Hi Karin I can only speak from personal experience & public sector, but most organisations use SAP or Oracle. As for courses, you would be best searching the web for those systems & seeing what they offer. Hope this helps in some way & good luck! Regards Andy

I honestly think that's a 'how long is a piece of string' type answer. ;-)

There are loads and loads of HR systems out there - different systems suit different needs. SAP and Oracle are two of the big ones, but I have only ever worked with SAP in my two large worldwide corporate organisation roles. They are very expensive systems!

In my public sector days (for organisations with about 1700 employees), I worked with mid range systems such as CiPHR and iTrent (or actually their predecessors!) and in my first museum role (with about 1200 employees) I worked with CiPHR, then Cascade, then iTrent (in fact I was responsible for procuring the last two).

In my current role (for an organisation with currently 100 employees) we use Breathe HR which is much smaller and better suited to our needs and budget.

I don't think there's one easy answer - I would recommend trying to learn about the principles behind HR systems and HE analytics and how HR analytics can add value as that will stand you in good stead with any organisation. You could also make sure you know how to utilise the full capacity of whatever system you are working with now so that you can translate that knowledge to other systems.

We also use BreatheHR - we are sub-40 employees, and it works well for us. No training required really, it’s pretty intuitive and has good support articles available.

Thank you Andy!

Thank you Jacqueline

Thank you Maya

In reply to Karin:

I have used Breathe in 2 different organisations and would agree with Maya that it is very intuitive. The first time I launched it, we set up training sessions for the staff and ended up cancelling them as people just had a go and found they didn't need any help. As an HR user, they is more to learn but Breathe comes pre-loaded with its own Help feature. I can't imagine other systems not having something similar. . You could try contacting some HRIS suppliers and explaining that you are a student who would like to get some experience. I can't see why they wouldn't let you. If you have a look at the Breathe website, you will see that you can sign up for a 2 weeks free trial, which makes me wonder whether it would be possible to do this just to have a go at using a system.

Thank you Elizabeth. It is a great idea, worth a try.