8 Cloud-based HR Solutions to Support Remote and Hybrid Teams

Is your digital HR toolkit equipped with the right HR tools to accommodate remote and hybrid working models?

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In light of an increasing employee demand for more flexible working models, companies are rushing to accommodate hybrid and remote teams by leveraging cloud-based software. With cloud-based HR tools, your company can improve its employer brand experience and accelerate its digital transformation strategy. 

During this transition, it’s important that HR teams are careful they select the right software; after all, it will be used to empower employees and support a long-term future way of working.

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Failure to select the right tools can end up resulting in a lot of sunk costs and wasted time. That’s why, to help you avoid that fate, we’ve put together this comprehensive list of cloud-based solutions to support remote and hybrid work.

The Rise of Cloud-Based HR

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Leading global technology research and advisory firm, Information Services Group (ISG), surveyed 260 companies worldwide and found that 46% are using an HR Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform or hybrid solution. Compare that to two years ago, when only 20% of companies reported using a cloud-based solution. 

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COVID has accelerated the race to the cloud, and cloud-based solutions are increasingly leveraged across multiple departments. As COVID regulations have left the workplace fractured, companies have adapted by implementing remote and hybrid working models that will support the modern workplace’s transition into the future. 

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These new working models have meant that reliable, cloud-based HR tools have increasingly become a priority as HR is often unable to conduct interviews or provide onboarding and typical HR processes in person. 

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Not only has COVID accelerated digital transformation across the workplace, but companies are also increasingly embracing a more agile, DevOps way of working. This trend has led many companies to replace formerly manual HR processes with more automated SaaS systems. 

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What are the benefits of SaaS HR tools?

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• Improved Employer Brand: SaaS tools simplify HR processes, improving the employment brand experience.
• Automation: Automated processes save HR from mundane administrative work.
• Easy Accessibility: SaaS is available in any location that has an adequate Internet connection 24-7.
• Effortless Scalability: Your tools’ capabilities evolve as your HR processes evolve, so your apps grow as your company grows!
• Paperless: SaaS eliminates the need for unnecessary hard copies and paper waste. 
• Easy to Manage: SaaS eliminates the need to manage expensive infrastructure. 
• Easy Integration: SaaS integrates easily with your existing solutions. 
• Higher Productivity: Improved and efficient resource planning helps boost productivity.

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8 Tools for Your HR Digital Toolkit

As the company’s main employee-facing interface, the human resources department is responsible for the employee experience end-to-end. That’s a lot of processes and information to manage. From recruiting to onboarding, to payroll to wellness - a lot of responsibility falls on the shoulders of HR, and throughout it all is the need to maintain constant engagement. 

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Make sure you cover all of your bases, with an HR tech stack that allows you to effectively accommodate and manage hybrid and remote working. Not sure where to start? Below are 8 essential cloud-based tools for your digital HR toolkit. 

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1. A Recruitment System for Finding and Hiring Talent

A recruitment management system is your core HR system, designed to manage the routine tasks of the recruiting process. 

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The transition to hybrid and remote working models has dissolved the geographic limitations previously posed by an in-office only model. The “war for talent” in some sectors has increased the pressure on recruiters who are finding that they need to cast their nets wider in order to attract much needed talent. 

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Thanks to solutions that deliver data-driven insights, recruiters are able to more easily locate the best geographical sources of talent. Talent acquisition teams can search for candidates by using a variety of criteria that offer insight into the local market such as skills, experience, salary, cost of living, and local competitors. 

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This data-driven approach allows recruiters to focus on more suitable target areas and HR teams to better accommodate and support remote workers. 

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Recruitment software comes equipped with many useful tools, including: internal review and evaluation tools, integration and support for existing job boards, candidate screening, applicant tracking system, AI-powered ranking of candidates, interview process management, and more.

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What are the benefits of a recruitment management system?

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• Streamlined Hiring: A complete and updated talent base at your disposal helps streamline the hiring process. 
• Talent Pools: Create a flow of relevant and qualified potential candidates. 
• Avoid Talent Leakage: RMS helps you retain talent and avoid losing it in the future. 
• Fast Response: RMS software helps improve response time between recruiters and candidates. 
• Visibility: Visual dashboards make thorough data more digestible, allowing you to adjust your hiring strategy in accordance with trends. 

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Looking for a recruitment management system? 

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Whether you work for a recruitment agency or in a human resources department, Manatal cloud-based recruitment software is made for you.

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Zoho Recruit’s automated workflow streamlines the entire recruitment process. This makes your recruitment process less time consuming, easier and more efficient.

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2. An Onboarding System for Seamless Onboarding

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Onboarding software is designed to automate and streamline the more time-consuming HR administrative tasks while delivering an engaging experience for new hires. 

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COVID regulations have made digital onboarding a necessity for many companies, due to its remote capabilities. 

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But onboarding software also lays the groundwork of an improved digital user experience for employees from the start. Eliminating redundancies in training materials by consolidating them from all departments onto one platform can also drastically reduce costs. 

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A good onboarding system should feature: digital forms that capture and keep track of requests, conditional workflows ensuring policy and compliance, an employee self-service platform, multi-channel accessibility, and a reporting module to generate actionable insights. HR and payroll systems should also be seamlessly integrated with your onboarding system. 

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What are the benefits of an onboarding system? 

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• Accuracy and Accountability: Digital employee onboarding is easy to monitor, quickening the process and allowing employees to transition into the workplace productively. 
• Paperless: Digital onboarding optimizes and organizes essential information, making it easy to retrieve data from anywhere at any time.
• Digital Culture: Digital onboarding establishes a culture of technology in the workplace from the beginning. 

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Looking for an onboarding system? 

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Monday.com is a collaboration and productivity tool that allows teams around the world to manage their work better and get more done.

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Absorb is a cloud-based learning management system (LMS) engineered to inspire learning and fuel business productivity. 

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3. An HR System for HR Processes and Payroll

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A human resources management system (HRMS), includes software and tools used to manage human resources, processes throughout the employee lifecycle, and compliance with tax and labor regulations.

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The desire for cloud-based HR systems is driven by the need for increased functionality and scalability to accommodate fluctuations, which many on-premise systems can’t accommodate. 

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Common tools included in a web-based HR system include payroll management, scheduling modules, capacity management, and compliance. 

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Remote and hybrid working models have made these tools increasingly useful as changing COVID regulations have made staying compliant more difficult. It's incredibly useful to have tools that can help you manage routine fluctuations in scheduling, available capacity, and regulations during a time when those factors are constantly in flux. 

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What are the benefits of an effective HR system?

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• Remote Capabilities: All requests for leave, benefit claims, and other processes are electronic, making it straightforward to manage remotely.
• Centralized Data: Employee personal data is kept in one centralized location. 
• Compliant: Automated conditional workflows ensure compliance with policy and regulations. 
• Data-driven: Built in reporting provides data-driven insights that drive decision intelligence. 

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Looking for an HR system? 

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KissflowHR Cloud is a cloud-based HR management system that automates all your HR processes from “hire to retire” in a single place.

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Workday HCM  is a SaaS solution that unifies all aspects of managing the employee lifecycle in a single HRMS.

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4. Corporate Wellness Software for Employee Wellbeing

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Corporate wellness software provides employees with easy-to-access company benefits that are aimed at helping employees adopt and maintain wellness goals and work-life balance.

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According to a Mental Health America study, 9/10 employees reported that workplace stress affects their mental health, leading to reduced efficiency and service delivery. Supporting employee health has become an increased concern for companies, especially during COVID, as uncertainty and upheaval wear on mental health. 

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What are the benefits of corporate wellness software?

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• Boosts Employee Health: Wellness programs help people adopt and maintain healthy behaviors and boost their mental and physical health. 
• Increases Retention: Wellness programs are an attractive perk that increases employee recruiting and retention.
• Decreases Absenteeism: Improved health in employees results in less absenteeism at work.
• Boosts Morale: Wellness programs add variety to the workday and an element of fun.
• Increases Productivity: Wellness programs result in rested, energized and motivated employees which increases workplace productivity. 

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Looking for corporate wellness software?

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Wellable's wellness platform helps organizations build engaging employee wellness programs, elevate employee experience, and transform cultures.

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Limeade's employee well-being programs are tailored to your culture and grounded in science to create happier, healthier workforces.

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5. Learning and Development for Reskilling and Upskilling
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Learning and development management software (LMS) helps employees develop new skills, enhance their productivity, and minimize errors. 

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In an increasingly competitive business landscape, learning and development is no longer just a luxury, but has become an integral part of business strategy. 

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A significant percentage of market capitalization in public companies is based on intangible assets like skilled employees, exceptional leaders, and knowledge. This, and the constant need for reskilling and upskilling in today’s modern workforce drives the importance of L&D. 

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A good LMS allows you to create and deliver course materials, provides easy registration for students, tracks and analyzes user data, provides performance-based tasks, and has sufficient communication channels for the instructor and learner. 

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What are the benefits of learning and development software? 

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• Better Standardization: LMS software allows companies to consolidate their training programs across all departments which saves resources.
• Tangible ROI: LMS software offers valuable analytical data that you can use to measure course completion rates and negotiate your L&D budget. 
• Increased Retention: The cost of employee turnover is staggering. LMS software helps employees upskill and advance their careers, increasing employee satisfaction and retention rates. 
• Flexible: Online learning offers workers more flexibility and leads to higher course completion rates and better information retention.

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Looking for learning and development solutions?

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Knolyx is a cloud-based training system which allows companies to create and manage online and offline training courses for their employees, partners, and customers.

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Looop is an online learning platform (LMS) that makes it easy to create and publish learning resources for your workplace or organization.

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6. Employee Engagement for Connectivity and Collaboration

Employee engagement software keeps employees unified on their goals, and is a key enabler of any effective remote or hybrid working model.

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It’s no secret that employee engagement has been a major focus of many companies over the last two years. As employers attempt to manage their employees remotely, they’ve had to experiment with different ways of connecting and collaborating with colleagues from a distance. 

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Employee engagement is the glue that holds the company together, so having effective employee engagement software in your toolkit is critical, especially during turbulent times. 

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Your employee engagement software should include a variety of useful tools for your HR toolkit, including: training tools, employee recognition and incentives, surveys and feedback, notifications, communication channels, and performance evaluation. Your employee engagement software should integrate with your other HR tools and system. 

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What are the benefits of employee engagement software?

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• Increased Retention: Employees feel a sense of belonging and are emotionally invested in the company.
• Stronger Company Culture: Teams are able to stay in sync and maintain a strong dynamic. 
• Increased Communication: Multiple communication channels allow employees to maintain communication across departments. 
• Employee Feedback: Feedback features allow the employer to keep their finger on the pulse of the company.
• Increased Productivity: Thanks to all of the above, employees will be more inspired to take initiative and identify better practices.

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Looking for collaboration platforms? 

Lattice transforms your people strategy by connecting performance management, employee engagement, and career development in one unified solution.

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You can also empower your teams and fuel positive change with employee engagement, performance, and development tools with Culture Amp’s all in one intuitive platform.

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7. People Analytics to Improve Business Intelligence

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People (or HR) analytics software involves collecting and analyzing people data to improve organizational decision-making.

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COVID has resulted in an ever-changing business environment, and people analytics can help your company get ahead of the challenges posed by this volatile environment.  

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As competition mounts, it’s essential that companies are able to interrogate their data to determine the root cause of problems. This data also equips HR with actionable insights, so that they can intervene appropriately, and anticipate future trends based on concrete evidence. 

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Good people analytics software keeps track of hard data regarding performance, attendance, workforce costs, and labor, and helps HR teams with multiple HR processes like recruitment, talent management, training, turnover, and performance management.

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What are the benefits of effective people analytics software?

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• Increased Retention: Targeted retention informed by people analytics can significantly reduce employee turnover.
• Fairer Pay: Analyzing and optimizing compensation practices and can help organizations achieve fair pay.
• Increased Diversity: People analytics gives organizations more visibility into their diversity initiatives.
• Increased Productivity: People analytics can also help organizations optimize their productivity by measuring the time spent on tasks. 

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Looking for people analytics software?

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IntelliHR is a people management and analytics software that empowers you to empower your people.

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Visier People is a cloud-based analytic application that is built to know the right business questions and delivers trusted, agile analytics to always stay ahead.

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8. Productivity Monitoring

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A productivity monitoring tool allows administrators to analyze their employees' behavioral data to improve workflow efficiency.

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Remote worker management software is an essential tool for your remote environment toolkit. As the demand for flexible hybrid and remote working models continues to persist, employers still have concerns about the effect of a split workforce on employee productivity. 

Productivity monitoring isn’t just software to monitor employees working from home, it can be used to provide greater transparency and boost the performance of in-office employees as well. Reports generated by tools to track employee productivity can be leveraged by both employers and employees as evidence of company and personal performance trends. 

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Features of good productivity monitoring tools include: automatic time tracking, insight into website and app activity, insight into employee workflow, productivity monitoring, and visualization into your company’s data. 

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For the top productivity tracking software on the market you needn’t look any further than Insightful’ productivity monitoring software. The capabilities extend beyond just tracking remote employees and the data provided will help you optimize your workforce and workflows. 

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What are the benefits of Insightful productivity monitoring software?

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• Boosts Productivity: Data collected by Insightful offers actionable insight into when and how your employees work. This data can be used to guide companies when crafting new policies and practices aimed at increasing productivity. 
• Prevents Burnout: Data from your Insightful remote employee time tracking software can help identify if employees are at potential risk of burnout. 
• Customizable: Insightful can be tailored to follow the organizational structure of any company. Management can customize the solution to get productivity reports of individual employees as well as teams.
• Automated: Insightful offers automation features to accelerate and improve vital processes.
• Enriches BI: Insightful software enriches your business intelligence tools.

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