Buying human resources software should make life easier. For many businesses it doesn’t, and the reason is rarely the software itself. It comes down to two problems. The first is that choosing and buying the right system is difficult. The second is that administering it well enough to use everything you paid for is even harder.

A human resources technology partner exists to solve both. At SmartHR, we have been doing this work in Southern Africa since 1994, and in more than thirty years one lesson has held true. The software matters, but the relationship is why it works.

Vendor, Outsourcer or Partner?

A software vendor sells you a licence, sets you up and hands you a login. Whether the system fits your business, and whether your team ever uses more than the basics, is your problem.

A pure outsourcer takes the work away entirely. That can feel like relief, but you often lose visibility of your own data, and every small change becomes a request to somebody else.

A human resources technology partner stays with you across the whole journey. They help you choose the right setup before you buy, then provide the experts who administer the system and, if you want it, run your payroll. You keep the software and your data. They make sure you get the value.

Problem One: Choosing and Buying the Right System

The market is crowded, and every product demo looks good. Buyers have to compare modules, pricing models, deployment options and integration with the systems they already run, often without anyone on the team who has done it before.

Southern African legislation adds another layer. The system has to handle PAYE, UIF contributions, the Skills Development Levy, employment equity reporting and the Protection of Personal Information Act, and it has to keep up when those rules change.

Get the choice wrong and the cost shows up later. Businesses end up with separate tools for payroll, leave, time and recruitment, with spreadsheets in between, and every month is spent re-keying and reconciling.

Problem Two: Using What You Paid For

Even the right system only delivers value if someone runs it properly. Most human resources and payroll teams are small, often one or two people supporting hundreds of employees. They are busy getting pay day right, so there is no time left to configure leave workflows, switch on employee self-service, build dashboards or set up performance reviews.

In our experience, most companies end up using only a fraction of what they pay for. The licence covers the whole employee lifecycle, but the business runs payroll and little else. When the one person who knows the system resigns, even that knowledge walks out the door.

How the Tailored Model Solves Both

SmartHR’s tailored model combines our software with expert people and full payroll processing.

We guide the selection. Before you commit, we help you work out what you actually need, which modules make sense now and which can wait, and how SmartHR fits alongside any finance or payroll system you want to keep. You can run it in the cloud or on your own servers, and pay upfront, by rental or month-to-month.

Our experts administer it. Our team configures and deploys SmartHR with you, then keeps it current through year-end and legislative updates. As your needs grow, we switch on the parts of the platform you are not yet using, from recruitment and onboarding to leave, time, performance, training and succession, all on one set of data.

We handle full payroll processing. If you would rather not run payroll yourself, SmartHR’s payroll experts process it for you, from inputs and checks through to payslips. Your team keeps full visibility of the data, and a resignation or a busy month no longer puts pay day at risk.

The result is that you get the full value of the system you invested in, without adding headcount.

Why SmartHR?

Since 1994 we have helped Southern African employers of every size, from around 170 employees to more than 1,000, adapt to changing legislation without disrupting pay day.

The businesses we have worked with tell the story better than we can. One client, with about 500 employees, ran SmartHR in the cloud and said the integrated solution gave them “a single version of the truth” and “reduced our reliance and costs on otherwise having multiple vendors”. They added that service targets were maintained “especially during the critical payroll processing periods”. Another financial group, with 170 employees, started implementation at the end of February 2022 and ran its March 2022 payroll live on SmartHR. A local manufacturer, with more than 1,000 employees, used SmartHR from December 2017, with time and attendance feeding directly into payroll.

Our clients stay with us because someone shows up. We are your human resources technology partner, accountable for outcomes and not just licences.

Let’s talk

Whether you are choosing a new system or paying for one you barely use, we’d like to hear about it. Tell us how you run human resources and payroll today, and we’ll show you what a hybrid model could look like for your business.

Call us on +27 12 643 0990, message us on WhatsApp, or visit smarthr.co.za to book a conversation with our team.

Frequently asked questions

What is a human resources technology partner?

A human resources technology partner stays with you across the whole journey. They help you choose the right setup before you buy, then provide the experts who administer the system and, if you want it, run your payroll.

How is a partner different from a software vendor?

A software vendor sells you a licence, sets you up and hands you a login. A human resources technology partner helps you choose, administer and get full value from the system.