Embracing New Technology: Streamlining Your HR Integration 

By Lisa May

HR professionals operate on information. If the processes don’t let information flow to and from HR, there will be issues. 

This fact, though hard to swallow, is why there are so many software systems geared toward making HRs life easier and elevating the candidate experience. 

Finding the right software stack for your HR team’s processes is vital to long-term success. A 2020 survey from KPMG found that 3 in 5 HR leaders believe if the HR function doesn’t modernize its approach, it may become irrelevant. 

Companies that aren’t proactively researching and investing in solutions that streamline and automate the HR process are sabotaging their efforts, risking their information, and causing more work for their team.

Let’s look at how integrations benefit organizations, the downsides of implementation, and how to create an easier way to access the ones you need. 

How Do Integrations Benefit the Company?

Putting a high-performing integration stack to work has far-reaching advantages for the company, HR team, job candidates, and employees.

• Decrease manual processes. Automating tedious, repetitive tasks can save time in everyone’s day. Using integrations, with functions such as drag-and-drop and auto-population, can decrease human data entry errors that cause big headaches, too. 
• Keep all information on a single platform. Instead of jumping in and out of systems and trying to find candidate and employee information, integrations make it possible for users to seamlessly organize and access information. 
• Improve the candidate and employee experience. Losing, failing to share, and erroneously filing important candidate and employee information is frustrating and, frankly, makes your company look bad. Integrations make tasks like onboarding run smoothly and flawlessly for the employee. They’ll appreciate that. 

Downsides of Adopting HR Integrations

Looking at the rewarding benefits integrations offer, you may be thinking “sign me up!”. Unfortunately, HR hasn’t been able to just flip a switch and turn integrations on without issue. Implementing integrations can be challenging for several reasons. 

• The process is time-consuming. Adding tools to your HR software stack takes planning, preparation, involving key stakeholders, dealing with snags, testing, and training. Every step takes time away from other projects and initiatives. 
• Integrations can get expensive. While a couple of integrations may not break the bank, some companies need a network of tools to keep their HR projects organized and efficient. Integrating each one can strain budgets and sap resources from other crucial company investments. Spend too much, and you negate any savings the integrations offer. 
• Adding them can be complicated. New technology always works perfectly the first time. Right? We wish! Complex integrations that require in-depth setup and execution can run into frustrating glitches and snags. These obstacles can cause the integration to get stuck and take longer than expected. Integration problems can cause gridlock and pull team members away from other essential duties.

Are Integrations Worth It?

It’s true there can be issues with implementing integrations that can be frustrating and time-consuming for HR and IT. However, HR shouldn’t give up on streamlining its processes and making it easier to access information. 

By carefully researching potential software tool additions, companies can proactively alleviate some of the biggest implementation issues and roadblocks by:

• Choosing tools that seamlessly integrate.
• Finding tools that perform multiple functions, which keeps a lid on the number of integrations needed.
• Using an easier way to integrate your software pieces. 

Making Integration Adoption Faster and Easier by Embracing Extensions

A new way of taking advantage of multiple helpful HR tools without the implementation headaches is by using extensions. An extension can:

• Connect your HR cloud. Extensions allow HR professionals to connect the tools they already use, and the ones they want to add, without having to implement them one by one. It’s a plug-and-play strategy that makes it easy. 
• Offer access to dozens, or hundreds, of software tools. Open up a new world of potential solutions that will streamline your HR workflows, manage projects, and facilitate candidate onboarding. Extensions have already done the legwork; your company benefits from the ease of use. 
• Decrease implementation time, cost, and headaches. An extension gives HR the ability to quickly take advantage of valuable tools without a lengthy implementation time. In addition, there aren’t expensive setup costs or requirements. Many extensions are cost-effective and only require a Google Chrome browser to work immediately. 

HR professionals know the urgency involved in maintaining a high-performing, cohesive network of tools to help manage candidate and employee information. Software solutions will only become more essential as the market moves quickly toward technological solutions to increase productivity, decrease errors, maintain security, and elevate the employee experience. The HR team should prepare for adding new software tools to their current platforms and proactively find ways to decrease implementation time and headaches.