It’s the one of the great HR truths:

– Candidates who get a flat tire on their way into an interview are liars.

– Employees don’t really get sick on Mondays and Fridays.

– You hate your HR software.

Or so we all thought.

Key Interval, a rising HR Analyst firm, came out with some dynamic research recently that showed that 76% of HR and Talent Pros actually don’t mind the HR software they’re using!

This goes against everything I ever thought was true in HR.  From the moment I stepped into my first HR position, people bitched and complained about their ATS, about their dinosaur HR system of record, about their performance management system.  In reality, the research actually shows that most practitioners actually don’t mind the system they’re using, and get the work done they need to get done.

I personally can’t name one person I ever met who was using Peoplesoft or ADP who had one good thing to say about them (side note – I’ve used both, and they worked just fine), but now I wonder if that was just HR commiseration and bonding.  “Hey, you want to be one of us, let’s talk crap about our software!”

The data presented by Key Interval is deep, so I tend to believe that over what I think I know about this issue. When I think about it in my own context, I have to admit, I never really hated any single piece of software I used in HR or Talent Acquisition.  Did I wish I had something better with more bells and whistles? Heck yeah! There’s always a shinier toy.  But, the software I was using was getting the job done, and not stopping me from doing what needed to be done.

One of the major reasons HR and Talent pros probably feel like they hate the software they use, is because they had, and have, no say in what they use. It’ the Skippy and Jif issue.  If you’re made to eat Skippy peanut butter, you’ll most likely will complain that Jif is better. Jif is better, but that’s not the point.  The point is we all like to have a say in the tools we use to do our job.  What pen are using right now? More than likely you either have a great office supply budget and buy pens you love, or you bought pens you love on your own and brought them to work. HR pros are crazy about pens.

This concept was just one small piece from a 66 page report Key Interval just released.  There’s a ton of data on for both HR pros and HR vendors on how relationships impact software selection and renewal, that is fascinating. HR vendors are completely insane not to be delivering cookies to their best clients each week, face to face!  Go check it out, the guys at Key Interval are brilliant in a very pragmatic way, that gives you the knowledge you need to know to move your organization forward.