Human resources tools: what belongs in a human resources app on a phone

Deciding what belongs in an HR mobile app

1. List what an employee does more than twice a year. Book leave, check a payslip, update a detail, see a rota. That short list is what has to work on a phone, and it is usually all that does.
2. Test on a phone with a weak signal. Not on office wifi. The people who most need mobile access are frequently the ones in a basement, a van or a warehouse.
3. Count the tools you already pay for. Most organisations own more HR capability than they use, sitting unswitched on inside products they already have. Audit before buying anything.

What ordinary employees actually need

Leave, pay, personal details and, where relevant, their schedule. Four things, all occasional, all of which must work without training because nobody will be trained. A product that delivers those well on a phone has delivered the entire mobile requirement for most workforces.

Everything else in an HR system is for HR and for managers. Presenting the full system to employees is the reliable way to make sure they never open it, which then gets reported as a failure of adoption rather than of design.

Why a collection of human resource apps is usually the wrong answer

Each separate tool needs its own list of who works here, and those lists drift within weeks. The cost is not the subscriptions; it is that leavers survive in three systems and reports from different tools disagree about headcount.

The exception is a genuinely specialist need with no overlap, such as a particular assessment or a regulated check. Buy those deliberately, connect them to the employee record, and review whether they are still used once a year.

What managers need from a human resource management app

Managers sit between the employee view and the HR view and are served badly by both. What they need is small: who is off this week, who is new, what they owe an approval on, and how their team's hours are tracking.

Products that put exactly that on one screen get opened. Products that require a manager to navigate an HR system built for specialists get ignored, and the work returns to email where it is invisible.

Common questions

Do we need a separate human resource app for employees?

Not separate, but the same system must work properly on a phone. A desktop product with a thin mobile view will not be used by anybody who does not sit at a desk.

Is it better to have one system or several tools?

One system for the employee record, with specialist tools connected to it where genuinely needed. Several independent tools each holding their own staff list is the arrangement that decays.

Which human resources apps are worth buying separately?

Usually only those with no overlap with the core record: a specific assessment, a regulated check, or a niche the main product does not attempt.

Do better HR tools change HR and payroll staffing?

They change what the staff do more than how many are needed. Good tools move routine requests such as leave, payslips and personal details to employees and managers, which frees HR and payroll staff from data entry. What they never remove is ownership: someone still has to own the employee record, the payroll calendar and the configuration, and an organisation that cuts that role ends up with tools nobody maintains.

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