It’s a rare CFO in today’s world who hasn’t gained a working familiarity with the financial and operational systems that make his or her company go. But even though human-resources technology tools are just as prevalent, are vital to organizational success and can be significantly costly, any particular CFO or other finance executive is far less likely to be up to speed on them.
To finance folks, human-capital-management systems are often subject to the same mind-set they apply to everything else that’s HR-related: it’s someone else’s concern. But if you rubber-stamp the sign-off on purchases of such tool, you’ll be complicit when they don’t perform as advertised, break down or for some other reason don’t help accomplish goals as they’re meant to.
This package of articles is intended to give finance executives the perspectives they’ll need to make reasonably confident decisions on HR technology. The articles are vendor-agnostic. That is, they don’t aim to tell you which vendor or product is best for you. Rather, their purpose is to reveal the kinds of thought processes and considerations that will lead to the correct decisions.
• Why Upgrade Your HR Systems?
CFOs may not be experts in either HR or technology, but they should know enough to sign off confidently on a buying decision.
• What Kind of HR Automation Do You Need?
Questions abound: A big system or a collection of stand-alone modules? How much integration is enough? How many bells and whistles are too many?
• Making a Mess of People-System Purchases
Committing any of these mistakes could doom your company to a painful experience with human-capital-management technology.
• HR Tech Vendors: Who’s Out There?
Use this guide to tell the players apart from one another.
• Anatomy of a Buying Decision
A CFO seeks and finds an HR technology solution to address some very-specific needs.