Human Resources Software

Store Employee Information Unique to Your Company in HR Software

Posted by Brandy on January 21, 2013

Being able to customize HR software is one of the biggest concerns managers have when shopping for a new human resource information system (HRIS) to keep track of their employee information. Every business is different and managers want to make sure they can change fields and formats in new human resource software, so that it reflects their specific personnel management policies. Typically, there are lots of ways to customize HR software, so it’s unique to your company.

Label Fields

You can change existing fields to customize a new HRIS. It’s easy to simply double click on a field label and type a new name. For example, you could change the existing location field to division, branch, or subsidiary. Some programs will even have some blank fields left just so you can create your own custom fields. Most HR systems will even have a specific area you can set up however you wish. You could set up text fields, date fields, fields with check boxes to indicate yes or no, and open-ended areas you can write sentences or even entire paragraphs.

Create Custom Time-off Policies

Another way to customize HR software is to add your own time-off policies for vacation and sick time, your company’s employee benefit options, and your performance categories. Every organization will have its own particular time-off policies. They may have individual time-off accounts for vacation, sick, or holiday time. They may even have two sets of time-off policies for each account: one for exempt employees and one for non-exempt employees.

Define Company Benefits

Benefit details are also unique to each individual company. You should define the list of benefits that are available to your employees. For example, some companies may have a simple list of options, such as a major medical health insurance policy, a dental insurance policy, and a 401k. While other companies may offer a choice of five different major medical health insurance plans and a big list of alternative health insurance plans like dental, accident, and cancer insurance, in addition to a 401k plan.

Set Performance Evaluation Categories

Performance reviews are another example of how different various organizations can be. The scores could be based off a 3-point, 5-point, or 10-point scale. Each company will also have a unique set of categories they use to evaluate their employees’ performance.

Customizing HR software with unique fields and formats is one of the first things you should do during the implementation process. Define custom fields, time-off policies, benefit details, and performance categories before entering employee information.