Digital tools have become more important than ever when managing the high demands of recruitment and employee retention in today’s workplace. The best way to meet these high expectations is a strategic combination of human resources tools to get the job. HRIS and talent acquisition software are human resources tools that help with different parts of the employee lifecycle.
A TA track assists with recruitment and hiring in the early stages of the employee lifecycle. An HRIS manages functions after onboarding, during an employee’s tenure, and when an employee ends their relationship with the company for whatever reason.
Integrating HRIS and talent acquisition software into your company’s employee lifecycle plan is essential for keeping organized records, even when an employee moves on from your company.
Understanding HRIS and Talent Acquisition Software
HRIS and talent acquisition software have distinct differences, but their main similarity is simplifying HR tasks in the recruitment process. They both also have a hand in employee retention to reduce turnover. While an HRIS maintains employee retention so no turnover happens, a TA track will help to lessen turnover by finding high-quality candidates. Defining each system and its unique functions will help you to understand how they play a role in modern-day recruitment.
HRIS
A Human Resource Information System (HRIS) manages and streamlines activities in a company’s human resource department. Maintaining employee records, tracking payroll and benefits, documenting performance reviews, and compliance tracking are some of the many key features an HRIS does.
Essentially, the beginning of an employee’s record will start from information gathered about them during the application process sourced from the company’s talent acquisition software. However, an HRIS does have recruitment capabilities like talent acquisition software such as posting job descriptions on integrated job boards.
Talent Acquisition Software
A company’s TA track is the backbone of the recruitment process. Usually, everything is centralized into one ATS software for resume screening, onboarding procedures, and interview scheduling. The software utilizes AI-driven algorithms to assess candidates based on skills and experience to whittle down the high volume of candidates to the best quality ones suited for the company’s open position. Cadient’s ATS software provides job board integration with Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and other well-known job boards for enhanced candidate outreach during recruitment.
Benefits of Integration
Integrating your HRIS and talent acquisition software into one system streamlines recruitment for any company that decides to merge these systems is the best move. When taking this integration step, ensure that each system has integration capabilities with one another with similar application programming interfaces (APIs) for the best transition experience.
Streamlined Recruitment to Onboarding
Allowing these technologies to integrate will streamline from the recruitment to the onboarding phase of hiring. The information gathered about the candidate in the talent acquisition software can be automatically transferred to the HRIS without manual input. This feature reduces the need for manual data entry that otherwise would have been required if the systems were not integrated. Errors in data transfer can also be minimized while hastening the onboarding process.
Improved Data Accuracy
Speaking of data transfer, integrating HRIS and talent acquisition software can enhance data accuracy. When these systems work together, there are fewer errors when inputting an employee’s past job history, personal information, and other pertinent details about their career profile into the talent acquisition software before it’s transferred to HRIS.
Enhanced Reporting and Analytics
Reporting and analytics for an integrated HRIS and TA track system are much more advanced than utilizing one of the systems alone. Hiring metrics like time-to-fill, time-to-hire, drop-off rates, and other KPIs are communicated in this integrated system. This promotes data-driven decision-making for the company in current hiring campaigns and strategic planning for future ones.
Efficient Workflow Automation
System integration means enhanced efficiency in conducting automated tasks to reduce recruitment costs. Managing documents like new hire paperwork and data entry when making or updating a candidate profile allows for a streamlined recruitment and employee management process. Hence, automating these manual tasks allows HR professionals to focus on more pressing tasks such as refining employee relations efforts during recruitment.
Better Compliance and Record-Keeping
Talent acquisition software and HRIS systems both help companies remain compliant with the legal paperwork involved with onboarding and maintaining employee records. The TA track includes hiring paperwork templates like W2s and 1099s, depending on the employee’s work status. An HRIS tracks employees’ licenses and certifications to build an overall profile of each team member based on regulatory requirements.
Optimized Candidate Experience
Integrated HRIS and TA systems optimize the candidate experience from completing an application to onboarding. Candidates can track their application status without contacting a recruitment representative, helping job seekers to take command of their career hunt.
Best Practices for Integrating an HRIS and Talent Acquisition Software
If your company is thinking of integrating these two HR tools, consider these best practices before starting.
Choose Compatible Systems
As discussed earlier, the HRIS and recruitment technology should have similar APIs to integrate accordingly. These APIs act like connectors for data transfer in real-time from the TA track to an HRIS when a candidate converts from a recruit to an employee. Hence, if your current systems offer synergistic APIs, you can keep them and conduct the integration. However, if they are disparate systems without these technological connectors, middleware solutions that integrate them could be the next step.
Define Integration Goals
What goals does your company want to achieve by integrating recruitment technology with HRIS? Enhancing reporting capabilities, streamlining recruitment, and enhancing data accuracy are just a few of the many goals that your company may have with integrating these systems. Meet with the human resources department to clearly define these integration goals before making the transition so everyone is on the same page.
Train Your Team
Any update in HR practices means that you should train your team so they can properly utilize the new integrated system. The interface may be different in layout than when the two systems were separate in operations. Help the team to familiarize themselves with the new integrated features and the context of the automated workflow in the new combined system.
Monitor and Adjust
Monitor the new system’s performance over the next few weeks post-integration. Is it meeting your company’s integration goals? Are there any bottlenecks in the integrated system that need to be addressed to maintain efficiency? Identify these strengths and weaknesses and adjust the integrated system’s functionality to improve productivity in recruitment and employee management.
