As companies grow, they need to start optimizing various parts of their business; human resources is no exception. Once your company hits the right size, exploring the benefits of using a best in class HRIS becomes a priority for any HR team.

When to Get an HRIS

The "right size," of course, varies by organization. Many companies stick to a PEO or other form of outsourced HR until they hit hundreds of even thousands of employees. Unfortunately, we live in a world where many companies treat their HR teams as a cost center, and give as few resources as possible to these groups.

That said, as companies grow, even the most prudent realize that they have to invest in HR to attract and retain the right people. This is true in any economic cycle, and in almost any business. An HR team that doesn't have an HRIS is like a sales team without a CRM, it's going to be inefficient, ineffective, and unorganized despite any efforts by the individuals on that team.

As a rule of thumb, once you have your first internal HR hire, it's time to think about buying the right HR software to enable them to do their job effectively. Without it, they are left with pencil, paper, or spreadsheets.

If you're thinking about buying a new HRIS, it's a good idea to think through the key benefits before jumping into what is a very important decision.

We've written out a lot of advice in our blog on the best HRIS vendors out there. That said, we also wanted to dedicate this post to the key benefits that most teams reap from a new HR software suite:

Benefits of Using a Top HRIS

• Time Savings: The biggest value add is that quite simply one of these solutions is going to make your HR team's lives so much easier and give them so much time back. They can now use their extra capacity to focus on culture, hiring, and people strategy.
• Employee Questions: So many of the questions asked by employees can now be answered by logging into your new HRIS - PTO, benefits, etc
• Payroll: Payroll is one of those things that we kind of take for granted.  But, any leader who's ever missed payroll for any reason knows what an uproar it can bring to a company.  An HRIS lets you stay organized and make sure everyone is paid the right amount on time.
• Employee Experience: Getting questions answered fast and getting paid contribute to a great employee experience. In addition, many HRIS vendors will include modules for onboarding, employee surveys, and performance management.
• Recruiting: Many of the top hr software suites also include recruiting modules that lets you create job requisitions, accept applicants, and move them through the hiring process.
• Cost Savings: Given the many tasks that are now automated, your organization can take a breather when it comes to adding full time resources to the HR team. This is usually a much better option than hiring more manpower to deal with broken systems that will eventually need to be fixed anways.

Let's face it: when your company gets to a certain size, you really need to have a robust HRIS to help manage employee records, onboarding, time tracking, and a massive list of other tasks that all fall on HR's shoulders.

Again, this is typically when you have at least one dedicated full time HR person in your organization. Before that, you can typically get away with spreadsheets, or outsourcing to a PEO.

Just like sales needs a CRM to be productive, HR needs an HRIS. This is an instance where the benefits definitely outweigh the cost!

This post originally appeared on SelectSoftware's blog where we write about the latest in HRTech.