Ask HN: What do you guys most need in a simple HR system for startups?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6035153

by xplorer • 13 years ago

5 2 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I have been thinking on tools I may need once I go live with a startup. I believe some of the HR pain points for SMBs are: - Manage Time off requests - Travel expenses requests - Employee directory/profile & Agenda - Performance Reviews<p>This is something I see all the time on spreadsheets and documents.<p>1. Any other HR use cases you have in mind ? 2. Do you know any SaaS that does it aside of doing it in spreadsheets ?<p>Thanks

jaz• 13 years ago

I work at a ~60 employee company, and while we have apps they do all of the above, they're not that usable (having been designed and written about 10 years ago). The biggest issue is HR apps are not our core competency, so management seldom allocates budget to update these tools.

Our apps do the following: - Time off - Shipment request (i.e. UPS, Fedex, etc) - Purchase order request (part of this process is still paper based) - Employee directory (currently a hodgepodge of excel sheets, paper booklets and a 14 year old intranet site) - HR news/communications (recently purchased a hosted wiki app for this, seldom used anymore)

The biggest selling point for us would be to have the app outside the firewall, and accessible from our mobile devices or home computers.

Beyond that, having the app be a "one stop shop" for HR information (benefits, corporate policies, etc), time off requests, shipment requests and an employee directory listing phone extensions, emails, photos, bio, etc. It definitely doesn't need to be everything to everyone, but if it was a place I could reliably go to for benefits information, time off, it would surely take off at my company.

xplorer• 13 years ago

I never thought about those other requests. Maybe and request.anything workflow could be interesting.

How about Performance Reviews? How do you actually do it ?

Thanks for your answer

Ask HN: What do you guys *most* need in a simple HR system for startups?

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Ask HN: What do you guys most need in a simple HR system for startups?