Many HRIS requirements packs document what the current system has taught people to tolerate.
Teams gather requirements by recording the existing process, including workarounds for system gaps and steps that exist only because of the current software or operating model. The pack becomes detailed, but it assumes today's process should continue.
Take a transfer between legal entities. The current process may require you to end one record, create another, manually carry balances across and send payroll a spreadsheet.
A requirement written from that process asks whether the new system can support each of those steps. A better requirement asks how the system will manage the transfer, preserve the required employment and payroll history, and minimise manual intervention.
Some process steps are genuine business or payroll controls. Others are consequences of the current system, fragmented data ownership or a policy decision nobody has revisited in years.
Before accepting a requirement, test it:
- Is this a genuine business, policy or compliance need?
- Is it compensating for a limitation in the current system?
- Would we design the process this way if we were starting again?
Don't design the entire future state before going to market; separate what the organisation actually needs from the constraints you have become accustomed to.
We test for this when reviewing HRIS, payroll and workforce requirements before an RFP is released.