Outsourcing HR? What's Right for Small Businesses?

Running a small business presents both its opportunities and challenges. Whether your business is a vitamin or painkiller, your business can create real value in your customers’ lives. If that value is substantial, you and your colleagues will be handsomely rewarded.

That said, any business owner would note that there are challenges to running and scaling a small business. The most obvious are things like business development, recruiting, and developing a product or service that customers love. But along with these challenges are several underrated, yet real challenges. While they may not be at the top of mind, these challenges can create massive headaches and make your company less efficient.

One of those challenges centers on HR software. Finding and using high-quality HR software is vital for any business. That being said, it can be difficult to find great HR software that is within your budget. It is for this reason that we want to share some of our favorite HR software solutions. Whether you just started your small business or have been running it for some time, these HR solutions are feature-rich, easy to use, and affordable.

Why HR Software is So Important

Before discussing these solutions, however, it is important to discuss why HR software is so important. After all, you are likely bombarded with pitches from all kinds of vendors who are trying to sell you the latest and greatest software. If you are someone who isn’t comfortable with technology, the entire process can seem daunting.

Having said this, HR software can provide a wealth of benefits to your small business.

For instance, HR software makes you and your team more productive. You can be absolutely certain that all of your employees’ data is stored in one central location. Instead of needing to go through emails, databases, cloud services, or even paper, you can access everything you need in your HR software. You can do everything from keeping track of employee absences to ensuring that your employees get paid on time.

HR software can not only make your team more productive. It can go a long way in helping your company bring on new talent. The best HR software lets you track, find, and evaluate the best available talent on the market today. Not only can you find the best possible candidate, but you can manage your search in an extremely organized way. You can create the best possible impression for the candidates that you don’t select, which helps you attract even more talent in the future.

Finally, HR software is so important because it offers security. You can complete all necessary HR tasks in a safe and secure environment. Instead of keeping sensitive employee files locked in a cabinet, you can rely on your HR software to safeguard sensitive employee information.

These are just some of the benefits that you can get from HR software. There are many more. The bottom line? HR software can automate many HR processes, give you granular insights into your employees’ behavior, and help you become a more efficient organization.

Outstanding HR Software

With this understanding in mind, let’s talk about some great HR software.

When selecting your HR software, you’ll want to find an HR software solution that comes with flexible, yet powerful human resource modules. They should be easy to implement and effortless to manage. Yet to find the best possible HR software for your company, it’s important to consider your company’s wants and needs. What works for your company may not work for one of your peers (or vice versa). Therefore, make sure that you are finding an HR software solution that speaks to your specific objectives.

While there are many different HR software solutions out there, we are going to talk about three. They are BambooHR, ThinkHR, and HRDirect.

BambooHR

BambooHR is an outstanding piece of HR software. It can be your most trusted tool in managing virtually any HR task at your company.

BambooHR characterizes itself as “HR software with heart.” Moreover, BambooHR is focused on people over processes. Instead of spending hours upon hours on setting up and monitoring HR processes, you can spend more of your time on your team. The software provides value throughout the entire employee life cycle. This includes things like hiring, onboarding, preparing compensation, and building your culture.

In terms of hiring, BambooHR offers a modern tracking system. You can easily see the talent that is interested in your open positions so that you can efficiently complete the hiring process. BambooHR also provides a thorough onboarding suite so that your new hires can spend less time on forms and more time getting to know your company. As for compensation, BambooHR makes it seamless to pay your employees. Finally, culture is important to BambooHR, as the company offers sophisticated tools to measure employee engagement.

When looking at the price, you can see that BambooHR is affordable. The standard cost for BambooHR’s Quick Start is $299 and then $99 per month. This plan is for companies that have under 12 employees. This is a compelling plan, as BambooHR offers software training to both employers and employees.

Ultimately, we like BambooHR for these reasons and the fact that they put equal weight on software. They also provide systems that can improve company culture and are rated #1 by Google.

ThinkHR

ThinkHR is another HR software that can help you with many of your HR needs. Specifically, ThinkHR’s risk management tools give you and your employees the tools and guidance needed to manage day-to-day people risks.

ThinkHR offers an “essential toolkit” that is made up of content, technology, and live advisors. Working with ThinkHR, your small business can get up-to-date and accurate compliance content, along with critical deployment technologies. According to the company, ThinkHR serves more than 300,000 businesses.

That being said, one of the negatives is that the price is not available unless you complete a 45-minute demo. Also, the company only works with distributors like brokers, PEOs, and accountants. ThinkHR does help with organizing data, onboarding and offboarding, and provides training for employers and employees.

HRDirect

Finally, there is HRDirect. HRDirect is another company that creates great HR software. The company categorizes its tools into three buckets: employer compliance, workplace management, and employee engagement. With HR Direct, you can easily access things like HR forms, labor law posters, employee attendance tracking, and more.

HRDirect offers expansive HR help. Whether you are looking for OSHA compliance, payroll and performance tools, or even simple onboarding tools, you can find them here. Unfortunately, however, this company tends to offer more analog tools than comprehensive software. Further, as you can see on its website, these tools are purchased a la carte.

The Verdict

Ultimately, these are three great HR software tools. They can help you address nearly every HR task and can make your life dramatically easier. But in the end, BambooHR is our top choice. We believe that it has the most relevant and easy-to-use HR tools at the lowest price. While you will need to evaluate your personal goals or objectives, we believe that you’ll find BambooHR to be the best option in this crowded marketplace.

If you would like to learn more about how BambooHR can help your business, click here.