Hr platforms: what an hr portal and an hr app are for, and how mobile hr apps are judged

How to judge an HR platform

1. Judge the portal as a place people will return to. Ask what an employee sees on the first screen. If it is a news feed and not their leave balance, their payslip and anything awaiting them, expect them to come once. The useful portal answers the two or three questions people actually arrive with.
2. Test the phone app against a real task. Book leave, approve leave, read a payslip and find a policy, on a phone, as three different roles. A native app that cannot approve is a viewer, and a manager who cannot approve on a phone will approve by message instead, which puts the record back where it was.
3. Check the permissions at the surface, not in the manual. Ask what each role sees by default, then try to reach something it should not. Configuration can usually restrict anything; what matters is what an ordinary installation exposes, because that is what you will run.
4. Ask how the platform handles people who rarely log in. Deskless and seasonal staff are the test. A login that needs a corporate account, or a password policy nobody can meet on a shared device, will keep those people off the platform and keep their requests on paper.

Portal, app and desk are three different products

Most vendors are strong at one. Office based employers get away with a good portal; an operation with drivers, carers or site crews lives or dies on the phone app. The HR desk's own screens matter to the two people who use them all day, and are easy to under weight in a demonstration aimed at a buyer.

Score each surface separately against who will use it, and give the heaviest weight to the population with the most people in it rather than the one in the room.

What an HR app should not try to be

A social network. Feeds, kudos walls and recognition streams are easy to demonstrate and are rarely why an employer buys. They are worth something when they carry an existing culture and worth nothing when they are expected to create one.

The features that hold adoption are duller: the payslip arriving, the rota being current, the leave balance being right.

Single sign on and the leaver problem

If the platform sits behind your identity provider, a leaver loses access when their account is disabled, which is the outcome you want. If it has its own passwords, somebody must remember to remove them. Ask how leavers are handled and whether the record survives the access ending, because it must.

Common questions

What is an HR platform?

A vendor's whole surface for employees, managers and HR: the portal, the mobile app, the manager approvals and the administration screens, usually around one employee record.

Do we need a mobile HR app?

If a meaningful share of your people do not sit at a desk, yes, and it is the deciding feature. In an office only employer a responsive portal is usually enough.

Should the platform use our single sign on?

Where you have one, yes. It removes a password to manage and makes leaver access automatic, which is the control auditors ask about first.

What kills adoption of an HR platform?

A login people cannot complete, a first screen that answers none of their questions, and managers who keep approving by message. All three are launch decisions rather than product defects.

Coverage by country

• Employer of record vendors covering Singapore
• Employer of record vendors covering Mexico
• Employer of record vendors covering Spain
• Employer of record vendors covering Colombia
• Employer of record vendors covering United Kingdom
• Employer of record vendors covering France
• Employer of record vendors covering Hungary
• Employer of record vendors covering New Zealand