At what point should a company consider getting technology for HR?

The question maybe should be - how to merge technology and processes in order to meet business goals. HR Technology adds value when you have clear objectives and find the right technology for those objectives that matches your business capabilities. I just completed on a 6 month project to "re-engineer" a system that was initially deployed with unclear objectives, roles/responsbilities and processes -and the system was only 3 years old!

If your HR team is spending too much time on transactions and not partnering with the business to meet business goals, it may be time to look at your processes and researching technology that could help you focus time on the important aspects that drive value.

An organization should consider getting HR technology after they have crafted their HR strategy. Too many companies purchase HR technology without ever thinking through how it should enable the HR processes, thus buying something that does not meet their expectations, let alone their requirements.

There is no one "right" answer to this question. As someone who has implemented/installed a lot of HR technology, I would offer the following comments:

1) If your being asked to cut X% of your HR budget, look into technology to pick up the slack, reduce transactional processing, and enable a RIF, while keeping HR up and running

2) Do it now--As a forward looking HR Mgr/Dir/VP, you should always know what your costs are as well as what cost-reducing Best Practices might apply to your organization. So you should build a business case based on analysis to determine whether you should look at technology, and if so which solutions are viable for your company. Cost savings will determine your direction and help to determine when would be a good time to implement a solution. For example, your company is looking to double its employee population within the next 18 mos. Your analysis might show that once you reach 1000 employees it is cheaper to install technology for transactional processing. So now you can plan/budget for it in the months ahead.

3) If you have more than 1 HR staff for each 100 people in your workforce, it may be time to investigate automation (and reduce HR headcount)

4) If during these difficult economic times you are being asked to "do ALOT more with less", it's probably time for technology.

There are other niche situations as well and the above is a good start. Further Qs? Contact me at kmjanas@gmail.com

By technology I presume you are referring to IT. Thanks to SaaS HR applications have become affordable - in my view these can be taken as soon as there is a business case - or in other words there is a positive ROI.

But it has a lot to do with the priority of the management and their vision. There are 15 employee companies also using HR apps and at the same time I have seen 200 employee companies managing with emails and excel.

Regards