Three words that I hate to hear when it comes to software:

“It’s good enough”

How often do you think those words are spoken at Apple or Google? Certainly not often when it comes to their products. Why then have I heard it time and time again when it comes from HR-related software in the government? Perhaps it’s a lack of understanding of all the cool software that exists in the HR technology market today. Companies like Cornerstone on Demand, SuccessFactors, Monster to name a few…all understand the importance of not only functional, compliant software, but software that does cool stuff!

Last year I conducted a trial of the Cornerstone small business product called CSB (formerly Sonar6). It’s a SaaS solution and has a primarily Flash interface (which I was not thrilled about but got over), and I was so impressed by three things:

  1. The tool was incredibly easy to configure. I setup a 3-level rating pattern with the appropriate descriptions in about 5 minutes.
  2. It looks awesome. The interface is very clean and would appeal to the most descerning of usability experts.
  3. It does cool stuff! For example, it has a great interface that graphically displayed an employee’s performace over time and allowed you to hide or show other employee’s in the organization. A manager could use this functionality to quickly track an employee’s performance over time. Could you do the same thing in a spreadsheet…well, yes…but the graphical interface is cool!

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HR software…just like any other technology…has to be cool to be successfully adopted. How cool is the HR software you are using?