HRMS SOFTWARE

RFP GUIDE
The ultimate guide to developing RFP documents for your HRMS project

GUIDE HIGHLIGHTS

Customizable framework to
help you construct your RFP

HRMS requirements template

with over 100 feature ideas

Advice on shortlisting vendors,

evaluating responses and more

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 INDEX
Written by experienced HRMS project
managers, this guide provides resources
to help you produce an exceptional RFP
document, including:

3
An introduction to HRMS RFPs

5
Outlining your HR requirements

6
HRMS requirements template

8
How to get better responses to your RFP

10
Defining your HRMS selection criteria

12
HRMS RFP framework

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 AN INTRODUCTION TO HRMS RFPS

You’re looking for a new HRMS. The business case has been made and signed off. You know exactly
what you need by way of functionality and you have established the HR processes this new tech
must support. You have a budget. You almost certainly have a project plan (even if all the details
have yet to be added). The next step is to go to the market and invite some vendors to make
proposals.

Of course, you could simply make a few calls to random vendors you’ve googled and ask them to
pop round and show you what they’ve got. You could, but if that approach results in you acquiring
the most appropriate system for your needs and budget then clearly you are one of the more
fortunate people on the planet!

WHAT IS A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL?

Instead of relying on good fortune and Google, you should create a Request for Proposal (RFP). A
clear statement of requirements that lays out what you want, why you want it, and how you intend
to evaluate systems as part of the selection process. It’s in response to the RFP document that
interested vendors will then submit a proposal.

“your RFP should create a level playing field for vendors and make it easier
(and quicker) for you to reach a decision”

Put simply, your RFP communicates your HRMS requirements framework to software vendors so
they can present their products in the best possible context and enables you to assess vendor’s
offerings against an established set of criteria. In other words, your RFP should create a level
playing field for vendors and make it easier (and quicker) for you to reach a decision.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU HAVE A GOOD HRMS RFP?

For a start, when a potential vendor reads it, they should be left in no doubt about the current
state of your business’s HR technology needs. If they can properly understand your existing HR
processes and your vision for improvement then they can focus on demonstrating how their
product will fulfill your specific requirements. And if they can’t demonstrate a fit against your RFP,
you have a framed argument to drop them from your final shortlist.

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 A successful RFP should, paradoxically, make narrowing your shortlist more difficult. Intelligent
vendors (the kind you want) will ensure their proposal clearly addresses each item in your RFP,
meaning you have to shortlist from high quality, relevant offerings. A quality problem and reflection
that your RFP has done its job.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that your RFP is part of the legal bidding and contracting process.
In essence, this first formal communication between you and the ultimately successful vendor is
the foundation of the future contract between your two organizations. Another reason to make it a
precise and unequivocal expression of what you want.

Finally, the process of putting your RFP together has another benefit… it forces you to review your
HRMS requirements. If they’re at all unclear or muddled, you have to lick them into shape because
muddled requirements results in muddled proposals, which may force you start the process all
over again. Investing time and care in your RFP process ensures your HRMS needs are crystal-clear
and greatly increases the likelihood you’ll select the most appropriate system for your organization.

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 OUTLINE YOUR HR REQUIREMENTS

This first step in developing your HRMS RFP is to illustrate your organization’s context and base
level HR requirements; listed, prioritised and documented.

As part of the original business case and/or scope document for the project, you’ll have conducted
a comprehensive review of your HR processes and systems and drawn up a list of HR requirements
you expect the new HRMS to support. If you didn’t, do it now. It’s this review that forms the basis of
the RFP; it’s your shopping list, itemising everything you want and, hopefully, everything you’ll find in
a vendor’s HRMS. Here are some areas to consider.

WHAT ARE YOUR CORE HR REQUIREMENTS?

You’ll have a list of functionality you have identified to be central to the success of your
organization’s HR wellbeing. This list will be part legacy document (what works now and what is
immovable) and part visionary statement (where you want to be). Once you have established
and communicated your core requirements you can explore the outer reaches of each vendor’s
products safe in the knowledge that the foundations of your new HRMS are understood and
accepted.

CLARIFY THE ESSENTIAL AND DESIRABLE

You’ll quickly realise a modern HRMS is almost infinitely enhanceable. Your prospective vendors will
have no shortage of modules and apps for you to consider. But there’s a caveat: just because it’s
possible and just because you can have it, doesn’t mean you should. If you find yourself (or your
project team or sponsors) getting over-enthusiastic about non-core requirements, then take a step
back and re-assess the list of potential enhancements in a frame of what will be business-critical
over the next few years and what will be ‘nice-to-have’. In other words, create two lists of criteria:
essential and desirable and make it plain to vendors which is which.

CONSIDER ACCESS TO YOUR HRMS

Ask yourself what you expect and what would you like in terms of employee self-service and
manager self-service. Do you simply want people to be able to update their own personal details

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 or will they be accessing work schedules from mobile devices, making online requests for time
off, booking themselves on training courses (with automatic notifications to line managers and
subsequent prompts for them to jointly complete pre-course preparation), do you hope to use the
HRMS to leverage a whole new era of social collaboration in your corporate culture…?

CONSIDER YOUR CURRENT HRMS

By way of context you should also provide some insight into your current HRMS, if you have one.
What levels of functionality you want to maintain and what you want to improve. For example, does
your current system have difficulty integrating with other business intelligence systems; maybe it
has limited capabilities when it comes to predictive analytics, or lacks mobile functionality, etc.

Just remember, whatever you’re asking for, you need to know how you’re going to measure and
assess it when it’s placed in front of you – i.e. have a clear criteria evaluation system.

PROVIDE THE BIGGER PICTURE

Finally, give vendors the bigger picture, the wider context of what your business or organization
stands for. Its vision and purpose, key strategic goals, core markets or clients, your staff numbers
(full-time, part-time, casual/contingent/agency etc.), any anticipated expansion projects in the next
few years, any particular compliance areas when it comes to HR and people management.

Put simply, If they understand you then vendors should be able to present a system that will work
for you.

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 HRMS REQUIREMENTS TEMPLATE

Table 1. shows an HRMS RFP requirements template covering recruitment, onboarding, learning
& development and more. This table structure can be expanded to include any functional and
technical specifications that you identified in your requirements gathering project. To download an
expanded version of this table as a spreadsheet, click here.

VENDOR RESPONSE KEY

OOB = HRMS requirement is provided Out-of-the-Box

CUS = HRMS requirement is available through customization
BOL = HRMS requirement is available through a bolt-on at additional cost
3RD = HRMS requirement is available through integration with 3rd-party software
FUT = HRMS requirement will be available in the near future (define a timeframe)
NA = HRMS requirement is unavailable

Table 1 Vendor Response

Feature Requirement Priority Timeline OOB CUS BOL 3RD FUT NA
Talent Management
Recruitment
Automated publication of jobs to job boards
Custom recuitement funnel for applicant tracking
Resume parsing
Referral rewards
Recuitment scheduling
Collaborative candidate notes
Integration with LinkedIn
Hiring analytics
Onboarding
Customizable onboarding process
Probationary periods
Eliminate paperwork with digital data entry
New hire system access prior to start
Learning & Development
Integration with external training services
Internal training directory
Reminder notifications for course start & end
Optimum next job to start at shop floor level
Mobile access to training courses

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 HOW TO GET BETTER RESPONSES TO YOUR RFP

The more you can standardise the format and shape of vendor responses to your HRMS RFP, the
easier your selection decision, and any subsequent discussions with individual vendors, will be.

Firstly, as well as outlining your core requirements, your RFP should provide an order of priorities
and timescale of implementation.

You should ensure each vendor provides basic information about their product in an easily-
comparable format. One way of doing this is to provide a limited range of initial responses to each
requirement, such as:

• Basic, out-of-the-box option

• Available as a standard ‘bolt-on’

• Only available as a custom option

• Available via a 3rd-party partner

• Will be available in the future (if so, when?)

• Not available

You can allow room elsewhere for the vendors to wax lyrical about the subtle nuances of their
products, but this type of formatting framework will make your shortlisting much easier.

Other key information that you will want to demand of all vendors includes:

Timing and scheduling – you’ve been clear on your timescales, you need vendors to put into writing
what they can deliver by when, and with what resources.

Key personnel – you need to know the names and backgrounds of any key personnel. After all, if a
vendor promises expert implementation consultancy as part of their package, you want to know
who you’re getting, what experience and skillset they have, and therefore be able to legitimately
challenge any role changes later on when the project is under way.

Cost – this is where you expect them to lay out the details of their licensing structure, both as a
total figure and a breakdown that clarifies issues such as number of users, customisation, ongoing
maintenance and support, upgrades, and the payment terms.

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 Having established the basics of what the system can do, when it can be delivered and who will be
carrying out the delivery, there are a couple of further issues you will need to clarify with all vendors
(or at least all vendors who want a chance of making your shortlist).

“The more you can standardise the format and shape of vendor responses
to your HRMS RFP, the easier your selection decision, and any discussions
with individual vendors, will be.”

The first addresses a key risk factor when entering into a long-term relationship with any supplier:
viability. After all, whatever form of license you agree, your hope is that this HRMS will serve your
needs for a number of years and you need to be certain the vendor will be around to support it.
So, your RFP should include a request for financial information, at least sufficient to be reassured
they’re in reasonable shape as a business; namely, financial results, product investment levels and
client acquisition rates.

The second point is the need for references. A minimum of two (preferably three) references from
previous (ideally existing) customers should give you some additional perspective. Your HRMS RFP
should request the name of the business, basic details of the service/product provided (so that you
know it’s comparable to your own requirements) and a contact name for following up.

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 DEFINING YOUR HRMS SELECTION CRITERIA

A key part of your HRMS RFP is defining the criteria you will use to make your HRMS selection
decision. Some people have been known to balk at this but take a moment to think about it. If you
don’t tell a vendor the basis on which they and their product will be judged, it’s a little like inviting a
potential employee to a job interview and only telling them the title of the vacancy. If you don’t tell
them what the duties are or the skills required, they cannot prepare properly and you essentially
set them up to fail. It’s the same principle with selecting a new HRMS.

Your RFP should include a clear statement of the relative importance of each of your requirements
and, ideally, a scoring mechanism to illustrate how you will use the vendor’s responses to measure
suitability.

For example, the selection criteria section of your RFP will likely be grouped under the following
headings or something similar. In a sense, this section pulls together, in one place, the items to be
dealt with in more detail throughout the RFP document.

THE SYSTEM ITSELF

These are the HR process-related requirements regarding functionality, i.e. what you need the
system to actually do. Naturally, the essential criteria/requirements are must-haves and if a
particular offering lacks one or more, that’s a dealbreaker. As well as particular functions and
features, this heading includes issues such as data security, configurability, customisability and
potential for integration with other business systems.

SUPPORT OPTIONS

This establishes the level (or levels) of available support. The primary focus is likely to be the
support package(s) that come with the software, frequency of updates and upgrades (including
any downtime issues) and emergency support. Then there’s support available through the
implementation process which requires a certain degree of expertise and experience which you
may or may not have in-house. Consultancy support could be provided by an independent third-
party supplier but the vendor may be prepared to bundle such assistance with the system.

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 VENDOR VIABILITY

As previously mentioned, you need to be assured that the vendor’s business is stable enough to
last as long as you intend to use the HRMS.

REFERENCES

No vendor is going to provide negative references but careful discussion with a vendor’s clients can
elicit useful information about how the vendor deals with obstacles in the implementation process
or handles unexpected system problems.

Additionally, you’ll factor in some of the ‘bells and whistles’, all the extras that the vendor throws
into their proposal. However ‘shiny’ they are, these cannot turn an unacceptable option into a
potential purchase, but they may help to differentiate between two or three front-runner vendors.

As for how to grade or assess performance against the HRMS selection criteria, one simple rating
scale that may be used is:

• 0 = does not meet requirements

• 1 = partially meets requirements

• 2 = fully meets requirements

• 3 = exceeds requirements

Of course, there are risks in being overly ‘mechanistic’ in your assessment but such a scale can help
‘sort the wheat from the chaff’ and give an objective framework to your HRMS selection criteria.

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 HRMS RFP FRAMEWORK
A cheat-sheet to help you create a clear and
concise RFP document.

You’ve defined your core requirements, you’ve created an RFP format that elicits comparable
vendor responses and you’ve establishes a simple grading system that helps you identify winners
and losers.

We’ve distilled some of these key points into an HRMS RFP template. You can download a fully
customizable version of this framework here - use this version as a print out to scrawl notes on as
you go.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

• Project overview
Who are you, and why are you currently looking for a new HRMS? ……………………………………………….
.…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
.…..……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…
.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….......

• Key business goals

What key business goals are you hoping a new HRMS will support? ......................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................

Company overview
Introduce your business more thoroughly - include your organization’s vision and purpose, core
markets, clients and locations ..................................................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................................................................................................

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 • Industry overview
Describe your industry - are there any particular trends or compliance requirements your HR
should help you address? ..................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................

HRMS PROJECT SPECIFICATION

• Project timeline ...............................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................

• Key deliverables ...............................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................

• Current HRMS
Describe any legacy HRMS you have, and why they are currently inadequate. Include details of
any other business intelligence systems, especially if there are compliance requirements
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................

• Current hardware and systems

Provide information on relevant in-house platforms, infrastructure and resources
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................

• Key personnel
Introduce key personnel in your project team and provide a point of contact
Project manager ............................................................................................................................................
Team member 1 ...........................................................................................................................................
Team member 2 ...........................................................................................................................................
Team member 3 ...........................................................................................................................................

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 • Project stakeholders
Introduce key personnel in your project team and provide a point of contact
Stakeholder group 1 ....................................................................................................................................
Stakeholder group 2 ....................................................................................................................................
Stakeholder group 3 ....................................................................................................................................
Stakeholder group 4 ....................................................................................................................................

HRMS REQUIREMENTS

You can use this HRMS requirements template to map out key feature and technical requirements
and their priority before filling this section in

• Feature requirement: .......................................................................................................................................

Priority (rank features as ‘must-have’, ‘would like to have’ or ‘bonus’ but not essential’):
...........................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Timing (do you want the feature out of the box, or is this a future need?)
...........................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Reason .............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Integration requirements ...........................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Additional information ........................................................................................................................... .....
............................................................................................................................................................................

• Feature requirement: .......................................................................................................................................

Priority ............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Timing...............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Reason .............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Integration requirements ...........................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Additional information ........................................................................................................................... .....
............................................................................................................................................................................

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 • Technical requirement: ..................................................................................................................................
Priority ............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Timing...............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Reason .............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Integration requirements ...........................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Additional information ........................................................................................................................... .....
............................................................................................................................................................................

• Technical requirement: ..................................................................................................................................

Priority ............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Timing...............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Reason .............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Integration requirements ...........................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Additional information ........................................................................................................................... .....
............................................................................................................................................................................

Replicate the section above for all of your key feature and technical requirements

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

• RFP timeline
What is the deadline for RFP responses? ………………………………………………..………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…..……………………................
What is your schedule for replying to RFP responses and inviting selected vendors to demo?
………………………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………..…..……………………..............................................................................................

• Vendor information
Ask for proof of the vendor’s financial stability ………………………………………………..………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…..…………………….......
...................................................................................................................................................................................

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 • Industry overview
Ask for full details of key vendor personnel/implementation team (skillsets, experience) ................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................

• System pricing
Ask for a full cost breakdown, including licensing, support, customization, maintenance and
consultancy ………………………………………………..………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………..…..……………………......................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................................................................................

• References
Ask for at least two references from companies similar to yours, including name and details of
key contacts so you can follow up

Reference 1
Company name .............................................................................................................................................
Contact ............................................................................................................................................................
Reference ........................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
Reference 2
Company name .............................................................................................................................................
Contact ............................................................................................................................................................
Reference ........................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................

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 This guide was written by Dave Foxall, HRMS World Columnist, with contributions
from Kathryn Beeson, HRMS World Editor

For more exclusive HRMS advice and resources follow HRMS World on social media

This guide was brought to you by www.hrmsworld.com

Icons made by Freepik, www.flaticon.com licensed by CC BY 3.0

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