If you’re looking at global expansion, whether it’s opening new branches, or simply onboarding a more globalized workforce, then your Human Resources solutions are going to become more important than ever. Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) offer you a software-based solution to keeping HR central but serving a workforce that’s spread across the globe. Today we take a look at what you should know about HRIS and how to use them well.

The Globalized Workforce
Both remote and hybrid work has become more and more common throughout workplaces. Many think of the post-COVID work-from-home solution when we talk about decentralized workforces, and that’s certainly one way in which it manifests, but there are many others.

Alongside working with people who may reside in-state to your business, but not come into a centralized office, remote work also allows you to hire talent throughout the country and the world. For smaller companies, you may even be directly outsourcing ‘departments’ like accounting services, customer service, and so on.

This offers you a superlative chance to compete with larger entities, attract the talent you need, and onboard staff directly in areas you work without the expense of satellite offices. However, it’s important to consider company cohesion when employing a remote workforce- and nowhere will this be more important than in HR matters.

What Is A HRIS?
Human Resources Information Systems, or HRIS, is a software-based solution to making HR tasks easier across workforces that don’t all occupy the same place of work. They typically work in the cloud, allowing automation of certain HR functions and manual entry of basic tasks. They also allow you to create a single hub for all employees to access critical resources like handbooks, forms, and employment policies. Good HRIS are also scalable, meaning you can add to and customize them as your organization grows. This also allows you to set them up in line with your values and mission over time. Therfore choosing the right global HRIS system, is essential.

What’s Wrong With Fragmented HR Policies?
You may be wondering what would make a centralized, cloud-based system preferable to having individual satellite HR departments. We will look at the specific benefits of HRIS in a moment. However, let’s first look at why decentralized HR is never a wise idea.

Firstly, it inevitably means more staffing, and accompanying costs. For some organizations, this is a negligible consideration, but for smaller firms, it can be a burden it gets heavy to carry. More importantly, it can be both confusing and demoralizing for staff. You easily fall into situations where one branch or office becomes known as the ‘good’ place to work, and others suffer a reputation hit, simply because there is no centralized control of what’s being enacted and enforced. The last thing you need is to lose valued staff because they hate one HR system in one office that doesn’t work in compliance with your overall standards. And this gets very tough to regulate at distance.

Lastly, but also still very important, it becomes a lot easier to suffer a breach of sensitive data, be it company confidential information, client information, or for your staff, if you have ‘too many chefs’ working in the HR pool.

What Are the Benefits of HRIS?
Besides helping you clamp down on these risks, what benefits will a good HRIS bring you?

• Easy Compliance Means Better Compliance

When working across borders, you are working in different regulatory environments, too. Employees in each location need guidance on local tax, social security, and benefits administration. Good HRIS will come with this inbuilt, and the information is simple for staff to access. They should also automate filing many of these forms, as well as your reporting, and keep human error to a minimum. As always, the easier compliance is, the better people work within it.

• Streamlined Process

Efficiency should be the hallmark of every HRIS. They make managing your HR duties nearly paperless, efficient, and time-friendly. You can even automate specific HR reminders, something particularly helpful for managing tax compliance across borders. 

You can also leverage this system to help you stay on top of country-specific issues like public holidays and mandatory time off for workers. There’s no point in clogging your system sending Independence Day reminders to your Australian staff, or forgetting that they are mandated Australia Day (in January) as a paid time off and their office will be shut even as you work hard.

• Streamlined Reporting

Hand in hand with this easier compliance comes easier reporting. This helps you make sure you can access data you need at your fingertips, as well as making sure different payroll and tax information, and different currencies don’t become a reason you run afoul of local government regulation.

Your HRIS system should be able to centralize reports for use in-house, too. This includes accommodating data over multiple currencies and formats, so you can always efficiently analyze the state of your business and make smart, data-based decisions for the future. You can even use it to track employee skill sets and know when you have the talent you need in-house already. Having one streamlined data repository makes the day-to-day running of your company a breeze.

• Ease of Globalization

For companies crossing global, not state, borders, this ability to allow for independent input, but unite it into a cohesive whole, becomes even more critical. Is your Texan director able to distinguish what counts as government-approved ID documents for your South African legal expert’s tax matters? Probably not! But with the automated processes of a good HRIS, you can allow the employee to upload this critical data directly, following the HRIS prompts. This makes onboarding simple, no matter where in the world you work and gives you one dashboard to access all employee data. Fully secured, of course, and not vulnerable to unapproved eyes or cyberattack.

HRIS systems help businesses with decentralized workforces, especially those operating over state and country borders, to smooth and simplify HR management tasks through smart automation and centralized tracking of important data. They also provided a unified, equitable, and fair HR system your employees know they can trust.