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If you ask us what makes any company successful, we’ll say: “its employees”. It is hard to underestimate the true power of a great team. That’s why so many businesses these days pay special attention to employee hiring, onboarding and further management.
However, it is not an easy task to be in charge of all processes when you are responsible for human resources. And if your company doesn’t have all the necessary tools for HR managers, then they definitely work too hard and are not productive enough, their resources can be allocated more effectively.
Without a custom HR management system it gets so hard for HR managers to keep all information in order and centralized, control billing and perform efficient management of all business processes. On top of that, companies that still do not have functional HR tools have issues with productive hiring, motivational programs for employees, and progress monitoring. And all these issues can be easily eliminated with one thing – custom software.
It is hard to imagine how a modern company can function without custom HR solutions that are fully adjusted to all business processes. Therefore, we decided to share our own development experience in this post, covering all important questions related to custom HR tools. We will describe key types of HR tools, their must-have features, major benefits and development specificities. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
Key HR challenges custom solutions can solve
Robert Half company has recently conducted a survey among HR managers to identify what areas of their work and what routine operations they find the most challenging and tiresome. Here is what the survey helped to discover:
Image source: Robert Half
This infographic shows that there are four key challenges that every HR specialist encounters on a daily basis. And we presume that this happens mostly because companies either do not have special software for HR management, or they use ready-made tools that are not fully adjustable and suitable for their business.
And now let’s take a closer look at all HR challenges that can easily be dealt with if you incorporate necessary software into your business environment. We have asked our own HR specialists and consulted with several recruiters from other companies and they’ve named the following problems they’ve experienced before they started using HR solutions:
According to the HR Trend Institute, digitalization should become a major transformational driver of the HR industry in the coming years. Among the mega HR trends that experts point out are:
If you give some good thought to each of these trends and take into consideration the challenges we’ve named above, you will conclude that a software for HR managers becomes a must-have for a business of any size. And now is the right time to invest in it!
Major benefits and value custom HR tools bring
It is understandable that you may have some doubts whether you really need your own custom solution. Does it really bring as much value as it costs? Will your company benefit from custom HR tools development? We cannot leave you with all those questions. So to dispel all your doubts, let’s speak about the true benefits and value of custom HR solutions.
Main types of HR solutions
HR departments in companies are responsible for endless tasks related to specialist assessment, hiring, onboarding, training and professional development. So to handle all those tasks and improve efficiency, HR managers may need a special set of solutions. There are so many kinds of HR tools in the world today that it’s easy to get overwhelmed, so we have decided to break it down and describe the main ones and what tasks they can help automate in your company.
HR management system
The HR management system is probably one of the best tools that a company can incorporate. This is a holistic multifunctional system that helps manage human resources and all related processes throughout the employment lifecycle. What’s even more exciting about this software is that it encourages employee self-service, self-organization and significantly increases engagement.
Among the best options that different HR management systems can be summarized as having are:
- Easy candidate management and progress monitoring.
- Employee engagement and control.
- Calculation and line-item breakdown of salary from gross to net and vice-versa.
- Performance tracking and individual development plan setting.
- Overall company workforce management.
- Centralized storage of training and corporate learning materials.
- Reporting, feedback and analytics.
- Time and attendance checking/tracking.
- Advanced planning and scheduling options.
Since the HR management system is a complex solution that contains lots of information including that related to taxes, employee personal data and corporate information, you need to ensure a high level of security in such a solution. Therefore, we’d recommend you to incorporate two-factor authentication, data encryption and password strength and reset policies.
Job board
It is hard to imagine a more useful solution for recruiters than a custom job board. This software lets your company search for certain specialists you require at a given moment, and even post your own job ads based on your specific business needs to best fill a position. Sometimes companies build small job boards that with time transform into huge networking platforms. So it can be said with certainty that job boards are highly scalable making them a great investment.
Job boards can have incorporated advanced analytic tools, built-in tools for creating microsites of companies with available vacancies, social media integration, smart search that helps find candidates with similar skills or experience and many more.
Also job boards can have a huge CV database where everything is in order and easy to access (depending on user roles and permissions). Job boards can decrease time spent on looking for a suitable candidate, speed up job posting and improve applicants management (no application or message will get lost).
One of the good job board examples is a platform called Monster. It is available in web and mobile format and it has a range of very useful features such as personalized job recommendations, easy work with CV creation and posting, career quizzes, option letting to apply to multiple jobs and much more.
Image source: Monster
Applicant tracking system
The companies that still struggle with the hiring process should pay special attention to applicant tracking systems, since this solution can automate a lot of useful operations. Applicant tracking system can either be a separate desktop application or an online service with numerous functions. The type of ATS depends on the company size and key needs.
Most ATS can process huge amounts of data, help you filter applications according to specific requirements or filters, match vacancies with candidates, collect lots of information about each separate applicant and then store, analyze and process it easily. Applicant tracking systems help free up HR managers’ time, raise awareness of the hiring company or its brand, and use collected data to increase hiring quality, and form future strategies of hiring and onboarding.
Let’s take VidCruiter as an example of an applicant tracking system. This solution helps you to organize a high class candidate pool, sort through an enormous amount of CVs, perform collaborative hiring, and even complete interviews with interested candidates. Here is what VidCruiter interface looks like:
Image source: VidCruiter
Performance review software
Performance review software is one more tool that can help your company achieve a whole new level. If your business lacks visibility when it comes to performance indexes, if you don’t have profound tools such as real-time feedback, personal employee growth plans, or reliable reporting systems, then you obviously need a performance review solution.
With performance review software your employees can appraise their work and overall working atmosphere, and your HR specialists can set them personal goals, tasks, and set up an individual growth plan. On top of that, all metrics and indexes related to employee productivity can be collected, analyzed and stored in one place. And you can even compare the overall company or department performance between different years. And if current performance is lagging, devise a plan for remedying that.
One of the most popular performance review solutions is Deputy. It is a ready-made solution that lets you easily monitor performance and productivity of your business. Employees can schedule tasks, communicate with each other or specialists from other departments, monitor live balances, send work related questions or requests, and monitor real productivity of each employee.
Image source: Deputy
We have also discovered one video that shows some more great HR solutions that can inspire you to build your own, maybe even better one. So hurry up and check out the video below:
How to develop your own HR management software
Custom development of HR software is a holistic and complex process that requires a team of real professionals. Your future project will go through several key stages before it is all set and ready for active use. Whatever kind of HR tool you are developing, first of all you will need to find a developers team that includes the following specialists:
- Business Analyst;
- Server Administration;
- Designer;
- HTML/CSS Developers;
- Back-end Developers;
- Manual/Automated QA Engineers;
- Scrum Master.
By now you may be wondering what factors you should consider when choosing your development partner. In our opinion, the main factor is the overall expertise and experience in building HR tools of a kind that you need. There are so many good software development companies, however, not all of them can build a high-quality HR solution from scratch. So it is better to choose a team that works with similar projects and knows all possible risks and pitfalls as well as how to mitigate them.
Let’s take our team. For more than 10 years in business, Altamira developers have built dozens of HR tools for different companies. For example, we have built:
- A SaaS HR management system for businesses,
- A platform for recruitment cooperation,
- Several job boards and job search platforms;
- Tools for onboarding and corporate education;
- Mobile applications for employee management;
- Apps for employee experience management;
- Web systems for performance review and many more.
We’ve gained a vast amount of experience developing various solutions that now we are well equipped and can surely build your HR tools way faster and better than any other team.
HRMS Development Life Cycle
We’ve already mentioned that developing such a solution includes several steps, and the main ones are:
How much does custom development cost?
The final price of custom HR software will depend on its type, desired feature set, and overall complexity of work. We can say that the approximate development price of such HR tools as job boards and SaaS HR management platforms is $40,000 – $60,000. This may seem very pricey, however custom development cannot be cheap. After all, you are building a solution from scratch, and it will be fully adapted to your business and seamlessly integrated into its environment.
Based on our experience, we created a table with prices and development hours for you. By taking a look at it you can understand what it takes to build your own HR software:
| Stage | Dev Hours | Dev Cost |
| Specifications | 132 h | $3960 |
| Design | 127 h | $2794 |
| HTMLCSS | 120 h | $2160 |
| JS Development | 239 h | $7170 |
| PHP Development | 468 h | $14040 |
| Manual Testing | 183 h | $3660 |
| Automated Testing | 148 h | $3996 |
| Admin | 34 h | $748 |
| Scrum Master | 340 h | $8160 |
The total cost is $46,688 and 1791 h. If the budget that you are willing to spend on the development of your HR solution is tight, you should not give up the idea of custom development. There is one great option called MVP that will let you build a basic version of the desired solution from scratch and then keep investing in it and improving it with time as per the availability of resources for the project.
MVP will cost you less and yet it will be better than using a ready-made solution (that may lack some crucial features or integrations and not be flexible enough for your company).
FAQ
To wrap it up
Sooner or later every company grows and starts experiencing issues with effective team scaling. So it is better to address all challenges ahead of time and start using business automation tools such as HR solutions. They can improve so many processes related to employee searching, hiring and onboarding. And they can also make the corporate life of your HR managers easier and more productive.
Why waste time on routine and repetitive operations, when a smart HR tool can do everything for you? The time spent on attempts to manually qualify candidates, track their performance and progress can be used for better purposes. After all, the solutions such as job boards, employee management systems, performance review software are built to save you time, money and stress. It’s never too late to reconsider your approach to hiring and nurturing your team members and improve those processes by means of effective automation.
