HR solutions: A definition

HR solutions – n. Processes, practices, technologies, services, and operational details that are directed toward advancing and improving the way a company creates and manages employees, employee development, and the entire life cycle of the employee experience for the purpose of achieving strategic objectives.

HR solutions are frequently associated solely with software that automates a process unique to the discipline of human resources. Technology is certainly a component of HR solutions, but an organization that turns to HR solutions to advance its overall objectives must look far beyond how enterprise software is automating specific HR tasks. This is not to indicate that technology is not important to HR — it absolutely is — but rather that the notion of directing, managing, and improving a company’s complete workforce goes beyond enterprise software.

HR solutions impact the way that employees affect tactical and strategic operational details. The following areas must be considered when assessing the health of a company’s HR solutions.

Cost efficiency. Processes that identify potential talent for an organization at all levels, as well as the management processes, will always bear a certain degree of cost burden. Therefore, HR solutions must provide execution methods that will minimize cost.

Talent quality. HR solutions must support the identification and development of the talent that a company needs to operate and advance company objectives. Leadership must invest in processes that determine how talent quality is defined and measured. This includes succession planning.

Recruiting. Talent quality should drive the recruiting element of HR solutions. Recruitment is focused on developing the candidate marketplace and the talent community of potential employees, and then sourcing from this community to bring qualified individuals on board.

Policy. HR solutions include the responsibility for establishing policies that govern how the workforce should conduct themselves on the job. Successful solutions allow for the quick adjustment of policy as circumstances arise. One example is managing the rapidly changing landscape of social media and the impact social media has on the company.

Compliance. HR solutions must also consider all local, state, and federal regulations and manage the organization’s efforts to comply with them. Examples include labor relations, regulatory compliance, diversity, safety, and ethics.

Benefits and compensation. The management of benefits and compensation is vital to HR solutions and must be done in a way that strikes a balance between cost efficiency and employee engagement.

Workforce planning. Or in other words, projecting talent needs against an annual operational plan. Effectively projecting demand against the specific plan (as well as possible scenarios that could impact the plan) is necessary to ensure that HR solutions help achieve organizational objectives.

Technology. This includes software, data, and communication that help execute matters related to the workforce and employees’ efforts to fulfill their daily responsibilities. Technology that helps employees manage their personal employment status is also an essential element to HR solutions.

Contracted labor management. HR solutions must also include the management and evaluation of how contracted labor is sourced into the organization as well as the associated costs. It should also enable hiring managers to quickly and easily identify and engage providers of contracted labor.