What is Employee Management Software (EMS)?

Maximise business performance with an innovative EMS platform.

Your employees are one of your business's greatest assets and expenses, so it's important to ensure you're investing wisely for the best business results. While expecting employees to work constantly without breaks isn't a sustainable strategy for long-term success, striking the right balance between productivity and well-being can lead to a thriving workforce and business. 

To find that balance, many organisations turn to employee management software (EMS). This unique technology solution helps streamline HR processes like time and attendance, payroll, and benefits administration while also giving businesses valuable insights into how to build better experiences for their people. 

In this article, we take a closer look at what employee management software is, common platform features, and how it can benefit businesses. Plus, we’ll share future trends you’ll want to look out for as you shop for an EMS provider. 

What is Employee Management Software?

Employee management software is a suite of tools designed to streamline HR processes and empower employees to do their best work. Aside from improving workplace efficiency, these systems offer features that can help businesses build better, stronger relationships with their employees and more well-rounded workplaces. One key aspect of employee management software is that it gives businesses insights into their people, helping them quickly identify and address workplace problems or areas of opportunity to build better employee experiences and avoid turnover.

What are Common Employee Management Software Tools?

How does employee management software find the right balance between improving operational efficiency and building a people-first workplace? These systems offer comprehensive features and tools that include:

• Employee directory: Business directories allow employees to search for their colleagues by name, department, job title, and more, so they can more easily connect and collaborate with cross-functional colleagues. These tools often include ways to highlight and celebrate employee anniversaries and birthdays publicly as well, which can help raise morale and drive engagement.
• Employee communication: Stay in touch with your team regardless of whether they’re in the office, in the field, or working from home. Having one central location for all employee communications makes it easy for your workforce to stay up to date on the latest HR initiatives and business news.
• Talent acquisition: From hiring new talent to getting recent hires up and running with onboarding tools, employee management solutions often have all the tools you need to grow your workforce.
• Time and attendance tracking: Employee time management software can help simplify employee scheduling and ensure accurate time tracking, encouraging employees to take their breaks and clock in and out punctually.
• Leave management: Empower employees to request leave, check eligibility, and track their accrued balances through self-service tools accessible on any device. On the other hand, your business can track employee absences, maintain compliance, and control costs.
• Payroll processing: Send time and attendance data right to payroll for faster, error-free processing, so you can pay employees accurately and on-time.
• Benefits administration: From benefits enrollment to plan administration, employee management systems ensure your employees have all their health needs covered.
• Reporting: With detailed reporting dashboards and predictive insights, your business can analyse key workplace metrics, identify growth opportunities, and make informed people decisions.

What are the Benefits of Employee Management Software?

HR teams are often too busy with day-to-day operations to have the time it takes to focus on strategic initiatives designed to improve the workplace. Luckily, employee management software can help streamline their work and free up time for all that and more. Here’s a closer look at how employee management software can benefit businesses:

1. Streamline HR processes and increase productivity

   With the right tools, HR teams can do more with less. Employee management software automates administrative tasks and reduces manual errors, freeing up more time in your HR professionals’ day to focus on what matters most: your people.

2. Improve employee engagement and satisfaction

   Most employee management solutions offer employee self-service tools that empower employees to address their issues quickly and by themselves — without submitting a support ticket to HR. Using a website or mobile application, employees can submit time off, request a schedule change, view past paychecks—and more—all within a few clicks. These tools also benefit managers, who can update employee schedules, approve leave requests and shift swaps, accept timesheets, and more easily communicate with their teams.

3. Enhance communication and transparency

   No more shuffling through Slack channels, searching through crowded email inboxes, or leafing through Google Docs. With all your HR processes and tools in one central location, employees will know exactly where to turn to get the latest company communications. Whether they’re looking for organisational charts, career progression frameworks, performance review schedules, or the latest updates from your executive team, your employees can find it all in one, well-organised system. 

4. Enable data-driven decision-making

   With one system that houses all of your people information, your business can unlock a holistic view of your employee experience. This makes it easier to identify areas of improvement and take strategic action to build a better workplace for your employees. Not only can you look back on historical data, but many employee management solutions also offer predictive analytics tools that can help you anticipate future skill gaps, headcount needs, and more, so you can proactively plan and prepare for the future.

5. Offer expert compliance support and resources

   Whether you’re a single location business, considering opening new offices in other states, or even expanding overseas, every company can benefit from compliance support. Employee management solutions often have a robust team of in-house experts and resources to help your business remain compliant with local, state, federal, and even global regulations. This can ensure your business can avoid costly fines and grow responsibly.

6. Protect employee data

   HR deals with sensitive information: employee names, addresses, contact information, bank account information, and more. Employee management software can help relieve some of the burden of keeping this data safe and secure from your internal teams. Typically, these solutions offer top security and data encryption to keep this information from falling into the wrong hands. This can keep both your employees and your business safe.

Best Practices for Implementing Employee Management Software

Ready to kick off your search for an employee management software system? Before you start evaluating vendors, there are a few things you should keep in mind. Here are our best practices for choosing and implementing employee management software:

1. Make a list of must-haves

   Before kicking off any software search, you need to define what it is you’re looking for. Do you simply need a new payroll tool? Are you looking for a way to improve employee communication? Whatever your needs are, put pen to paper and make a list of your must-haves and nice-to-haves to help guide you throughout your evaluation and selection process. Some ideas to get you started include a mobile application to empower on-the-go employee self-service, integrations with your existing HR technology stack, round-the-clock support, and features that promote remote team collaboration.

2. Engage key stakeholders

   Once you’ve outlined your selection criteria, it’s time to loop in your key stakeholders. This should be anyone who will use the tool in some way or be influential in your implementation process. This might be your HR, culture, and people operations teams, as well as representatives from your payroll, finance, and engineering departments. Bringing these people together early on in the evaluation process can ensure you take all of their perspectives and advice into consideration in the time frame leading up to making your selection.

3. Secure employee buy-in

   Employee management software is an investment, so you want to make sure you pick a tool your end users, or employees, will actually use. Try including a few employees in product demos to get their opinions and feedback on the system’s usability and usefulness. If you’re choosing between two systems, having their insights can become an easy way to break a tie.

4. Provide comprehensive training and support

   Once you’ve made your selection and implemented your new employee management solution, you’ll want to train your employees how to use it and get the most out of the technology. Consider segmenting your training programs to make them more relevant for your audiences. For example, the tools and interfaces your managers and individual contributors use may be very different from one another.

   While live training programs can be helpful for some, consider offering on-demand videos, help articles, and best practice guides to help employees familiarise themselves with the platform on their own time. You might also want to create a Slack or instant messaging app channel where employees can ask questions and receive help in real time.

5. Regularly review and optimise processes

   Once your employees, managers, and HR team start using the platform, you might notice that a few processes and workflows can be refined. Regularly asking employees for feedback can also help you identify ways to improve your systemss and platform usage. Many employee management systems are highly customisable so even after launch you can continuously add or take away features based on employee feedback.

The Future of Employee Time Management Software

Technology is constantly evolving and employee management software is no exception. Here are a few ways employee management software providers are embracing innovation to give HR teams access to the most cutting-edge tools and features:

Mobile-first solutions for remote and hybrid work environments

With the increasing shift towards remote and hybrid work models, mobile-first solutions have become a critical feature in employee management software. These solutions enable employees and managers to access essential HR tools and features from anywhere at any time using their mobile devices. This not only enhances flexibility but also facilitates seamless communication, collaboration, and productivity in distributed work environments.

As the trend towards remote and flexible work continues to grow, we expect employee management software providers to further enhance their mobile capabilities, incorporating more advanced features and functionalities to support the evolving needs of modern workplaces. 

Check out the UKG Ready® Mobile App and see how your employees can access all of your business’s HR tools right at their fingertips.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics for workforce optimisation

AI has proved it’s more than a buzzword — it’s the future of work. EMS software has taken notice, with many providers incorporating powerful AI and predictive analytics tools into their platform to help HR teams optimise workforce planning, performance, and engagement. By analysing vast amounts of data and identifying key trends and insights, AI tools enable HR professionals to make data-driven people decisions that can move the needle on employee retention and engagement. Since many platforms are only just rolling out AI features, we anticipate seeing more sophisticated features and capabilities in the near future.

Learn how UKG Bryte™ can surface critical trends and timely recommendations that help you continue your business’s journey to becoming a great place to work.

Tools for contractor and freelancer management

With the growing trend towards flexible and gig-based work arrangements, employee management software providers are increasingly offering specialised tools and features to manage and engage contractors, freelancers, and other non-traditional workers. These tools often include features such as contract management, project-based scheduling, time tracking, and payment processing tailored to the unique needs and requirements of freelancers and contractors.

By incorporating these specialised tools into their platforms, employee management software providers can help organizations effectively manage a diverse and flexible workforce conveniently in one system. This makes it easier to track compliance and optimize for efficiency and engagement across all types of employment arrangements.

UKG’s Employee Time Management Software

Finding the right system can transform the way your organisation oversees HR. From automating manual tasks to giving newfound visibility into your workforce, employee management software can be a game-changer for HR teams looking to become more strategic.

The best part? Your HR team isn’t the only one who benefits. Choosing the right employee management solution for small businesses can empower your employees to self-serve, improve organisational transparency, and drive engagement.

Watch a product tour of UKG Ready to see how you can automate and simplify your people processes while putting your employees first each and every day.