Outsourced HR or HR software — which do you need first?

Employers usually come to us after something has gone wrong — a grievance, a resignation, a holiday calculation nobody can explain. The instinct is to buy software. Sometimes that is right and sometimes it is the opposite of what is needed.

Buy the software first if…

• Holiday and absence live in a spreadsheet that only one person understands.
• You cannot say, today, who has signed their contract.
• Right to work documents sit in a drawer or an email folder.
• You are spending hours a month on admin that does not need a judgement call.

Buy the advice first if…

• You have an active disciplinary, grievance or sickness case.
• You are planning a restructure, redundancy or TUPE transfer.
• Your contracts predate the last few years of employment law changes.
• Someone has mentioned a tribunal.

The honest answer for most employers under fifty staff is a cheap HR system plus an advice line, rather than either on its own. Together that is usually under £200 a month — far less than one hour of defending a claim.