Having been wowed recently during vendor presentations at what is on offer for the candidate experience and staff life-cycle through innovations and technical solutions I found myself excited at what is around the corner and what I may be able to bring to my work as an HRIS consultant.

Just as the come down from the vendor supplied drinks networking function sets in, so too does the reality We would have to change everything we do to implement this.

Like a child waiting by the letterbox for the comic book ordered x-ray specs to arrive – Sometimes the fantasy is better than the reality.

Behind all the glitz and glamour, bells and whistles that could possibly be implemented, what seemed like a perfect world solution will still need to be set up, tested, maintained, monitored, and updated.

To start, before deciding to move to a new solution some of the following needs to be considered.

How will this affect current process?

Will implementing a new system require:

• A change in current workflow?

• A change in the information gathered stored and reported on?

How will these changes flow into the business and what effect will they have on other parts of the business?

How will this affect the candidate/staff experience?

Perhaps you were wowed by new reporting capability and what this can mean in terms of fancy dashboards and pretty graphs you can deliver to your executive team. However:

• Data needs to be captured before it can be reported on. Where and how is any “new information going to be captured?

• If you are going to start capturing new information, or information in a different way this too will have knock on effects.

No change is without impact. How will changes affect employment brand/ staff morale?

How will this affect the bottom line?

Will implementing a new system require a large investment in terms of people power, product cost and time? How long will it be before we see a return on this investment?

Yes, all that glitters is not gold.