How should you approach selecting an HR system?

The most common mistake in HR technology selection is starting with a vendor demonstration rather than a requirements definition. Vendors are skilled at showing their systems in the best light. Without clear requirements, it is difficult to evaluate what you are seeing.

Requirements definition starts with your HR processes. Map the processes you need the system to support — onboarding, leave management, performance tracking, payroll integration. For each process, define what the system needs to do, what data it needs to hold and what outputs it needs to produce.

Prioritise the requirements. Some are essential — the system must do them. Others are important but not critical. Others are nice to have. This prioritisation guides the evaluation and prevents you from being distracted by features you will never use.

Evaluate vendors against the requirements, not against each other. A structured scorecard — with each requirement weighted by priority — produces a more defensible decision than a general impression from a demonstration.

Implementation capability matters as much as product capability. A system that is well-suited to your needs but poorly implemented will not work. Ask vendors for references from organisations of similar size and complexity, and speak to those references before making a decision.