Learn More About HR Case Management Software
What is HR Case Management Software?
HR case management software helps organizations manage employee relations through a ticketed system allowing them to solve employee problems quickly. It is best for questions, concerns, issues, incident reporting, and gathering suggestions to improve business processes. All in all, it's the cornerstone of HR service delivery.
One of its key functions is mitigating risk. Documenting incidents and leaving a clear audit trail helps protect companies from legal costs and fines for non-compliance. It helps in gathering data to create actionable insights by highlighting trends, pointing to potential problem areas, overseeing workflows, documenting and handling incidents, and thereby improving the employee experience.
What are the Common Features of HR Case Management Software?
Listed below are the core features of HR case management that help users file cases, access information, and create a smooth HR workflow:
Dashboard: At the center of everything is a comprehensive dashboard that allows users to see what needs to get done. It must be easy to configure based on the role or task.
Case management: At the center of all operations is the ability to create, send, manage, work on, and resolve HR cases. It automates the HR case management process and saves time. From onboarding to offboarding, it addresses the entire employee lifecycle by handling different case types. Like help desk software, most solutions use a ticketing system to easily track and record employee requests and suggestions. This helps establish HR case management best practices.
Here are the key case management functions to examine:
Case portal: As a central hub for the entire service center, the portal allows users to either see, manage, or work on cases. It’s the most important of all case management tools. Permissions are often role based, allowing employees the ability to simply see which HR workers have administrative access.
Service level agreement (SLA) management: Many departments have an SLA that lays out a deadline for resolving worker issues. An SLA manager allows users to track SLAs either on an individual basis or for the department on the whole. It’s essential to HR service management.
Incident management: When issues arise, it’s important to gather every detail and get the proper documentation. Organizations must be protected from liabilities, and incident management makes this possible. Having a secure system to report misconduct in the workplace is essential.
Audit trail: When managing important cases, especially those that relate to harassment, accidents, compliance issues, or even potential legal cases, it’s essential to know who was involved. By recording the actions of every user, it’s easy to track down everyone involved and make adjustments as needed. This is especially important when trying to maintain compliance.
Knowledge base: A knowledge base allows users to look up information rather than spending hours answering commonly asked questions. By ensuring it’s up to date, searchable, and well organized, users can help themselves when it comes to questions about HR policy. When everyone’s involved, HR initiatives thrive.
Email management: Administrators may be required to handle a huge caseload. Creating email templates is especially helpful for dealing with the same types of situations day in and day out. HR admins can use preset templates to communicate and resolve issues without leaving the program.
Collaboration: HR can route requests to other departments or tag them on cases that require collaboration. Questions about payroll can go to accounting, while help desk requests get sent to IT. Notifications make it possible to make deadlines.
Security: Features such as data encryption, role-based permission and access to certain controls or information, and anti-fraud measures help the organization keep cyber risks to a minimum.
What are the Benefits of HR Case Management Software?
Resolves employee issues: Fixing or even identifying complicated issues may make employees hesitant to come forward, especially if the process is difficult. HR case management software helps handle conflicts before they escalate, increasing employee retention. Standardized case management makes it easier to get the support necessary in the office.
Promotes better self service: It’s easy to overwhelm admin workers with the same questions. WIth proper knowledge management, users can search for commonly asked questions on the knowledge base, resolving small issues without taking up someone else’s time and resources. Or, in a case where an issue is quick to resolve, the standardization of case management streamlines HR processes.
Highlights workplace challenges: By tracking and logging information, it’s easy to generate reports and see where employees are getting caught up. Is there a particular piece of your tech stack that isn’t working well? Do employees consistently misunderstand the rules surrounding benefits or company policy? It’s easier to see these trends when it’s all laid out comprehensively. This allows team members to step up and innovate.
Rapid escalation: When serious issues arise, they can’t slip through the cracks. By giving users the ability to tag high alert issues, they can be plucked from the workflow and given the proper prioritization.
Improves HR efficiency: Above all, HR case management helps the department handle smaller issues quickly, allowing them to dedicate more time to problems that require abstract thinking and optimizing the workplace.
Who Uses HR Case Management Software?
HR representatives: As the main users of the software, HR representatives will primarily be tracking, managing, and solving cases. They may also be updating information on the knowledge base and using the incident reporting system to protect the company from liability.
Employees: Employees are the most important users in the system. Team members will be the ones submitting cases, asking questions, adding suggestions for the workplace, or reporting misconduct.
Interrelated teams: Sometimes, workers have questions that the administration can’t answer. Whether it’s a concern that needs to be reported to the facilities or maintenance staff or a question on payroll or accounting, other workers will need to collaborate and interact with the system.
Leadership: Whether it’s the HR department head or a member of the C-suite, the higher-ups need to see reports to understand how well the system is working, the effectiveness of the HR department on the whole, and any potential risk areas within the organization.
Software Related to HR Case Management Software
Related solutions that can be used together with HR case management software include:
Human resource management systems (HRMS) and human capital management (HCM) software: For organizations that use suites, it’s essential to ensure that every piece of tech gets along. This includes using HRMS & HCM software, or human resources information system (HRIS). Having the ability to export and share data helps keep an eye on the overall health of the company. Having the ability to seamlessly share case data ensures a more secure tech stack.
Knowledge base software: While this is a common feature in many HR case management apps, it’s still key to consider. If there’s a preexisting knowledge base software, users should try to understand how well the systems interact. When employees have to hunt for information in too many locations, they tend to give up.
HR compliance software: When it comes to tracking employee certifications, their longevity, and their expiration dates, HR compliance software is necessary to ensure an organization’s protection from legal and financial repercussions from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), or other industry regulations.
Onboarding software: New hires especially have a lot of questions. They’ll need quick access to important documents and extra support in the beginning.
Single sign-on (SSO) software: Users can cut down on potential weak access points by giving workers one place to access everything they need. If security is a serious concern, finding a compatible SSO software assuages many fears.
Performance management software: When tracking potential issues, having historical performance data provides the proper context in serious situations.
Challenges with HR Case Management Software
There are several challenges to consider when looking at HR case management software. A few of them include:
Implementation: Businesses must ensure that everyone from the CEO to the intern knows how to use this product. Having communication fail isn’t an option, especially when it comes to reporting misconduct. Users must also budget for training time. If people are used to asking questions to the staff, it’ll take some time to adjust to a formalized system. It is important to configure the layout to be as smooth as possible and pay close attention to the UI and make sure it’s usable.
Tech stack woes: Whether it has an API or partners with popular HCMs or HRISs, it should be compatible with every program it touches. Again, the sensitivity of the data and urgency of the requests means it needs to incorporate smoothly into the workflow. Testing the tech with workers from different departments is especially useful.
Cybersecurity: Given the legal ramifications from incident reports alone, keeping data secure is a number one priority. Sensitive details of people’s personal lives must be protected, whether that be through training users to spot potential issues, investing in an airtight database, or simply considering SSO tech and other important integrations.
How to Buy HR Case Management Software
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for HR Case Management Software
There’s no effective RFI without first doing a thorough examination of the company’s workflow. What specific roadblocks to company success does it remove? Where is HR spending most of its time? Where do team members get stuck? Once this analysis is complete, it’s easier to determine the essential features. Perhaps this means a secure, anonymous whistleblowing portal is what users need most, or, maybe it’s a simple matter of automating tickets to make the department more effective.
Compare HR Case Management Software Products
Create a long list
Let the price take a back seat for a minute. In the ideal world, what kind of capabilities would make the office function more smoothly? Users must look to find a solution that scales at an exponential rate—separate luxury features, perhaps a more attractive and better SLA management versus priorities, a solid foundation of secure data. It is a good practice to include both big names and a few smaller, more specialized vendors.
Create a short list
What can the organization reasonably afford this year? Or next? What’s the scaling ability you must have versus the potential to accommodate growth beyond expectations? Above all, it is important to look back at priorities—separate the top 5 to 10 requirements and compare products side-by-side on the metrics and capabilities that matter most.
Conduct demos
Such general-purpose software demands a large variety of employees to get involved during the process—executives, team leaders, the HR department, and employees from multiple points in the workflow. If it integrates with another department, it is crucial to get members of that area to test it. Once again, such essential software needs to be usable and at least somewhat intuitive.
Selection of HR Case Management Software
Choose a selection team
The selection team should represent the different users of the software. Start with at least one person from the C-suite, the head of HR, and maybe a few other team leaders. Next, move to administrators who will use the tech most. Add in employees and workers from any department that must interact with the software, such as accounting, IT, facilities management, and others. As for size, it depends on the size of the company, but 5 to 10 is a good range of 10 to 20 for complex cases. (In those cases, breaking them up into subgroups may be helpful.)
Negotiation
Pricing HR case management software can be difficult. Users must try to get at least several quotes to have an idea of what is a reasonable expectation.
Final decision
Ultimately, the HR team is going to use the software the most, therefore they must be at the heart of the decision. If it’s not making administration quicker and easier, then it’s failing at its core objective. Consider adding a few other department heads to represent the interests of other employees as well. It ensures the team finds the best HR case management software.
What Does HR Case Management Software Cost?
Many dedicated case management solutions have customized pricing based on multiple factors, including company size, workflow complexity, and the existing tech stack. Not many offer free trials. HR case management solutions may also come as part of a larger solution such as HRMS & HCM Software. In those cases, pricing may vary depending on the necessary modules and any additional add-ons.
Return on Investment (ROI)
When looking at the ROI for HR case management software, there are several ways to calculate ROI:
Staff time: How many hours per day, week, or year is being saved for the HR personnel? A simple calculation of the hours saved multiplied by the employee's salary works well enough.
Legal fees: Mitigating risk is perhaps the biggest bonus of an HR case management system. How much money is being spent consulting with lawyers? How many billable hours are they racking up?
Compliance: Depending on the industry, compliance fees could cost an unimaginable amount of money.
Productivity: When employees have access to an updated knowledge base and good document management, they’re saving everyone’s time. Instead of needing to reach out to HR, who may have to contact another department, they can go straight to the answer. Streamlining common bureaucratic concerns can save time during the workflow.
