HR OPERATIONS
Strategic advisory for evaluating and selecting HR technology — HRIS, ATS, performance management, LMS, and payroll platforms. We help you choose the right tool for your stage, size, and needs. This is selection support, not implementation — we’re vendor-neutral and don’t take referral fees.
When the sales demo looks nothing like real life
Every HR platform looks great in a demo. The interface is clean, the features are endless, and the sales rep makes it sound like it was built specifically for your company. Then you sign the contract and spend six months discovering that the reporting doesn’t do what you need, the integrations don’t work with your payroll provider, and the implementation cost is three times what was quoted. Choosing the wrong HR technology platform is a $50K–$200K mistake when you factor in licensing, implementation, lost productivity, and the cost of switching again in two years. An objective evaluation before you buy is the cheapest insurance you can get.
Who This Is For
- Companies that have outgrown spreadsheets and need their first real HRIS
- Organizations frustrated with their current platform and considering a switch — but not sure if the problem is the tool or how it’s configured
- Companies scaling where manual HR processes are becoming a bottleneck and automation is overdue
- HR leaders overwhelmed by vendor options and needing an objective evaluation from someone who isn’t selling a platform
- Companies post-acquisition needing to consolidate multiple HR technology platforms into one
- Organizations that bought a platform without a proper evaluation and are now living with the consequences
What We Evaluate
HR technology selection isn’t just about features — it’s about fit. We evaluate platforms against your specific requirements across multiple dimensions:
- Functional requirements: Does the platform do what you actually need — not what the demo showed, but what your HR team uses daily?
- Scalability: Will it support your growth over the next 3–5 years, or will you outgrow it?
- Integration: Does it connect to your payroll, benefits, accounting, and other systems without custom workarounds?
- User experience: Will your managers and employees actually use it — or will it become another tool HR has to chase people to log into?
- Total cost of ownership: Licensing, implementation, training, ongoing support, and the costs vendors don’t mention in the sales process
- Reporting and analytics: Can it produce the data your leadership team and board will ask for?
We cover the full range of HR technology categories — HRIS/HCM, applicant tracking (ATS), performance management, learning management (LMS), payroll, benefits administration, and engagement survey platforms. Most mid-market companies are evaluating one or two categories at a time.
Packages
Technology Needs Assessment — $6,000–$10,000
A structured assessment of what you actually need from HR technology — before you talk to vendors. Best for companies that aren’t sure what category of platform they need, what features matter most, or whether their current tool can be configured to work better before replacing it.
What you get: Requirements gathering through stakeholder interviews (HR, IT, finance, managers), current-state evaluation of existing tools and manual processes, needs analysis prioritizing must-have vs. nice-to-have capabilities, vendor shortlist of 3–5 platforms matched to your requirements, evaluation criteria and scoring framework for comparing options, and a recommendations report you can use to guide vendor conversations independently.
Timeline: 2–3 weeks typical.
Full Selection Support — $12,000–$20,000
End-to-end support from requirements through vendor selection. Best for companies that want an experienced, vendor-neutral advisor managing the entire evaluation process — so you make the right decision the first time.
What you get: Everything in the Technology Needs Assessment, plus: vendor demo coordination and structured demo scripts (so every vendor shows you the same workflows, not their highlight reel), side-by-side evaluation scoring across all criteria, reference check coordination with current customers of shortlisted vendors, contract review support identifying red flags in licensing and service terms, total cost of ownership analysis for top candidates, selection recommendation with rationale, and implementation readiness checklist so you’re prepared for what comes after signing.
Timeline: 4–8 weeks typical, depending on the number of vendors and stakeholder availability for demos.
How It Works
Discovery Call
A free 30-minute conversation to understand your current technology landscape, what’s driving the evaluation, and what you need the platform to do. We’ll recommend the right package and scope.
Requirements & Current State
We interview stakeholders across HR, IT, finance, and management to understand functional requirements, integration needs, pain points with current tools, and budget parameters. This ensures the evaluation is driven by real needs, not vendor marketing.
Vendor Evaluation
For Full Selection Support, we manage the vendor process — structuring demos so every platform shows the same workflows, scoring each against your criteria, checking references, and analyzing total cost of ownership. You see every vendor through the same lens.
Recommendation & Handoff
We deliver a selection recommendation with supporting analysis, review contract terms, and provide an implementation readiness checklist. You go into the vendor relationship informed, prepared, and confident in your decision.
Frequently Combined With
Technology decisions are most effective when the process is designed before the platform is selected:
- Performance Management System Design — Design your performance process first, then select the tool that supports it. We often do both simultaneously.
- Talent Acquisition & Recruiting Strategy — If you’re selecting an ATS, having a recruiting process design ensures you’re evaluating platforms against your actual workflow, not generic features.
- HR Department Assessment & Optimization — When technology selection is one piece of a broader HR infrastructure build. The HR Assessment identifies which systems and processes to prioritize.
- Change Management Consulting — When the new platform represents a significant change for the organization and you need a structured rollout with communication, training, and adoption support.
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Common Questions
Do you recommend specific vendors?
We recommend the best fit for your requirements — we’re not affiliated with any vendor and don’t receive referral fees or commissions. Our recommendation is based entirely on how well a platform matches your needs, budget, and growth trajectory. That said, we’ve evaluated most of the major players in the mid-market space and can get to a shortlist quickly.
Do you handle implementation?
No — implementation is typically managed by the vendor or a specialized implementation partner. What we do is make sure you’re prepared: an implementation readiness checklist, clean data requirements, process documentation, and a clear understanding of what the implementation will require from your team. We can also recommend implementation partners if needed.
We’re not sure if we need new technology or just need to use what we have better. Can you help with that?
Absolutely — and that’s exactly what the Technology Needs Assessment is designed to uncover. Sometimes the current platform can do what you need but it’s poorly configured, underutilized, or the team hasn’t been trained on its capabilities. If that’s the case, we’ll tell you — and save you the cost and disruption of switching platforms unnecessarily.
How do you handle vendor demos?
We write structured demo scripts based on your actual workflows and requirements — so every vendor shows you the same scenarios instead of cherry-picking their strongest features. We attend every demo with you, ask the technical questions vendors hope you won’t ask, and score each platform on the same criteria. This makes the comparison objective rather than a beauty contest.