50 Key HRMS Features That You Should Know Of

Choosing an HRMS is not an easy decision. So make sure you find not only the best, but the most suitable HR Management System for your organisation's specific needs in the first go!

Here are 50+ features of HRMS for different HRMS modules that you should consider when evaluating different aspects of an HRMS for your organisation -

HRMS Modules List:

Core HR -

When evaluating the Core HR module, it is necessary to look for one which can be the single source of truth; that helps you manage complex functional structures with fully configurable workflows. The top 5 features of Core are -

1. Organisation And People Structure:

   HRMS softwares which provides you with a visual representation of the entire organisation's structure with the employees’ reporting structures combined with the functional structure across multiple Group Companies (with/without Cross-Reporting) with effective permission controls under one roof is surely the advanced solution you would be looking for.

2. Permissions And Access Control:

   Look out for the HRMS Software which provides easy configurations to set up permission control guidelines for defining “who gets what access”, and assign relevant access based on department, location, band, designation, business unit, assignments and much more. The ability to define a new permission role by the organisation and enable accesses specific to modules like leaves, attendance, confirmation and separation workflows, analytics, payroll and reimbursements is something that is an added advantage.

3. Employee Data Management:

   Capturing and accessing data across the organisation can be simplified to a large extent with a proper tab on employment history. System with flexibility like this is definitely an addition of value. The ability to bulk search for employees with respect to Employee type, Active/pending employees, Department, Group company and Self-Service with effective permission controls makes it easier to navigate and manage.

4. Data Validation For Every Field Value:

   Any data update which is done by an employee can be validated with the help of a ‘maker checker’ approval flow. Information entered into the system can be passed through a hygiene check with a designated stakeholder .Validations with the advent of OCR to verify documents such as Pan and Aadhar Card Details simplifies the requisite for any manual processes.

5. Creating A Roles/Designations Master:
   

   The seamless configuration provided to define designations and map them to departments, bands, and grade with unique identifier codes is a good feature to look for. Moreover,to define requirements for a particular designation by assigning the total number of roles to be recruited which goes in line with the availability to create Job Descriptions for Designations, is a complete package to look for.

Time & Attendance Management -

This is one of the major modules which plays a vital role in shaping up attendance and leave policies for the entire organisation. HR management systems which empower managers to work with diverse shifts & rosters allowing personalisation of leaves and attendance is a must-have. Here are some advanced features that you should look out for -

1. Configurable And Flexible Policies:

   It’s best to have an attendance management system which can handle flexible attendance and leave policies in accordance to the following assignments, easily:

   1.1. The ability to create custom attendance and leave policies and assign at employee level.

   1.2. The ability to restrict a leave request to a specific day as per the organisation’s set standards.

   1.3. The ability to restrict employees to apply for leaves even before or after a holiday/weekly off.

   1.4. The ability to club different leave types together with the advent of overutilisation of leaves as the organisational requirement and the ability to refresh the leave cycle with respect to calendar year or financial year, whichever is followed by the organisation.

2. Work Check-Ins:

   With the current situation, it's an added advantage to have the ability to track productivity during WFH with the help of features that allow punching in from home along with an option to give a detailed list of activities planned for the day. This type of an attendance punch-in can be IP restricted and Geo-Tagged.

3. Touch-free Attendance:

   Biometric punch is now a system that needs to be restricted in order to minimise the need for physical contact in common areas. With the advent of technology, attendance can be registered with the help of facial recognition on the employee's personal device itself. This is then validated with another layer of Geo - Tagging to restrict falsified attendance.
   Here is a quick read on touch-free attendance features on Darwinbox.

4. Time Sheets For Project Management:

   The flexibility to align multiple time sheets to different projects in accordance to the timeline of the project. This provides transparency in terms of which objectives are fulfilled and which are work in progress. A must have feature of HRMS one should definitely consider.

5. Mobile-based Attendance:
   

   Mobile first approach has been the need of the hour. Attendance check-in/clock-in can be done on an employee’s personal device instantly with proper validations in place such as domain check for login, Geo - Tagging and IP Restrictions for Attendance punches in order to restrict any falsified records.

6. Absconding Management:

   Define SLA’s to trigger multiple workflows in accordance to an employee's absence. Restrict an absconding employee from logging in to the system for any process flow. Trigger automated mails with self defined time frame.

Performance Management -

While having the right talent on board is important, what is even more important is how you nurture it. Therefore, it becomes important to look for a dynamic performance management module which comes with a whole gamut of features that can play a pivotal role in shaping up the whole performance management process. Here are 5 advanced features that you should look out for -

1. Continuous Feedback:

   Feedback is the best way to keep employees motivated. The flexibility to appraise employees throughout the organisation under one unified platform, real - time, becomes a game changer. With the option of requesting and giving feedback, employees can track their performance seamlessly.. Voice enabled feedback gives the flexibility to provide comments without even using the keyboard!

2. Goal And Competencies Library:

   It’s best to have the flexibility to create a dynamic Goal and Competency library HRMS which provides the following features is the one to look for:

   2.1. The ability to define multiple goals across roles/band/grades with specified start and end dates, weightage, applicability and exclusion in order to manage the performance cycle seamlessly.

   2.2. The ability to define project goals (with different raters) across teams and track their progress, real - time.

   2.3. The ability to define competency models for various levels based on the business strategy/OKRs and the ability to create a competency bible for the organisation w.r.t business objectives and roles.

   2.4. The ability to configure custom rating scale based on measurement of length, scale markers and objective percentage is a must-have.

   2.5. The ability to view and select strategic goals such as Company goal, Business Goal, Functional Goal (if suitable) and the option to enter initiatives, measure milestone weightage and due date are some of the traits of a flexible performance management system.

   2.6. The control over whom to give rights for adding/deleting/modifying goals in the library as well as setting the goals to be pushed as per requirements, maintains order and transparency which is a great value addition.

3. OKR Framework:

   The Objective and Key Results (OKR) methodology is a system for setting, cascading and communicating goals throughout your organisation. OKRs bring focus and make it easy for companies, departments, and teams to recognise what the current priorities are, and to align them to employee personal objectives. Therefore, it’s vital that an HRMS system offers -
   
   3.1. The ability to logically cascade sub-goals or key results to reportees and others in the organisation.

   3.2. The ability to define contribution levels for cascaded goals with auto-synced goal achievement.

   3.3. The ability to define department/team and organisation level objectives.

   3.4. The ability to run multiple reviews in parallel with the option to link/de-link OKR review from employee performance review.

   3.5.The ability to add 3 levels of evaluation with the option of adding additional reviewers.

   3.6. The ability to check-in (both Scheduled and Continuous). Check-ins should have the option to be continuous (triggered by the employee/manager) or Scheduled (triggered by an Admin).

   3.7. The ability to generate performance dashboards based on roles - different dashboards for Employee, Manager and Leadership.

4. Assessment And Review Cycle:

   A robust performance management system should have a strong framework for assessments configuration with flexible review cycles. Here are some features to look into -

   4.1. The agility to run different cycles for different groups of employees in the organisation on the basis of role/band/grade/job level becomes a priceless addition.
   
   4.2. The flexibility to define formulas/weightages for overall rating calculation of goals & competencies based on role/band/grade etc proves to decrease any sort of manual intervention.
   
   4.3. What is more fascinating than a voice enabled system which lets managers and employees have the ability to record audio comments during a review? This kind of a dynamic system is worthy to go with!

   4.4. To have the flexibility to configure assessment frameworks with any combination of rating scales, evaluation parameters, review cycles and goal/competency parameters defines how a robust system should be.

   4.5. Why take the pain of manually calculating all the reviews? Systems which have the option (if required) to allow auto calculation of overall rating based on individual goals & competency ratings, makes the process seamless.
   
   4.6. Automation is a game changer and to have automation in the performance process helps in reducing the turnaround time for processes. The ability to configure achievement-based self-rated goals serves the purpose.

   4.7. The ability to create a goal plan and tag to different roles facilitates delinking of review cycles and initiating goal setting for the next review cycle while the current one is on-going helps you plan for future.

5. 9-Box Performance Framework:

   The 9-box grid is an individual performance assessment tool that evaluates an employee's current and potential level of contribution to the organisation. The 9-box grid is mostly used in succession planning as a method to evaluate an org’s current talent and also in identifying potential leaders amongst the workforce. HRMS has evolved drastically and HR Tech providers which can integrate the most critical assessment parameters such as this, proves to be an added advantage.

6. Manager And Reportee Dashboard:

   Single source of truth is paramount. Systems which give flexibility to managers so that they can have a performance cycle dashboard of all reportees with one view of their status and with ability to take actions, is a very useful feature. Enabling promotion assessment, potential assessment and nine grid framework views in an employee's talent profile on a single platform is what you might be interested in.

7. Multi - Stakeholder Feedback:

   When it comes to providing feedback, it becomes important to take feedback from multiple stakeholders who are involved in the process. Multi - stakeholder Feedback gives this exact flexibility to configure a rating network in order to run the process i.e. deciding who will give feedback, be it L1 manager, L2 manager, Peers, subordinates or anybody who falls in the direct purview.

   Here is a quick read on how to get your organizations Performance Management Framework Right.

Employee Engagement -

Developing a positive, result-oriented workplace culture is something that modern-day organisations aspire to achieve. What plays a major role in propagating this agenda is a sound and malleable employee engagement process. We cannot deny the fact that employee engagement plays a pivotal role in propelling productivity. Here are some of the advanced features which you can look for in an HRMS -

1. Enterprise Social Platform - Employee Voice:

   The best way to keep everybody in touch in the organisation is to have an unified platform, not only for one on one communications but for many to one and one to many communication as well. Information posts around new joinees, birthdays, work anniversaries etc. which can be system generated brings the entire organisation in the loop.. The flexibility for employees to create public/private/invite-only groups and add members to it serves the purpose of communicating relevant information at the right time.

2. Digital Rewards And Recognition:

   Employee engagement strongly correlates with productivity, and it therefore becomes absolutely necessary for organisations to recognise employees for their work and let them know that they are a valued part of the organisation. With the help of intelligent technology, the whole rewards and recognition program can now be devised under one umbrella. Here are a few of the advanced HR Tech features one should look out for -

   2.1. A configurable system which lets you enable a set of restrictions for employees within the organisation depending on who can award the recognition under a particular program. The restriction can be defined as per designation, band, grade, division and more.

   2.2. The availability of giving personalised citations with organisation defined virtual and gamified badges which would reflect on the employees profile, proves to be a game changer.

   2.3. The availability of a "Leaderboard"- a portal showing employees in the order of highest to lowest rewards received drive engagement across the organisation.

   2.4. Dynamic integration to incentivise recognition's and limiting the number of points awarded could give the org a control on the budget too.

   2.5. Configurable Nomination Programs such as employee of the month/year etc proves to be a great addition to any HR tech software.

   2.6. The availability of customised appreciation and thank you cards proves to be the best way to make the recognition's feel more personal and acknowledged.

   2.7 A bird’s eye view for all the recognition's received and given under one single dashboard to make life simpler!

3. Pulse Surveys:

   With the help of Pulse surveys, HR leaders can create customisable surveys with multiple questions to capture regular inputs from employees. Some of the advanced features which your HRMS should have -

   3.1. The availability of a customisable employee happiness meter to capture daily inputs on how they are feeling at work and the ability to pull a report of employee happiness meter responses to take any required action.

4. E - Notice Board:

   A single unified platform where employees can get every important piece of information instantly can prove to be an added value. Configurable notice boards with properly defined permissions for accessibility in terms of edits, gives the organisation the complete authority to maintain a clean and relevant repository of information.

Talent Management -

Having the best talent onboard is key to any successful organisation. It’s not just about hiring new and fresh talent, it's also about providing the best platform to help them grow. This not only proves to be a turning point for many orgs to be on top of productivity, but also helps maintain a good relationship with all its employees. But, how do you cater to a large and distributed workforce over one single platform? Here are some of the advanced HRMS features which can help you in exactly that!

1. Succession And Merit Planning:

   1.1. Systems which provide the ability to define success profiles based on different criterias such as education, experience, proficiency levels in competency/skill and many more, for critical roles in the organisation, proves to be a value add.

   1.2. Not only for external candidates, but to have the ability to suggest internal candidates based on success profile for a critical role makes the process even more dynamic.

   1.3. Analytics/dashboards/scenarios on which candidate could be a better fit for the critical role.

   1.4. Simulate Scenarios in accordance to what your organisation is expecting for.

   1.5. Incentive management to set coverage, qualifying criteria, assigning targets, mapping achievements, make payments and many more are definitely must-haves.

2. Career Planning:

   Employees are the heart of any organisation and it becomes an absolute requirement to guide them throughout their growth journey within the organisation. The ability provided by HR tech platforms for employees to add aspired career roles so that they can create a career plan for themselves, serves the very purpose of retaining employees as well as helping them grow.

3. Talent Profile:

   It’s utmost important that relevant stakeholders can view the employee’s growth graph right from day one and understand the progress to chart out the best career path for the employee. Systems which provide an advanced feature such as this, are the ones to look out for.

Recruitment Process Management -

From raising requisitions to scheduling interviews, organisations should have the flexibility to screen a candidate without moving to any other platform in order to effortlessly manage the whole recruitment process. A single source of truth dominates the need for multiple systems. Here are some of the advanced features which an HRMS should have -

1. Resume Parsing And Screening:

   Finding the right talent faster and more accurate is not easy. Systems which have the dynamicity to automatically parse Reviews (education, skills, past experience) and recommend the best match lowers down the significant manual work which revolves around bulk hiring. Screening and shortlisting with relevant tags to profiles for smart retrieval is definitely something to look for.

2. Requisition And Approvals:

   The flexibility to raise requisitions for budgeted and non-budgeted positions with unique approval flows to scale up or hire for replacement helps in creating a systematic process. Systems which also allow you to enrich your requisition request with a pre-configured JD, TAT, and ideal profile details on one platform is definitely a value add.

3. Applicant Tracking System:

   What's better than to have a system which lets you schedule interviews with seamless calendar integration and tracking of candidates at every stage of the recruitment process? Systems providing this as a functionality with an added integration of capturing feedback with voice-to-text and audio feedback options on mobile proves to be an ideal process mapping.

4. Configurable Hiring Workflows:

   Let’s face it, any hiring process is never standard. There could be interviews which can interchange or rounds and even panelist change. This creates a problem for organisations having a diversified hiring process who are looking for technological aid. Looking for systems which can define the hiring process with stages and stakeholders uniquely for each job position and also configure a custom feedback form to capture inputs relevant for each stage solves this problem altogether.

5. Candidate Sourcing:

   Integration with external portals in order to source candidates is a requisite. HR Tech Systems which provides this as an availability to post job opening across multiple channels (Careers page, Social & Job portals, Referral, External Recruiters) with a seamless integration and tracking of hiring success, and efficiency uniquely by channel simply are the ones to go for.

6. Referrals And Internal Job Postings:

   The availability of system dynamics in terms of integrations with employee referrals and internal job postings in a single platform creates a major difference. Features which enable you to use a mobile first system for every possible process from hiring to retiring, HR Tech such as Darwinbox can be your ideal fit.

Onboarding Process Management -

An employee’s lifecycle in your organisation should be as smooth and seamless as it can be right from the beginning. With the entire recruitment process being mapped to a single unified platform, why shouldn't onboarding also be? Look for HR Tech that is designed to ensure that your employees feel engaged and valued by the company. Here are some of the advanced features your HRMS should have -

1. Virtual Onboarding:

   With respect to the entire process of dispensing information to the candidate to take digital sign offs for different undertaking forms and declarations, virtual onboarding is going to be a major feature which an HRMS should definitely have. From generating digital offer letters to taking the employee ‘live’ on the system, the entire process can now be a seamless integration with HR Tech.

2. Background Verification:

   Autonomy and control during the background verification process is a must. HR Tech which can let your organisation have the same by enabling you to set BGV vendors on the system and also control the visibility of your candidate’s information, proves to be a beneficial feature.. With features that provide the ability to check the status of each candidate, control the level of access of third party vendors, helps to bring efficiency to the overall process.

3. Auto - Sync Employee Data:

   It’s important to have a seamless flow of information once a candidate is finalised. HR Tech which provides optimised flow of data to help you maintain data consistency across the entire employee profile makes it even easier to concretise the entire process of onboarding. With Tech features like this, the data from the candidate’s application can be directly imported to populate desired fields in the employee profile once the profile is activated.

Payroll Management -

As the name suggests, payroll plays a vital role in every organisation and maintaining certain aspects of it becomes a difficult task. What if there was a highly customisable payroll system which can empower you by helping in managing complex salary structures on one unified platform? Here are some of the advanced features which select HRMS vendors provide -

1. Flexible Pay Structures:

   An organisation with a diverse workforce needs a very sustainable and flexible process mapping in terms of their established pay structures. This can be solved with the help of select HRMS vendors such as Darwinbox which enables you to process payroll for a complex structure with multiple entities, BU, regions and departments. This provides the capability to configure pay structures for different organisation-defined complex pay-scale groups. An added feature provided by Darwinbox is APIs for CTC data to integrate for various use cases & during the transition period. A highly flexible Pay Structure framework to seamlessly accommodate new PF calculation & Tax norms gives Darwinbox an edge.

2. Audit Trail:

   For every change in the pay structure, HR tech systems which provide a definite audit trail for every iteration, provides clarity and transparency of process.

3. Automated Processing:

   Processing salary inputs, LOP etc manually for a large workforce becomes tiring and time consuming. Let an hybrid HR Tech do this for you! Automate most of your processes such as your absconding flows to provide for seamless stop salary inputs, link attendance cycle with your payroll cycles to auto feed inputs like LOP, OT etc. to payroll, reduce errors/re-work via auto out-duty attendance requests with approved travel, link your merit planning inputs to payroll seamlessly, process F&F faster than ever before via linking exit clearances/stop salary inputs to payroll, IFSC validation via integration with IFSC database and so much more!

4. IT Declarations On A Single Unified Platform:

   The entire payroll can now be unified under one platform. From process administration to execution, HR Tech providers can help you do it. You can now have IT declarations on ESS with the ability to migrate existing declarations seamlessly. Great, right?

Expense and Travel Management -

To maintain expenses and travel seamlessly is what most organisations look for. From reimbursements tracking to integrations with third party vendors to get travel requisites on the go, many coveted HR Tech providers have met the need. Here are some of the advanced features that you need to look out for -

1. Handling Reimbursements:

   With the help of HRMS, create different reimbursement categories and custom units with an added layer of multi currency support. Define limits for reimbursements claims for different groups of employees (Bands/Grades/Designations etc) to have more concrete control over the process. With a multi-functionality of OCR for automatic receipt filing and extended browser integration for automatic expense filing, Darwinbox HR Tech has seen a leap of technological enhancement. Integrated expense policies like these help to improve compliance.

2. Travel And Accommodation Management:

   With a dynamic HRMS, organisations can leverage the availability of creating custom Travel and Accommodation policies by multiple parameters like band, grade, location, designation etc. Here are a few more points that you should definitely look for -

   2.1. The ability provided to configure multiple travel agencies based on travel type so that your organisation can have complete transparency in terms of tickets booked and advances asked/paid for.

   2.2. The ability to configure multiple Modification/Cancellation processes with requisite approval flows and tagging in terms of who will bear the costs.

   2.3. The ability to create Tax Components based on travel type configured.

   2.4. The availability of a “birds eye” view for all travel requests on one dashboard with a mobile first configurability.

   2.5. The availability of an employees travel and expense dashboard which summarises all the transactions which had taken place.

   2.6. The availability of creating different travel agencies and segregating them in terms of the type of travel or accommodation within the system in order to maintain transparency.

   2.7. The ability to auto update attendance when an employee goes for a business trip so as to diminish any chances for discrepancies.

Flexible Workflows And Customisable Forms -

Business processes for many organisations are never really fully standardised and demand customisability in terms of process mapping and execution. An intelligent HR Technology enables seamless definition, execution, & automation of business processes on one single platform where tasks, information or documents are passed from one participant to another for approvals without any hassle, according to a set of predefined, procedural rules set by the organisation. Here are some of the advance features you should look for in an HRMS -

1. Custom Workflows:

   The possibility to map varied business processes with the help of HR Tech so that you can generate and execute process-specific workflows as well as define and assign the multiple stages of a process to relevant stakeholders from the platform itself with the flexibility to pre-define SLA’s and skip settings, makes the process mapping and execution seamless. With the help of HR Tech, you can now define various trigger dates as per your organisation’s requirement and also have version control on workflows and forms to ensure smooth transitions during process changes.

2. Highly Configurable Forms:

   Look for an HRMS feature which provides a highly customizable form builder for all of your business processes. Look out for features which provide you the ability to -

   2.1. Define conditional dependency between form fields.

   2.2. Add validations to form fields and connect to APIs.

   2.3. Define calculation logic which can be used across clearance forms.

   2.4. Control form visibility at each stage level.

3. Digitised Separation And Movements:

   It is very important to make sure that a departing employee’s journey is as smooth as an incoming employee. This can be taken care of by making the exit process smooth with easy to navigate standard workflows with predefined fields and trigger criteria's to limit any manual intervention and keep the process seamless and transparent.

Reports And Analytics -

One of the major stand alone points which helps in multiple aspects for most organizations business processes are reports. From understanding performance appraisals to knowing attrition rate, reports play a vital role in forecasting as well as understanding current trends. But, what good are reports if there is no Analytics in it? HR Analytics has been the cornerstone to a lot of organizations' business continuity. Having said that, HRMS has grown to a huge extent where you can merge the two seamlessly together and get results with just a few clicks. Here are a few of the advanced features that you should look for in an HRMS -

1. Custom Reports Builder:

   An HR Tech which provides the flexibility to build reports in accordance to any KRA which the organisation finds to be monumental, proves to be an absolute value add. The flexibility to choose any metrics as per need and convenience and to schedule reports for daily tracking are a must have feature. Not only this, HR Tech which provides the feature to configure your own visual reports from a library of metrics and parameters to build custom dashboards specific to your need, proves to be an extremely flexible platform to work on.

2. Workflows Progress Reporting:

   The HR Technology which provides you to literally get a report based on any workflow such as employee confirmation, separation, work anniversaries, past performance etc. you ought to consider the HRMS without even thinking twice about it!

3. AI Based Analytics:

   Be it headcount, mood analysis, or attrition, a platform that can source data internally from all other business processes to cut through the noise and direct you towards insight that truly matters, is a platform to be considered for your organization. Look out for some of these features availability in your HRMS -

   3.1. Compensation Analytics has emerged as a game changer that focuses on optimizing the cost of a workforce to drive bottom-line growth. This branch of analytics has been helping organizations craft an employer brand that effectively communicates a winning employee value proposition. HRMS which provides you with a compatible platform for compensation analytics which can be based on any input you deem to be comprehensive, is the HRMS you should consider.

   3.2. Time And Attendance Analytics is relatively new and is a part of very few HRMS which has enabled organisations to understand the predominant behavior of employees towards staggered shifts. Darwinbox is one such HRMS which provides you the opportunity to get trends and results for time and attendance management.

   3.3. Attrition And People Analytics is a wholesome process of analytics which helps in understanding the how and why part of attrition, addition and steps which could be feasible in order to keep them in control. It's an absolute advantage to have an HR Software with this as part of their analytics platform.

4. Role - wise Dashboards:

   A platform which can provide a single source of truth to every possible report and analysis under a configurable dashboard (role level) significantly reduces the costs and increases business productivity. HR Tech which builds its foundation on providing such a platform is the one that should be considered.

Employee Helpdesk -

Organizations which have a large workforce, require a system which can provide swift resolution of internal queries, clarification of system issues or even seamless tracking & managing of SLAs. One of the core HR functions is to have a systematic helpdesk.  Here are some of the advanced features you should look for in an HRMS -

1. Configurable SLA’s:

   The availability of a Standard Service Level Agreement (SLA) or even Custom SLA which can be configured based on First Response (Hours), Assignee Work (Hours) and Auto Close (Days) in an HRMS software, simply makes task handling easier and faster. 

2. Creation of Categories And Subcategories:

   Be it leaves, attendance adjustments or any such issues - the creation of help desk categories and subcategories to raise tickets is an important task. Not only does this streamline the process, it also helps with role-based query assignment. HR Tech which gives you this flexibility, is the one to be considered. With the added feature of auto assignment of tasks to the right personnel, it just becomes a perfect platform to handle employees queries seamlessly.

   The HRMS features list goes on! And if you're someone who is looking for an ideal HRMS with core HRMS features for their Org, here is the Complete HRMS RFP Guide to get the absolute master data of hrms features.

3.