who controlled all aspects of its use? The current generation of HRMS for small businesses offer more flexibility in this area, such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products that require no in-house technology expertise, but instead open up more of the configuration to HR. The vendors roll is to control former IT aspects such as patches, enhancements to functionality and backups.

We're Not Big Enough to Need an HRMS

A decade ago, HRMS only had one model and it was built for the needs of large organizations. It was easier for small companies to keep spreadsheets of their HR data, rather than invest in a product. A small business would never gain efficiency through using such a product, giving credence to the idea that a company needed to be ‘big’ to have an HRMS. The current HRMS on the market include products offered by a number of vendors that cater exclusively to small businesses.

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Heather Batyski

About the author…

Heather is an experienced HRMS analyst, consultant and manager. Having worked for companies such as Deloitte, Franklin Templeton and Oracle, Heather has first-hand experience of many HRMS solutions including Peoplesoft and Workday.

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Heather Batyski

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