The top 7 benefits of an HRIS for your organization

What could you do with ten extra hours a week? That’s the average time businesses save when they switch to a human resources information system (HRIS), and that’s far from the only benefit. (1)

As the backbone of a modern, efficient HR system, an HRIS boosts productivity, reduces your workload and the risk of human error, and can save thousands in expenses per year.

Introducing a new HRIS system can be overwhelming, so it might feel easier to stick to the messy mix of tools you know rather than jump to a more efficient system. But one study found that companies spend an average of 16 weeks selecting an HRIS (2)! Nobody has time for that — least of all you. And as business costs rise and professionals crave a better employee experience, the question is less about why you need an HRIS and more about how an HRIS can work for you. 

That’s why we’ve laid out the top seven benefits of an HRIS in this post: so you can make an informed switch that’s right for your organization and feel confident that it’s the best choice. Let’s take a look.

1. Academy to Innovate HR, 2024
2. Softwarepath, 2022

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Why is having an HRIS important?

An HRIS is important for your company as it saves time and money while simplifying admin tasks and workflows, boosting productivity, driving results, helping managers, maximizing security, and ensuring legal compliance.

The advantages of implementing an HRIS within your organization are clear. Doing so:

• Gives you back time — Think intelligent automations for routine tasks like payroll processing and performance evaluations.
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• Saves you thousands — You’ll pay for fewer tools, as you’ll get much of what you need to run your business within one platform. 
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• Reduces human error — Unify all data in a single digital place, generate insights across the employee lifecycle, and improve recordkeeping.
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• Boosts productivity — Work more efficiently with streamlined workflows and transparent, customizable processes.
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• Improves the employee experience — Empower staff to manage their own data.
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• Ensures compliance — Reduce the risk of fraud and theft with safe data storage.
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• Helps you make better decisions — A great HRIS will help you sift through data to make well-informed decisions based on solid, real-time insights.

Once you switch to an HRIS — especially one like Leapsome’s, which you can easily integrate with the platform’s other people enablement tools for performance and engagement — you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it. 

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7 major benefits an HRIS will bring to your company

Now that you know why you need an HRIS, let’s dig into how HR systems work and the benefits they can offer.
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1. Build a central source of truth for employee data

You can’t overestimate the importance of unifying data in an HRIS.

Centralizing all of your people data in one place means you can automate processes throughout the entire employee lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding, minimizing errors, streamlining your workload, and saving hours compared to manually coordinating tasks.

‍Having a “single source of truth” (SSOT) also makes it easier to view trends, track analytics, and enrich data with AI insights; this allows you to share actionable insights with leadership and better understand your people. 

“Large organizations [typically] have seven or more different systems managing HR data,” HR research professional Josh Bersin revealed. “Bringing this data together for meaningful analysis has become mission-critical.”
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2. Streamline people processes & reduce workload

Consolidating your HR workflows with an HRIS can save you hours per week (and hundreds per year!) and streamline manual processes with specially designed automations. 

For example, you can expect a significant reduction in the time your HR team invests in payroll, compliance reporting, tax admin, people management, and benefits processing.

Automating these tasks reduces the risk of human error and frees up experienced team members from mundane, repetitive work — enabling them to work on more advanced projects that best use their skills and drive your business forward.

However, it’s important to remember that in seeking to simplify your tech stack, you shouldn’t strip back so much that employee happiness drops and performance suffers. Combining an HRIS with employee engagement tools means you can streamline processes without compromising on staff satisfaction or empowerment.
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3. Empower & enable managers

A good HRIS should make life easier for all users — particularly managers. Team leads are under a lot of pressure in the current world of work. Writing for the Harvard Business Review, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman declared that the “quiet quitting” phenomenon is more about interpersonal issues with managers than anything else. In addition, our 2023 Workforce Trends Report found that many professionals aren’t satisfied with the feedback and recognition they get from their managers.

An advanced HRIS like Leapsome streamlines administrative tasks and can also integrate key functions such as Goals to align your team, Learning for professional development, and Instant Feedback for people to share praise, allowing you to focus on what truly matters: leading and developing your teams.

Implementing a quality HRIS is a crucial step toward fostering good manager-employee relationships. In combination with other people-enablement tools, you can ensure a smooth onboarding and offboarding process, frameworks for 1:1 meetings and performance evaluations, and up-to-date employee data and records, as well as allowing for timely payroll and leave management.  

In addition, when managers save time on administrative tasks, they can work more efficiently, support their reports, and focus on building a successful working culture.
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4. Improve employee engagement & satisfaction

Our 2023 State of People Enablement Report uncovered a significant disconnect between how engaged employees are and how engaged HR thinks they are. A people-centered HRIS tool like Leapsome’s is one way to bridge this gap, as creating a better HR experience makes managing people management tasks easier and boosts engagement in the workplace. Giving team members the tools they need to manage their own admin, such as time off requests or working hours — all according to your customizations and in compliance with local regulations — empowers employees and helps build their trust and confidence in the organization.

‍When traditional HRIS features are combined with tools designed to enhance engagement (like Leapsome’s Instant Feedback, which encourages colleagues to exchange praise), your software’s impact is much stronger, and your employees feel a greater sense of connection. 

Additionally, using a tool to run pulse surveys is another tip for building engagement; this way, you can examine employee sentiment and pinpoint the most effective next steps for improving the workplace.
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5. Create a better employee experience for new hires

An HRIS designed with new colleagues and people managers in mind, like Leapsome, improves employee happiness and engagement throughout the employee journey, and supports performance management, also.

Unifying all people data in a single place increases visibility, enhances collaboration, and ensures a seamless experience for new hires.

‍This empowers new team members and simplifies HR processes, improving relations between employees, HR managers, and other teams. 

Recent hires who feel comfortable and confident in their new workplace also get better results and stay around longer: SHRM found that a best-in-class onboarding experience leads to increased retention, more productivity, higher engagement levels, and shorter time-to-productivity.
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6. Make effective, data-guided decisions

A powerful HRIS brings diverse data together so you can make the best possible decisions and drive performance. Solid, actionable insights are invaluable to managers and leaders, who can harness them to foster alignment across teams, prioritize goals and initiatives, and commit to meaningful change.

A big advantage to HRIS systems is the fact that you can use them to track a wide range of data and KPIs, including:

• Employee performance and potential
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• Absenteeism
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• Leadership effectiveness
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• Employee satisfaction
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• Company goals and OKRs

Having all this information at your fingertips also makes it simple to investigate what’s going well and what isn’t; this way, you can spend less time wondering where or how to take action and more time developing creative solutions and meaningful initiatives. 
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7. Enjoy better, easier compliance

Ensuring your business stays compliant with changing laws, security regulations, audit and tax requirements, and necessary staff qualifications can be a complex and never-ending task. However, doing so effectively is becoming more critical as countries expand their privacy legislation worldwide and businesses operate across borders.

Using an HRIS system to manage this kind of complex, time-intensive work means you can use effective monitoring systems, tracking tools, standardized reporting, and automatic reminders to ensure you check all the necessary boxes and keep away from legal complications. 

An HRIS like Leapsome’s enables you to combine these capabilities with accurate time tracking, ensuring compliance with local labor laws.
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The benefits of an HRIS: more than the sum of its parts

The advantages of using an HRIS are so significant that an estimated 73% of companies in the United States now use one. As we’ve seen, some of the benefits of a human resources information system are:

Unifying your data in a single source of truth

• Streamlining workflows
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• Reducing workload
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• Enriching the employee experience
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• Improving the manager experience
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• Helping people teams make well-informed, data-driven decisions
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• Improving compliance

Using a people enablement platform like Leapsome, which now includes core HR functions alongside our broad suite of people-enablement tools, will help your business reduce expenses and simplify software without sacrificing employee happiness or company culture.

Plus, we’re guessing you now have a few more answers to the question: What could you achieve with an extra 10 hours per week? That’s the power of an HRIS.
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People enablement 🤝 effective HR processes
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‍Leapsome’s holistic suite of tools unites the best of both worlds by unifying data, streamlining processes, and empowering employees.
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