Where there are employees, there is bound to be absence from work or leaves. Most enterprises offer a certain number of paid leaves that a worker is entitled to. Even though time off may sound like a simple concept there are several complications involved.

Federal laws like U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and state or union regulations often have conflicting or overlapping eligibility criteria for certain types of leaves. Businesses must carefully evaluate each request and process it accordingly to remain compliant.

The job of Absence and leave management software suites is to simplify compliance, centralize laws, seamlessly manage schedules and in the long run reduce costs.

Relevant Features:

• Calendar Management
• Automated Notifications
• Vacation Tracking
• Leave Requests & Fulfillment
• Team Calendars
• Payroll Integration
• Custom & Ad Hoc Reports

Applicant Tracking Software (ATS), also known as an Applicant Tracking System, is a software platform that semi-automates and supports the process of searching for likely candidates, interviewing them and documenting the paperwork and compliance related to the quest to bring talent onboard.

The allure of ATS lies in the fact that it can spare the HR department hundreds of man-hours spent handling administrative backlog. It makes the selection of candidates more unbiased and minimizes human errors like lack of follow up or poor scrutiny of resumes.

Replacing an employee can often cost up to 213% of the annual salary of the worker. An ATS fills the vacant position faster by casting a wider net and saves money.

Relevant Features:

• Prospect Database
• Job Boards & Job tracking
• CV / Resume Parsing
• CV/Resume Management
• Background Screening Management
• Reference Verification
• Integrated Collaboration Tools
• Interview Data
• Self Service Help Portal
• Talent Pipeline Visualization
• Social Media Integration

Cash and financial incentives are no longer the sole or the most effective motivator of enterprise talent. Most organizations are looking to provide their employees with something extra so that they can retain the edge over competitors. Benefits (including Fringe Benefits) are additional perks like medical insurance, pension plans, individual retirement accounts (IRAs), vacation time, sick time, and maternity leave offered to workers over and above the base pay.

A Benefits Administration System offers enterprises a central platform from which the perks of both full time and contract based employees can be managed. It allows workers self-service and helps them enroll online for important plans like 401(k) by presenting them with the most robust options. A transparent Benefits Administration System not only takes away the burden of administrative tasks from the HR department, it also fosters a sense of well-being in workforce.

Relevant Features:

• Employee Profile
• Employer Benefits
• Retiree Module
• Broker Management Module
• Deductions Control
• Disability Insurance Management
• Health Insurance Management
• HIPAA Security Compliance
• Retirement Plan Administration
• Self Service Help Portal
• Vacation Tracking (Paid Time Off)

Employee compensation is one of the largest enterprise expenses over which a business has direct control. Even though base pay is augmented by perks (as discussed in the Benefits Administration System bucket), financial compensation is still a motivator and an aspect of nurturing talent that can’t be ignored. Bonuses and cash incentives are almost always a part of the compensation management system.

A comp solution is mainly focused on structuring pay grades or slots, determining criteria (including job description accountabilities and actual performance) based on which employees can be assigned pay slots, compliance with Department of Labor rules and the Fair Pay Act and justifying ROI of the compensation disbursed by correlating expense with the revenue generated by the employees.

Relevant Features:

• Compensation Planning
• Compensation Processing
• Compensation Reports
• Bonus Processing
• Budget Administration
• Compensation Analysis
• Reporting and Analytics
• Compensation Federal Compliance module

Providing excellent customer service is the characteristic of talent that is satisfied in its work environment. Public and private recognition or the acknowledgement of exceptional performance is one strategy through which employee disengagement is countered.

Recognition software solutions keep track of targets assigned to workers by the management, gather survey results from clients, peers and superiors to gauge the competence and temperament of employees, notify team leaders or managers of jobs done well and provide rewards like the option to choose from online gift stores and more generic public newsfeed mentions based on the magnitude of the wins secured.

Relevant Features:

• eCards Library
• Employee Goal Management
• Employee Mention Management
• Employee Nominations Employee Rewards Database
• Employee Rewards Points Management
• Leaderboards / Activity Monitoring
• Manager-to-Peer Recognition System
• Peer-to-Peer Recognition Management
• Public / Social Recognition

According to Gallup almost 70% of the US workforce is disengaged. Employees do not take an active interest in their tasks, aren’t challenged enough, do not see opportunities to grow and are eventually attracted to greener pastures. Disengagement is THE leading cause of employee churn.

While compensation and benefit administration solutions ensure that workers are paid according to their performance and their basic rights are respected, an employee engagement platform reinforces the value of employment with the business in question.

It allows workers to keep track of the rewards (both cash and kind) they receive, presents non-financial perks like daycare and healthcare programs in terms of monetary value, highlights self and peer achievements and compiles feedback for growth and improvement.

In short engagement software solutions encompass everything offered by recognition programs but with the more expansive intent of making the workforce happy with the compensation, the incentives and the work culture.

Relevant Features:

• Cultural Positioning
• Employee / Employer Surveys
• Employee Achievement Awards
• Employee Feedback Management
• Employee Help Guides
• Employee Positioning
• Employee Recognition Management
• Fundraising Event Management
• Health / Wellness Programs & Resources

69% of employees who go through a structured and intuitive onboarding program are likely to stay on at a company for more than three years. Given the abysmal state of retention in most enterprises, businesses are looking to understand effective onboarding and automate it so that the managers and the HR department aren’t saddled with extra work.

This is where an onboarding software solution is useful.

It divides onboarding related tasks into two categories – Administrative & Human. Administrative to-dos include filling out paperwork, background checks, digital signature set-up and work station set-up. Human to-dos are concerned with the ability of the new recruit to understand the job, fit in with the culture and the people and get to optimal productivity as fast as possible. The onboarding system not only automates the flow of these jobs, keeping track of what is done and what is not, it may also have tools to manage collaboration, training and learning.

Relevant Features:

• Task Flow Management
• e-Signature / Digital Signature
• E-Verify / I-9 Verification Forms Employee Electronic Forms
• Employee Handbook
• Tax Forms Info
• Job Description Data Management
• Employee database
• Orientation Management
• Employee feedback management
• Walkthrough creation
• Chatbots assistance
• Self-service portal
• Collaboration & introduction tools
• Customizable reporting

Payroll software is often the most unglamorous aspect of HR centric solutions. But ask the decision makers and the top stakeholders and they place an inordinate amount of importance on this suite. Why is it so? Payroll is an all-encompassing term that takes into account the administrative and often mundane tasks like calculating base pay or wage of employees, accessing data from time tracking and attendance software solutions to ascertain paid time off and over-time, calculating withholdings, printing checks, facilitating direct deposits, generating tax forms and reports, adding funds to 401(k) saving plans and reconciling bonuses and other cash incentives which allow an enterprise to disburse compensation in a timely and legally compliant manner.

If compensation planning ensures that employees are rewarded for their hard work and contributions without letting biases and factors like favoritism impact the process, payroll solutions follow the guidelines set by comp management and automate the myriad tasks so that businesses can focus on improving their revenue.

One small misstep or delay in wage deposit or tax submission can lead to fines and jail time for employers. Most HR lawsuits revolve around compensation and payroll.

Using a robust suite of payroll features brings much needed respite to organizations and lets both the stakeholders and the workforce operate on grounds of trust.

Relevant Features:

• 401(k) Monitoring
• Check Printing Tool
• Direct Deposit Database and management
• Employee Benefits Management
• Multiple Country Transactions/ Multi-Currency Management
• Multiple State Insurance
• Payroll Deductions Management
• Salaries
• Expense Tracking
• Invoicing Tool
• General Ledger Management
• Timesheets
• Self Service Help Portal
• Tax Manager
• Vacation / Leave Monitoring
• W-2 Processing Wage Garnishment Process
• Customizable Reporting

According to HR and business experts differentiation on the basis of technology is on its last legs. Talent is the last frontier where setting a business apart is concerned. The employees who are unique individuals with unique skill-sets work within the framework of the company culture to produce results in a way that can’t be duplicated by competitors. Everything else is fair game!

Add to it the fact that the Baby Boomer exodus is leaving many C level positions vacant which will have to be filled by relatively under-experienced Millennials and you have a very compelling reason to invest in performance and appraisal management solutions. The industry is valued at 5 billion dollars and every year 67% more organizations deploy talent and performance management suites.

Performance management and appraisal software is responsible for making explicit the expectations that largely stay implicit thereby harming manager-employee relationships. Performance management is not a one-off task – it needs to be woven into the fabric of an organization’s culture for continuous feedback and improvement. This is why using a software with dedicated features enables managers to set realistic goals for workers, monitor and mark progress, share real time feedback in a supportive setting, schedule and never miss appraisals, recognize achievements and boost morale by sharing the kudos with an engaged community of co-workers.

Relevant Features:

• 360 Degree Employee Feedback
• Ad Hoc Assessments
• Appraisal History Tracking
• Goal Setting Feature
• Cascading Goals Management
• Competency Monitoring
• Customized Rating Scales
• Customized Review Forms
• Individual Development Planning
• Peer Appraisals Management
• Review Cycle Monitoring
• Review Forms
• Weighted Performance Assessment
• Customizable reports & Visual Analytics

Pre-employment tests are the cognitive, emotional, temperamental and domain specific aptitude tests that candidates who are being considered for a position are subjected to so that the employer can reliably gauge how the individual will handle the demands of the position in a real life setting.

According to the American Management Association  90% of companies are unlikely to hire workers who perform poorly on these pre-employment assessment tests.

So how do pre-employment testing software suites figure in the equation?

Pre-employment tests add one more stage of evaluation to the recruitment process. It entails more paperwork. These tests are often challenged in courts and might end up violating the Equal Employment Opportunity mandates if not conducted correctly.

A software solution is a life-saver in this regard. It automates the interaction with the candidates, the actual serving of the test and the scoring algorithm. It updates itself based on changing recruitment laws. And it standardizes the results better than any human supervisor improving the validity of the test.

Relevant Features:

• Workflow Management
• Aptitude Testing
• Candidate Comparison
• Candidate Management
• Customizable Tests
• Online Testing
• Personality Testing
• Real Time Reporting
• Skill Testing
• Test Authoring

The market today is candidate driven. This declaration isn’t conjecture. According to MRINetwork, 86% of recruiters and 62% of employers concur with the sentiment. Recruiters also state that a severe lack of skilled candidates often brings their recruitment drives to a naught.

The bottom-line is prospective employees have the leisure to pick and choose opportunities and they like customers consider everything from the first interaction with the organization to the fruitfulness of the interview to gauge a potential fit with their skills and preferences.

Recruitment software solutions are a comprehensive tool to manage the chaos and overwhelm that come with selecting an individual who will be able to contribute to the company in a tangible way and will justify the onboarding and training costs by sticking around for a while. A recruitment effort gone wrong is an important reason for churn.

In general recruitment platforms centralize key tasks like job description creation based on Positional Analysis Questionnaires, scrutiny of existing candidate pipelines for a potential match, publishing requirements to social channels and job boards, resume management and tracking, candidate management, background screening and in some cases even the critical onboarding giving recruiters a much needed break from the logistics and administrative details to focus on hiring quality talent.

Relevant Features:

• Job Boards & Job tracking
• Job Requisition
• Background Screening
• Candidate Management
• Collaboration Tools
• Interview Management modules
• Pre-employment testing
• Onboarding module
• Reference Checking
• Resume Parsing
• Resume Search
• Self Service Portal
• Report creation
• Talent Pipeline Visualization
• Social Media Integration
• Prospect Database

The quality of leadership in a company defines the future and the profitability of the organization. Succession Planning is a term that is not as ubiquitous as Human Resource or even Performance Management. But it is a visionary take on employee retention that can be worth its weight in gold.

Often considered to be part of a comprehensive Performance Management suite, succession planning tools aim to identify valuable employees and develop latent skills which might become an asset to the company and help the candidate move up the corporate ladder. Such suites also mark positions that might become vacant through retirement or attrition and map the duties to a pipeline of hopefuls who may be up for the challenge. Last but not the least they provide tailored coaching and training to high potential talent so that the future leaders of the business stay within the organization instead of becoming a victim of churn.

All in all succession planning software solutions give hope of progress to worthy candidates, eliminate favoritism and subjective opinion from promotions and future proof the business.

Relevant Features:

• “What If” Scenarios
• Career Development Management
• Company Organizational Charting
• Competency Scale Assessment
• Employee Data
• Employee Goal Management

What is talent? From the Human Resource perspective of an organization talent refers to the employees and workers who can successfully use their skills to produce desired results for the company in question.

Talent is what sets a business apart from its competitors because technology and pricing models can be duplicated. Talent Management Software seems very similar to Performance Management suites. But the difference lies in the lifecycle approach. Talent Management views employee interactions with an organization in a much more holistic way.

It looks to streamline and tune recruitment so that the right people can be hired for the perfect competency and cultural fit, performance appraisals and reviews so that workers know exactly what is needed of them and receive appreciation where it is due, learning and nurturing in an attempt to improve onboarding and growth opportunities and finally compensation so that everyone is paid fairly and in a transparent, compliant manner. In short talent management software solutions take the “hire to fire” approach focusing on productivity, profitability and retention.

Relevant Features:

• Appraisal history
• Career Development Management
• Employee Performance Analysis
• Employee Recruitment
• Employee profile
• Goal Setting Feature
• Job Description Data
• Onboarding Management
• Personnel Lifecycle
• Salaries
• Succession Planning Roadmap
• Talent Competency Management
• Training Management Tools

A good gauge of the productivity of an employee is an evaluation of the results achieved over the number of hours worked. In a sense organizations do pay workers for their time and the Federal and State governments of most countries take this seriously. The reason behind the emergence of time and attendance software solutions is three-folds.

Companies want to ensure that they follow the mandates of laws like the Overtime Rule and fringe benefit provisions like paid leave thereby protecting themselves from legal repercussions. They also want an accurate log of hours worked so that the compensation can be calculated without additional probing. And last but not the least businesses want to ascertain how employees are using their time and if it is the most effective way to hit the goals that are assigned to them.

According to the Aberdeen Group, 80% of best in class businesses automate time tracking and attendance. This is a no-brainer because a time-keeping system pays for itself in as little as a few months. It spares the HR department a tremendous load of administrative tasks especially if the suite integrates with Payroll and makes disbursal of compensation a matter of a few clicks.

Relevant Features:

• Auto Time Capture Tool
• Billable and Non-Billable Hours Tracking
• Invoice and Billing Software
• Mobile Time Tracker
• Multiple Billing Rate System
• Offline Time Tracker
• Online Time Tracker
• Overtime Tracking
• Time per Project Reports
• Tracking Expenses
• Vacation / Leave Monitoring
• Absence Monitoring
• Calendar Monitoring
• Employee Schedule Management
• Employee Timesheet Recording
• Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Tracking
• Self Service Help Portal

Organizations that encourage employees to hone existing skills and learn new ones do something fundamentally right. Trainings and certifications are the keys that help unlock the hidden potential of workers. This is the reason why businesses in the US spend over $150 billion improving the cognitive assets of their talent.

Employees who build abilities that serve different sectors of a business can energize multiple roles at the same time. Whole models of governance like Holacracy have come up around this possibility. Such workers do not feel stifled, bored or underappreciated. They get to leverage the entire spectrum of their potential and are generally more engaged than their peers.

Even instruction aimed at deepening the understanding of a particular area of expertise opens up new opportunities within the organization. Workers believe that with constant upgrades they can assume leadership roles instead of staying stagnant in their positions.

Most importantly learning centers and certifications logs maintain documentation of aptitude and performance. It is a different perspective which managers can tap to fill vacancies or push talent up the corporate ladder based on innate competencies.

Relevant Features:

• Academic / Education
• Asynchronous Learning
• Blended Learning
• Built-In Course Authoring
• Certification Management
• Classroom Management
• Gamification
• Learning Management (LMS)
• Mobile Learning
• Simulation
• Skills Tracking
• Social Learning
• Student Portal
• Synchronous Learning
• Testing / Assessments

In-person interviews are essential because they help recruiters and managers get a feel of the personality of the candidate. But video interview software suites are fast emerging as effective screening tools that complement this critical meeting. Through video interviews businesses allow potential recruits to answer questions from a pre-populated repository at their leisure and in their own time. These recorded sessions are then reviewed by panel members and important stakeholders to zero in on the few hopefuls who show the most promise. These individuals are invited to fly in or otherwise commute for the final round of negotiations.

Video interview software solutions value everyone’s time. With distributed and remote candidates complicating matters prospective workers don’t need to compromise convenience to catch the same time-zone as the interviewer and the company doesn’t have to spend money hauling people, who might eventually prove to be a poor fit, to the Head Office.

Relevant Features:

• Candidate Interface
• Interview Question Repository
• Interview Recording
• Invitations Management
• One-on-One Interview Videos
• Panel Interview Videos
• Practice Session Videos
• Scoring Management
• Video Archiving
• Virtual / Pre-Recorded Interview Videos

There is debate around the exact specifications of workforce management software suites. No two experts or vendors seem to concur.

In their simplest form workforce management tools allow companies to optimally utilize the labor that they own. It is less holistic than talent management which gives importance to the “human” aspect of HR assets taking into consideration the ease with which workers align with the company culture and their ultimate satisfaction with their role, compensation and growth opportunities.

Workforce management is simpler. The term originated in Call Centers and the focus is on determining the budget of projects, identifying employees with the time and the skill sets to attain the objectives of the assignments, proper scheduling of the labor available so that all ongoing efforts receive a fair share of the contributions of top talent and monitoring of skill gaps that warrant recruitment of fresh candidates or the training of existing employees.

Relevant Features:

• Budgeting & Forecasting Reports
• Call Center Management
• Employee Performance Analysis
• Labor Planning and projections
• Scheduling Solutions
• Shift Scheduling System
• Skills Monitoring
• Time and Attendance Database
• Variable Workforce Management
• Work Logs

Volunteers are individuals who commit their time and efforts to a non-profit cause of their own volition. Since such organizations are funded by donations and are always short on help, soliciting the support of people who care is an effective way to expand reach and do better work.

Volunteer Management suites give non-profits the ability to effectively deploy manpower according to the needs of the event or the occasion. Through the front end of such portals interested people can register as helpers. Organizers can keep track of the availability and capabilities of volunteers assigning the right individuals to the right locations for the maximum impact. Some options also come with volunteer recognition features to applaud and acknowledge the contributions of active individuals.

Relevant Features:

• Attendance Management
• Calendar Management
• Event Management
• Group Management
• Member Directory
• Membership Management
• Recognition Management
• Registration Management
• Scheduling
• Self Service Portal
• Volunteer Profiles

Human Services Software solutions are also known as case management software suites. They are specifically developed for agencies providing human services like income support, food stamps, insurance coverage for the financially afflicted and a plethora of other community based non-profit endeavors.

Through human service software platforms agents and cubicle workers can organize client information in an easily accessible format. They can sync data from the field and have the additions reflected almost instantaneously. Human services tools also allow the generation of custom reports to track client condition while maintaining discretion.

By streamlining processes, automating them and bringing transparency into dealings these features and functionalities make program planning and resource allocation more effective and stakeholders stay informed of how their influence and their funds are utilized to assist those in need.

Relevant Features:

• ALM Task Management
• Case Management System
• Document Control
• e-Signature / Digital Signature
• Invoice and Billing Software
• Reporting and Statistical Tools
• Scheduling Solutions

Businesses have the freedom to innovate, discover and think out of the box to boost profitability. Since commerce is the backbone of any nation, most governments try their best to provide the infrastructure that companies need to grow and thrive.

However in return there are certain rules and regulations that ventures have to follow to ensure minimal negative impact on the environment, respect for the constitutional rights of the citizens hired to work and alignment with the values of the host nation.

Compliance management software solutions organize and make available all the documentation about regulations that apply to a business so that risks can be actively avoided. They also provide “Compliance To-Do Wizards” or checklists that are tailored to be relevant to employees based on their roles and permissions so that each and every worker can toe the Federal and State mandate lines. Compliance management suites come with reminders and notifications to track critical requirements, survey templates to evaluate the current level of regulation awareness and most importantly action steps that must be taken if there is a lapse to mitigate legal repercussions.

Relevant Features:

• Audit Trail Management
• Controls Assessment
• Customs and Regulatory Compliance
• Document and Data Retention
• Document Control Environmental Standards Compliance
• FSLA Compliance
• Overtime Compliance
• HIPAA Compliance
• ISO Standards Management
• Risk Notification
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) Compliance Self-Assessment Tools

Human Resource Management Software (HRMS) is an umbrella term that encompasses many of the suites and platforms already discussed. It is a feature rich unit that is developed to manage and secure the data and talent of a company so that the stakeholders can focus on breaking new ground, improving products and creating a superior, sustainable business.

HRMS is supposed to automate the bulk of the processes involved in recruitment, onboarding, performance analysis, compensation and benefits management, time keeping and payroll so that employees can access data without searching multiple systems, understand their jobs, have the skills to shoulder the associated responsibilities and emerge as appreciating assets who might assume leadership roles.

Because human performance is inextricably intertwined with learning and inanimate resources, HRMS platforms often include Learning Management Systems (LMS) and they integrate with ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) suites for a more centralized approach, convenience and clarity.

Relevant Features:

• 360 Degree Employee Feedback
• Application Management
• Attendance Monitoring
• Career Development Management
• Compliance Document Management
• Employee Benefits Management
• Employee Performance Analysis
• Employee Profile
• Employee Recruitment
• Employee Timesheet Recording
• Expense Report
• Event tracking
• Onboarding Management
• Payroll Assessment
• Personnel Lifecycle
• Salaries
• Self Service Help Portal
• Succession Planning Roadmap
• Training Management Tools
• Travel Solutions
• Vacation / Leave Monitoring