Youmanage Managing Director, Phil Brown, was recently interviewed by Personnel Today as part of a feature on e-HR software trends for 2010. Phil's comments are summarised below.

"From what we're seeing, SaaS is still growing faster than the general market and that's backed up by what the likes of IDC and Gartner are reporting. We're finding that some companies are only considering web-based products now because of the benefits they offer (such as no IT overhead, speed of deployment, accessible from anywhere and so on). This is particularly true in the small and medium-sized business market. There are still some companies that won't consider an SaaS solution, primarily larger organisations that want to integrate into an existing IT infrastructure. The majority of companies are agnostic with regards to the delivery model – they just want the best product to meet their needs at the best price.

In terms of trends generally in the market, there's a definite push towards ensuring front-line managers and employees are better engaged and more empowered. Companies have recognised that the traditional HR system model – where all information is centralised and accessible by only a few HR users – is ineffective and inefficient. Managers don't have the information they need to make effective decisions, and central HR teams are overloaded answering low-level requests for information, which is costly and stops them from getting on with activities that can add real value to their organisations. So companies are looking for solutions that can equip front-line managers to be properly accountable for their teams, while at the same time retaining appropriate levels of visibility and control centrally.

There's also a trend towards solutions that combine workflow software with content – so that users have everything they need to do their job effectively via a single solution. To deal with many HR issues, a manager or HR professional will need multiple types of information (such as employee data, company policies, legislative guidance, training materials, forms, letter templates). The more difficult and time-consuming it is for a person to get hold of the information they need, the less likely it is they will make the right decisions. Therefore, we're seeing the advent of a new generation of HR solutions (like Youmanage and XpertHR's PeopleManager service) that combine software functionality with intelligent delivery of content."

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