HR software isn’t something you buy on a whim. On average, it takes midsized companies four to six months to evaluate, purchase, and implement it. Depending on what you’re shopping for, rushing into a purchase might leave you with a botched performance review cycle, low survey participation rate, or worse. In some cases, implementing the wrong tech could hurt your culture, damage the impression you give new employees, or skew employee attitudes against your people programs altogether.
Faye Almeshaan, founder and fractional COO at Almeshaan Consulting, explains that the purchase process for HR software is uniquely challenging:
“Buying HR tech is like herding cats — tricky because it touches everyone in the company. Take a performance management system (PMS) — it’s got to be as intuitive as your favorite app because every single employee uses it. If it’s clunky, you risk no one adopting it or engaging with it long-term. On the other hand, tools like payroll and HRIS might only be for HR’s eyes, but they touch every employee. If a system or process breaks, you’ve got everything from missed paychecks to falling short on compliance. It’s usually higher stakes with HR tech, making the buying decision super important.”
If you’re in the market for a tool, you need an HR technology requirements list. In addition to other HR technology shopping best practices, like setting a timeline and talking to references, taking the simple step of listing out your must-haves will give you the clarity needed to make more informed decisions.
5 Reasons You Need a Requirements Checklist
Putting together a comprehensive requirements list isn't just a box-checking exercise to show you’ve done your homework. It’s the best way to make sure you’re thinking about both your immediate and long-term needs. It also comes in handy for filtering out poor-fit choices in a crowded marketplace.
As Almeshaan puts it, “Walking into a sales call without a solid list of requirements is like going grocery shopping while you’re starving — you’ll throw anything in the cart. Knowing your ‘must-haves’ and ‘nice-to-haves’ upfront makes it easy to quickly eliminate the no-gos and focus on comparing the real contenders. It’s basically your shopping list to keep you from impulse buying the wrong HR tool!”
Here are five key reasons why a requirements list is a must-have for better decision-making:
It improves the chances of employee adoption.
Even if a tool supports continuous feedback, that doesn’t mean it does so in a way that’s intuitive to users. HR software that’s designed to deliver a great employee experience, built with the usability of apps like Instagram or LinkedIn, makes it easier to drive participation in ongoing activities like pulse surveys, feedback, one-on-ones, and more.
It positively impacts your human resources strategy.
HR tech buying decisions are high-stakes decisions. The systems you use, for better or worse, influence your people strategy and, long-term, company culture. For starters, the people programs you implement — like quarterly performance reviews or semi-annual engagement surveys — are contingent on what your HR tech stack can support. When you evaluate software, it’s important to consider whether it meets your future needs as well.
It makes the buying process easier.
The HR tech industry is only getting more complex — there are hundreds of point solutions for every HR discipline, not to mention a host of new and legacy “all-in-one” suites that claim to do everything.
Keeping a requirements list makes it easier for your HR team — and everyone else in the buying process — to stay focused, prioritize, and ultimately settle on a vendor. It also shows due diligence and gives you a paper trail for justifying your decision to a potentially skeptical C-suite.
It helps ensure you have internal alignment.
Shelby Wolpa, an HR advisor to series A-C startups and scaleups, explained that building a requirements list is a good way to make sure that you fully understand the needs of different departments and stakeholders before you start shopping. Without one, you risk buying a “misaligned solution that fails to address the core issue and potentially creates new ones.”
Wolpa recommended that you treat the requirements list as an opportunity to secure leadership buy-in: “Present the current state challenges you are solving for, the future state goals you’re building toward given the business needs, and how each system supports those efforts. Obtaining this buy-in on your vision is an essential step in the process. People are more likely to be aligned when they are in the know!”
It creates a standardized approach to buying.
As Brett Ungashick, the founder of HR tech brokerage OutSail, explained, most companies aren’t constantly buying HR tech. As a result, “each buying process tends to be a bespoke effort, meaning the buying team is basically starting from scratch every time.”
A requirements list helps you create a consistent framework that you can reuse for each purchase process.
It also puts you in a much better position to deal with different vendors. As Ungashick pointed out, software purchasing is “a sales process, not a buying process. The vendors dictate what the process looks like. They tell the client, ‘Here’s when you get to see pricing. Here’s what I’m going to show you. Here’s what I’m going to gloss over really quickly.’”
By contrast, if you’ve put together a comprehensive requirements list, you have a “set game plan,” said Ungashick. “You can go to the vendor and say, ‘Here are the things that we need to see live and in action during the demos to really prove not just that you have it, but that it's useful, it's user-friendly, it's automated.’”
Example HR Technology Requirements List
Requirements are not the same as product features. Features will vary depending on the kind of tool you’re looking for. Instead, think of requirements as differentiators that are meaningful to you.
While you might not intuitively list requirements like ease of implementation, self-service guidance, or partner ecosystem on your must-have list of features, they’re just as influential to your success.
Ungashick observed that many HR software buyers add the wrong things to their requirements list. It shouldn’t be a list of basic functions that will be included in all of the different platforms you’re comparing.
Ungashick gave the example of a company looking for payroll. He said, “They might put on their requirements list: needs to have a mobile app, needs to do direct deposit. Those are, of course, mandatory requirements, but they're also so obvious and easy that everyone does them. So yes, maybe it makes sense for us to build a comprehensive list of some of these check-the-box functions, but we don't actually need to spend a lot of time going through and vetting vendors to do them because, frankly, they're just table stakes.”
Rather than listing features, consider “business outcomes,” recommended Ungashick. “Do you want to improve your reporting? Then you’d be asking questions like, ‘Can you show us the ability to create custom dashboards? Can we see the ability to pull in data from different systems and report on that in real-time?’”
Wolpa noted that certain aspects of your business may impact your buying needs. Her tip: “Identify if there are unique things about your business that need to be taken into account, such as strict security requirements, or the ability to support a global workforce, that the vendor must meet.”
She also suggested that you think about both your immediate and long-term needs. “Understand the needs of the business today, but also tomorrow. How will the business needs adapt as you grow? Will the system you select be able to grow with your business?”
Here’s an example of a requirements list that you could apply to almost any HR solution, including:
- Human resource information systems (HRIS)
- Human resource management systems (HRMS)
- Learning management systems (LMS)
- Payroll management or payroll processing tools
- Performance management platforms
- Employee benefits software systems
- HR data analytics solutions
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Software Features to Prioritize When Choosing an HR System
The above list represents some of the more holistic qualities you’ll want to look for when evaluating HR software. That isn’t to say product functionality and system requirements shouldn’t be a priority. On the contrary, listing out the features you need (and will need in the future) is an essential part of the buying process.
Start by listing the specific functionality (e.g., built-in survey templates) that you’d expect to see from the tool. Without prioritization, you likely discover that your wish list will get overwhelmingly long, fast. Give the list structure by breaking down the features into tiers — like needs, wants, and nice-to-haves. Think critically here, avoiding the temptation to list everything as a need.
It helps to write down why your top-tier needs are important to you. If you’re evaluating a people success platform, here are examples that might apply to you:
Communication Platform Integrations
HR-led initiatives like continuous feedback can sometimes feel siloed, especially when it lives in a standalone tool. When your HR software integrates with Slack and Microsoft Teams, it becomes part of employees’ daily workflow.
Partner Ecosystem
People management tools need to integrate with the rest of your HR and organizational tech stack. Don’t limit your focus to just HR technology integrations, either: For example, Lattice’s partnership with AWS empowers you to meet IT security, compliance, and infrastructure requirements while setting employees and the business up for success.
Built-in Templates
Employee performance reviews, development conversations, and one-on-ones offer challenges to managers and employees. Sometimes, knowing what to say (or do) during the conversation is the hardest part. Tools like Lattice include templates and talking points to make those touch points easier and more impactful.
Customization
Your people strategy isn’t set in stone. When you want to iterate and improve your processes, software should empower you to do so. Look for features like supporting multiple review templates, tapping into private questions for talent planning, and cross-analyzing competencies and rating questions to ensure inclusivity across different HR functions.
Flexibility
Company priorities can change at any time — and the best organizations stay nimble in challenging times. Tools like Lattice support adjusting HR management goals after they’ve launched or even making late changes to performance review assignments. That flexibility makes administration a much smoother experience for the whole HR department.
Individual Development Plans (IDPs)
For those looking to drive employee development, individual development plans (IDPs) empower individuals to set both long-term and short-term growth goals. Lattice makes it easy for managers and their reports to keep IDPs top of mind, whether in weekly one-on-ones or dedicated developmental reviews. This makes development a dynamic and ongoing process — not a one-and-done annual conversation.
How Lattice Can Help
You want to purchase HR software to make your life easier. But making sense of an increasingly vast HR technology landscape almost feels harder than the problems you’re trying to solve in the first place.
Lattice can make the process easier. With our modular platform, you can add functionality as your needs evolve.
- Looking to make it easier to handle performance reviews, one-on-ones, and feedback? Lattice Performance Management has you covered.
- Need to streamline key HR processes, like onboarding, payroll, workforce management, and employee records? Our new, comprehensive HRIS may be the perfect solution.
- Need a software solution for employee engagement, employee data analytics, goal setting, or benefits administration? Check, check, check, and check.
Plus, all our tools integrate seamlessly with one another, as well as with all the most popular HR platforms you might already have in your stack — so you can check that integration box off right now.
Whether you’re evaluating an applicant tracking system or a people success platform like Lattice, download our ebook Navigating the Employee-First Era of HR Technology to learn more about the HR trends and technology vendors redefining the industry. Or, if you’re ready to see our products in action, schedule a Lattice demo with a product expert.
Put this list to the test: Schedule a Lattice demo and see how we check all the boxes for your organization.
