As your company grows — especially across borders — the tools that once worked start to fall short. Spreadsheets, chasing email approvals, and stitching together different tools become a drain on time and resources. You need a better way to manage your team and operations.
That’s where a human resources information system (HRIS) comes in. But with so many options, each with its own set of features and price tags, choosing the right HRIS can feel like a challenge.
In this article, Remote walks you through what to look for to find a platform that not only fits your needs today but grows with you tomorrow.
What is an HRIS?
An HRIS (human resources information system) is software that helps companies manage HR operations and data. An HRIS often covers:
- Employee records and documents
- Payroll and benefits administration
- Time off and attendance tracking
- Performance management
- Compliance and reporting
Strong HRIS platforms today also offer automation, integrations, and AI to reduce manual work and give teams members more time to focus on priority work.
Why growing companies need an HRIS
For companies scaling from 50 to 200 (or even 2,000+) employees, HR complexity grows exponentially. Without an HRIS, teams waste hours switching between platforms, duplicating data, and chasing approvals.
With the right HRIS, you unlock efficiency, accuracy, and employee satisfaction. Your HRIS should help your business:
- Bring all your HR tools and data into one system
- Cut down on payroll mistakes and compliance risks
- Automate routine tasks so your team can focus on bigger priorities
- Track headcount, budgets, and trends in real time
- Give every employee a smooth, consistent experience — from day one to offboarding
Without a centralized system, it’s easy to get stuck in the weeds: copying data from one place to another, and fixing avoidable errors. An HRIS gives you structure, visibility, and the freedom to scale with confidence.
HRIS evaluation guide: 5 key features to look for
Here’s what matters most when evaluating an HRIS, especially if you have growing teams across states or even countries.
1. Global capabilities
Managing a global workforce introduces a new level of complexity: multiple currencies, tax systems, labor laws, employment classifications, and cultural expectations. A truly global HRIS helps you scale without borders, while keeping your people, processes, and policies aligned.
Check whether your HRIS has global capabilities for:
- Multi-entity and multi-currency support to set up and manage multiple legal entities and run payroll in local currencies.
- Localized onboarding and offboarding to automate compliant processes tailored to each country, from right-to-work checks to contract generation.
- Built-in global payroll to run payroll in 100+ countries with native support for local tax rules and statutory requirements — no third-party processors needed.
- Compensation benchmarking across markets to compare salaries by region, role, and level to create competitive and equitable compensation strategies.
- Org-wide visibility with global structure mapping to view your workforce by department, legal entity, country, and reporting line with a centralized org chart and global map.
2. Native HRIS and payroll
HR and payroll go hand in hand, yet legacy HRIS platforms treat them like separate systems. Many HRIS platforms require third-party providers and integrations for payroll, leading to mistakes, more admin, and losing employee trust.
That’s why it’s critical to choose an HRIS with built-in payroll features. An HRIS with native payroll supports:
- Real-time HR and payroll sync, so changes to employee data instantly update in payroll — no syncing or manual re-entry.
- Multi-country payroll with local compliance, to run payroll globally with built-in support for country-specific rules, deadlines, and reporting.
- Automated tax, benefits, and deductions to reduce errors with automatic calculations that adapt to employee location and status.
- Payroll status tracking and visibility for clear insights into payroll timelines, costs, and pay run progress in one place.
- Support for all worker types to manage employees, contractors, and EOR hires in a single, unified system — no need for multiple tools.
3. Automation and AI
Manual HR work isn’t just slow. It’s error-prone and expensive.
That’s why HRIS platforms today should do more than just store and manage data — they should actively make your work easier, every day. Look for an HRIS that:
- Automated workflows for onboarding, offboarding, and job changes
- Smart approval routing based on role, location, or department
- AI-powered alerts and reminders to stay ahead of deadlines
- Self-serve tools for employees and managers
- Built-in task guidance that adapts to each employee’s lifecycle stage
- Real-time compliance updates with actionable next steps
Remote HRIS uses built-in AI to streamline HR operations, flag issues, and guide decision-making. Businesses can move faster with AI hints, tips, and alerts. Team members can even get accurate answers on global HR with full context with Remote AI.
4. Global compliance
When evaluating an HRIS, look for a platform that actively supports compliance across the entire employee lifecycle, in every country where you operate or plan to hire. Falling behind on compliance can result in costly penalties, damaged employee trust, or blocked expansion plans.
What to look for in a compliance-ready HRIS:
- Real-time tracking of local employment laws, with alerts when rules change
- Centralized document management for contracts, right-to-work checks, and HR policies
- Localized onboarding and offboarding workflows tailored to each market’s legal requirements
- Secure, audit-ready storage for sensitive data and personnel files
- Role-based access controls to protect employee data and meet privacy regulations (like GDPR)
- Support for multiple worker types, including employees, contractors, and EOR hires — each with the right classification and paperwork across states and countries.
With Remote, compliance isn’t something you scramble to catch up with — it’s baked into your HRIS from the start. Remote’s Compliance Watchtower sends you real-time alerts about changes to employment laws in your region, so you’re ahead of risk.
5. Real-time insights and reporting
Data is only valuable if it’s accessible and usable. You need more than just raw data — growing businesses need meaningful insights that drive better, faster decisions.
Ideally, your HRIS should be a strategic control center for your business. A scalable HRIS should give you accessible, customizable, and actionable insights, all in one place.
What to look for:
- Live dashboards that offer a real-time view of workforce metrics
- Pre-built reporting templates for things like headcount, payroll costs, turnover, and compliance
- A flexible custom report builder that allows filtering by role, region, department, or time period
- Org-wide visibility into team structure, reporting lines, and global distribution
- Compensation benchmarking tools to support equitable and competitive pay strategies
When is the right time to switch to a better HRIS?
There’s no perfect moment to overhaul your HR systems, but there are signs it’s time for a change. If any of the following sound familiar, your current setup may be holding your team back:
- You’re juggling three or more disconnected HR tools
- Payroll mistakes are becoming too common
- You’re hiring internationally but struggling with local compliance
- You’re spending hours chasing down approvals or syncing data manually
- Your HR team is stuck in admin mode instead of focusing on people strategy
If you’ve outgrown your current tools, it’s important to choose an HRIS that’s easy to implement for a smooth transition. With Remote, implementation is simple with an intuitive platform and on-hand support.
Choosing the right HRIS: Scale with confidence
By focusing on five key features — global capabilities, native payroll, automation and AI, built-in compliance, and real-time reporting — you can confidently narrow down your options and invest in an HRIS that sets your team up for long-term success.
Remote HRIS checks every box for growing global teams. With HR, payroll, compliance, and automation in one platform, you can manage your entire workforce in 100+ countries with no extra tools, sync issues, or compliance gaps. Built-in AI helps simplify tasks, flag issues, and guide decision-making, so your team can move faster and focus on priority work.
Ready to make your global HR effortless? Book a demo or get started with Remote HRIS today.