Sooner or later your workforce and the human resources responsibilities that come with it will grow.

In order to save costs, according to ADP’s Ad Hoc Human Resource Management Study, 54% of small business owners handle employment matters on their own, even though this time would be better off invested in sales, new technology and actually running their business.

Considering the limited resources of small business, hiring a whole HR department won’t be the most practical solution for you. Instead, consider an HR software that acts as a human resources admin.

ADP indicated that HR software can save you up to a month of work in administrative HR tasks a year, while TeamLease reported HR software with attendance tracking increases productivity up to 45%. By successfully implementing an HR software, you will be able to actually run your business and take advantage of the many benefits HR software has to offer. Here are the top seven benefits:

Increase savings

A running business should watch out for overspending and reduce costs where possible. A study by The Hacket Group found that taking HR into a digital form reduces costs by 21% due to the software’s ability to multitask simultaneously and error-free. For instance, kiwiHR can store employee’s personal information, keep records of staff working hours, calculate overtime and available annual leave for you. Therefore, you will be able to save staffing expenses. With access to the HR software 24/7 from any device, space costs and some administrative fees can be scratched from the books.

Save time

As mentioned above, HR software reduces your administrative workload by allowing your staff to update their own personal data, request leave and record their working hours on their own. Accessing employee documents, timesheets and time-off records it’s only a matter of seconds with kiwiHR.

Make administrative HR pain-free

The true nightmare of HR really comes down to finding the information you are looking for where and when you need it. Not to mention the complicated spreadsheets and unorganised sensitive data, making administrative tasks time-consuming. Not surprisingly, a survey by Paychex found that 78% of HR leaders feel stressed at work. Put an end to the HR nightmare with kiwiHR’s centralised system in which all employees’ information is easily accessible.

Enhancing communication

A good HR software doesn’t have to be limited to just enhancing processes on this area, but also across the whole organisation. For instance, with the integrated document management system in kiwiHR, you can make important documents such as the company’s mission statement, corporate documents or tools and resources available to teams. Sit back and see how team communication and collaboration increases.

Improve employee retention

As Accenture reported previously, the cost of replacing an employee can be as high as 300% of their annual salary, which is why you should consider employee retention as essential for your business. In addition research by the ACRL found that companies with a meaningful onboarding program can retain up to 90% of new employees, which is why you should not overlook onboarding when buying HR software. With a Gartner’s study finding that more than three-quarters of employees expecting easier ways to complete routine tasks and Paychex’s survey results affirming 75% of HR managers say HR technology improves employee experience, the impact of implementing HR software in your organisation is out of the question.

Strengthen security

Keeping sensitive employee data and corporate documents scattered in-house, with insecure servers doesn’t only seem risky, but it also turns your small business into the perfect target for hackers. According to Statista, the average cost of a cyber attack in the UK is almost £1,000 on average for small businesses, whereas large business breaches cost an average of £9,260. By keeping the data in the cloud your chances of your information being compromised are drastically decreased and prevent you from losing a valuable amount of money.

Stay compliant

With regulations always changing and coming into effect and costly fines in failure to do so, staying compliant is important. Unfortunately, you only have so many hours a day. Managing employee records under the GDPR regulation can be as challenging as making sure you are aware of your employees’ holiday entitlements. It’s in these type of scenarios in which HR software will be your right hand to tackle all these matters and keep costly consequences away.

Clearly, HR software is fundamental for every small business. Embracing these new technologies will help you increase efficiency while increasing process transparency and saving time and money with optimised and error-free processes.

Reza Madjidi, co-founder of kiwiHR, is responsible for business development and sales.

Further reading on HR software

How to ensure that your HR software implementation is a success