I want to share the five systems every small business of 100 or more employees needs. Why 100 employees and not 25 or 75? To be honest, I would say that tech should be added as soon as you have the budget for it. But at 100 employees, these systems go from nice to have to your reputation as a serious business is on the line without them. So today, let's talk about two things: about what your 100-person business is signaling to employees and candidates when you are still creating forms in Google Docs or tracking things in spreadsheets. And then let's talk about what five systems I suggest that make up a modern tech stack. If you are under 100, you should still listen because adding these as you grow makes the most sense rather than waiting until you're 100 employees. Plus, at the end, I will be sharing additional resources for those who might be in smaller or growing businesses. Welcome back to the HR Connection, the podcast built for those of you managing HR in small environments with 1 to 500 employees. I'm Sabrina Baker. And before we jump into today's episode about HR tech, I wanted to share a free resource that will tell you where your human resources stand today and what's missing to get you future ready. It's called the HR Readiness Assessment, and the link is in the show notes. In the earliest stages of a business, 5, 10 employees, it's really normal to run HR on whatever works and whatever is in budget. Payroll gets done in QuickBooks, offers are sent through Word documents, and performance reviews are really just a Google Form with a few ratings on them. But when you're closer to 100 employees, that system or lack thereof starts to break down. Spreadsheets get harder to keep up to date, Google Forms has its limitations, and QuickBooks is not an HRIS system. So not only is your HR infrastructure at risk, but the reputation of your company is as well. You see, a lack of sophistication in technology signals a few things to employees and candidates that I doubt you want them thinking about your business. To employees, it signals the following four things. One, we don't invest in you. If they're still onboarding with paper packets or filling out reviews in Word, it feels like the company isn't prioritizing efficiency, accuracy, or their experience. Number two, we are behind the times. Employees see modern systems everywhere else in life: banking apps, Amazon, even their gym check-in. If HR feels clunky, it makes the whole company look outdated. Number three, your development isn't a priority. No LMS, no recognition platform. That signals a lack of commitment to growth, feedback, and culture. Expect mistakes is number four. When data is tracked manually, employees anticipate payroll errors, missing training records, or lost performance reviews. And trust erodes. And it isn't just employees who see this. If you are recruiting, here is what a lack of technology signals to candidates. First, we're small-time, even if we're not. Sophisticated candidates expect a seamless application and onboarding experience. Clunky processes make the company look like a bunch of amateurs. The second one, your time won't be respected. If the application takes 45 minutes and they still have to email their resume, candidates assume the work environment will be inefficient as well. And number three, we don't scale well. A patchwork process screams we're not prepared to support you long term. Candidates may worry the company isn't stable or serious about growth. I often say small businesses are like small towns. Some small towns have a one-stop light and a Dairy Queen. It gets the job done, but it is bare bones. While other small towns have modern grocery stores, coffee shops, and hospital systems, they have invested in infrastructure, so people want to live there long term. Small businesses are the same. At 20 employees, you can get by with a single stoplight. But by 100 employees, candidates see your town as outdated, and employees wonder why the basics aren't there. A modern HR tech stack is the infrastructure that tells people this is a place worth staying and growing. Let's jump into the tools. Here are five tools I recommend in order of implementation. That means the list that I give you, the order that I give them in, is the way that I suggest you implement them first. This is based on my experience from managing small business clients for nearly 15 years and implementing hundreds of systems as they grew. While certain businesses or circumstances may call for a different stack, this is a pretty good template to drive what you are trying to drive, which is business growth and HR infrastructure. The first system, of course, is a payroll system with onboarding. Payroll is the non-negotiable. It's the foundation. At this stage, you need more than just a paycheck processor. You need to look for payroll systems that automate compliance, things like taxes, reporting, and overtime, that offer a self-service portal so that employees can see their paycheck, change their tax deductions, look at their benefits, and most importantly, allow for digital onboarding so new hires can fill out paperwork without drowning your HR team in paperwork. This is not only going to make the onboarding employee feel like the org is current with technology, but it will also decrease errors from data entry that occurs with non-digital methods. Now, you might be saying to yourself, Sabrina, no one with 100 employees doesn't have a payroll system with onboarding. And I would just say you would definitely be surprised at the number of small businesses, even larger than 100, still having people fill out onboarding paperwork or use something like DocuSign. Now, sure, DocuSign is digital, but the data has to be transferred. And that leaves a lot of room for error. The second system that I recommend is an applicant tracking system or an ATS. Hiring volume at 100 employees looks very different than hiring volume at 20. You need consistency and an easy way for candidates to get you what you need to make a confident hiring decision. An ATS does exactly that. You want to look for features like customizable workflows that fit your process, built-in assessments or structured interview guides, or the ability to customize those, and easy posting to job boards, and of course, integration with your payroll or HRIS. This ties back to episode two in this season where we talked about building a skills framework. Your ATS should help you apply that framework consistently so every candidate gets evaluated the same way and managers aren't just going with their gut. The third system is performance feedback software. Performance feedback is one of the first things to fall apart when you scale. At 20 employees, you can chase people down to fill out a quarterly check-in form. At 150, forget about it. Performance software gives you visibility and accountability. You want to look for the ability to customize goal and behavioral components, prompt managers to check in more than just once a year, and that offers some peer feedback options. We talked about performance management in episode three of this season. And if you are at or over 100 employees and you do not have a process that is actually helping business growth, you are woefully behind. And a robust process needs a robust system to house it. Next up is a learning management system or LMS. At 100 employees, compliance training alone can bury you. Harassment, safety, workplace violence, spreadsheet tracking is a nightmare. An LMS allows you to assign training by role or department, track completion rates, and keep a clean record for compliance audits. But at this size, it can't just be about compliance. Small businesses that invest in development win on retention. Growth opportunities are a factor that employees think about when deciding whether to stay or move to another company. Small businesses are in a unique position to be able to offer more of that just by the very nature of being small. Harnessing that in an LMS and making upskilling a priority is how you retain talent in competitive markets. This last one might surprise you, but it is recognition software. And here's why I think it matters. As companies grow, culture naturally starts to spread thin. People don't know everyone's name anymore. They're more spread out. That peer-to-peer recognition platform can really help you keep that sense of connection alive. You want to look for tools that tie recognition to your company values, allow for public shout-outs, not just private notes, and provide reporting so that leaders can actually see where recognition is happening. I have seen the difference firsthand. Companies with formal recognition platforms have stronger engagement scores, lower turnover, and more cross-department collaboration. As I have mentioned in previous episodes, buying five separate tools is not the goal or our recommendation. We love an all-in-one at Acacia. That is one HRIS that offers all of these add-on modules to cover the areas I've talked about today. We also find those to be more cost-effective. However, I completely understand that there may be a time when you need something that your HRIS module may not offer, a feature or some functionality, and you're going to have to go outside to another system. If you do, the goal then becomes integration. Do the systems speak to each other? If you have to have five separate systems, make sure they all have integrations that transfer data from one to the other. Otherwise, you are moving from the hassle of spreadsheets to the hassle of transferring data, and no one wants that. All right, so quick recap. Here are those five tools I recommend in order that every small business at or above 100 needs: a payroll system with onboarding, an applicant tracking system, performance review software, an LMS, and recognition software. I suggest adding these systems as soon as you have the budget, but definitely by 100 employees. Now, if you are under 100 or you have no technology currently, please check out our companion pieces for this topic linked in the show notes. The HR Tech Roadmap is going to tell you what to add and when, walks you through exactly which tools to prioritize based on your company size. And if you're listening and still running everything off spreadsheets, don't miss our blog this week: Five Signs You've Outgrown Your HR Spreadsheet. You're going to know pretty quickly if it's time to upgrade. And then finally, a third free resource that will tell you where your HR stands today and what's missing to get you future ready. It's called the HR Readiness Assessment. It takes just a few minutes, and that is also linked in the show notes. That's it for today's episode. If this was helpful, I hope that you like, subscribe, and follow so that we can get this content into the hands of more small business HR practitioners who might need it. Thanks so much for being here with me on the HR Connection.