With more and more business investing in HR Tech, it’s up to every HR professional to become an expert in buying this tech sooner rather than later.

Even businesses with less than 1000 employees are recognising the value of HR Tech – particularly as cheaper, cloud-based options have become available, reducing the need for dedicated IT infrastructure and resources.

You could learn from experience, but one poor purchase could resulted in months of wasted time and effort (not to mention a lot of wasted budget and a little less job security).

Instead, here’s the three most important factors to consider when looking at adopting any form of HR Tech.

1. Build the business case – does the value add up?

On average, cloud apps provide 1.7x the ROI of on premise applications, are faster to implement and the costs are far easier to measure. This makes it far easier for you to create a business case, as there’s fewer calculations to perform.

The key is to work out what benefit the tech is going to bring. Is it time saving? Less mistakes? Greater productivity?

Whatever you’re trying to improve, do your best to quantify it to work out how much value the tool is going to provide.

From there, weigh up these benefits with the time, cost and effort to implement the various systems you’re assessing. Remember to allow resources for integration with existing systems if necessary.

2. Decide exactly what problems you want your tool to solve, and remain focussed.

If you’re looking for a recruitment tool, find a recruitment tool. If you’re looking for org charting tools, look at org charting tools.

Remember the purpose of the HR tech you’re looking for to make sure you’re adopting a system that meets your immediate needs within your budget, rather than trying to adopt and assess too many systems at once and winding up with nothing implemented – and further behind your competitors than when you started.

Part of this process is working out whether an all in one solution or a best of breed solution will be the most useful tool. In general, if you have a specific problem you want to deal with fast, niche, best of breed solutions are the best way to go. If you’re looking for a complete solution to a host of issues, plus you’ve got the budget and time available, then all-in-one solutions may be the answer.

3. Make sure the tech is legally compliant for your business (and your local laws)

Most HR tech has access to a lot of confidential employee information. It’s up to you to make sure it’s secure and handled in a legal manner.

The easiest way to do this is to deal with vendors in your own country, as they’ll know the rules and regulations and tailor their product to meet these requirements.

It’s also important to make sure the tech will suit your particularly industry. However,  just because a system doesn’t match your current workflows (or it isn’t “the way we do things”) doesn’t mean it’s the wrong answer.

When adopting new tech, you will almost always have to adopt a few new processes and lose a few old ones. That’s part of the appeal!

Instead, try and work out whether the software can deliver the core requirements that you need it to. If it can, you can work out new processes as you go.

If you’ve gone through this process, you’ll fast find yourself an expert in purchasing HR Tech.

Just remember that the technology is always rapidly advancing, so if you keep up to date with changes in the landscape (new products, new processes, new ideas), you’ll never find yourself left behind again.