Why Construction HR Needs Its Own Software

See if this sounds familiar: Your construction company runs multiple job sites across town, constantly hiring and onboarding field crews. You’re tracking certifications, hours, and payroll—and trying to stay compliant. Without construction HR software built for your workflows, it gets chaotic fast. When the week is done, the payroll team has to correctly calculate hours, track overtime, take wage codes and prevailing wage into account, and provide job costing updates. 

All of those tasks at once are challenging — but doing it without the right software tools can lead to additional issues like missed documentation, compliance risks, and tracking down signatures. 

HR software provides a platform to stay organized and work through those frustrations. However, too often, construction companies use traditional HR systems that fail to meet their needs. Traditional HR software doesn’t account for unique construction processes and can actually cause more issues than it solves.

What’s the solution? Construction-specific HR software designed to meet the unique needs of construction companies, keep teams organized, and streamline processes.

Let’s dive into the benefits of construction HR software and how hh2 is a modern, cloud-based system designed specifically for the unique challenges general contractors face. 

Why HR Software for Construction Companies Has to Be Different

HR in any industry involves lots of moving pieces, but perhaps no more than in construction. While many other companies and industries can hire and onboard employees and expect them to stick around for a while, construction requires constant hiring and re-hiring of field workers based on project needs and seasonality. 

Construction onboarding also happens on an accelerated timeline, with employees often needing to start working on projects as soon as possible. Paired with that is the need for accurate, complete documentation, especially for prevailing wage projects and employees working under a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Construction HR must juggle multi-jurisdictional compliance—navigating OSHA rules, union CBAs, local cert requirements, and workforce documentation across state lines.

Adding to the unique challenges of construction HR is the limited tech literacy among some field employees. Nearlyone-quarter of construction workers are older than 55, and the number of younger workers has fallen in the past decade. These workers aren’t digital natives, so navigating jobsite tech — even clocking in and out digitally — can be challenging and require additional training and support.

General HR Systems Cost Time and Money

Using a generic HR system isn’t just inconvenient for construction companies — it can also lead to costly rework, missed man-hours, and frustrated supers chasing down field signatures.

Because construction is such a detailed and nuanced industry, a generic HR system can lead to challenges such as:

• Payroll delays from manual entry errors. Generic HR systems aren’t designed for remote and cloud-based time tracking, which means supervisors and employees often have to track their time by hand and manually enter it into the payroll system. That process opens the door for potential human errors and can cause delays and costly payroll corrections.
  
  
• Safety violations from missing certifications. Projects often require certifications from the group funding the project or the local jurisdiction. HR software for construction companies provides a place to track certifications and ensure they are up to date. However, with a general system, those forms can easily be missed, leading to potential safety violations from not staying up to code.
  
  
• Fragmented data from a lack of integration. Construction teams have to manage numerous data types and processes between budgets, project timelines, job costing, time tracking, and much more. In the real world, these areas work together, such as time tracking impacting job costing and budget, but they can easily get siloed in an HR system. Without a complete, connected view of the company’s data, construction teams can be working with outdated or inaccurate data, leading to poor projections or delays.
  
  
• Turnover costs from disengaged workers. When your construction employee management system makes it hard to clock in, update info, or track pay accurately, workers leave. And replacing them? That’s expensive. Every delay, frustration, or challenge with anything from time tracking to payroll and scheduling adds to the employee experience. When those issues add up, disengaged workers can quit, increasing the time and cost of hiring and onboarding new employees.

Choosing the Best HR Software for Construction

Even when you narrow down HR software to a construction focus, many options are still available. However, not every tool has the needed robust features to help teams be successful. 

Here are five things to consider when looking at construction HR software.

• Mobile onboarding workflows. Construction takes place in the field, not the office. A construction HR tool should make it easy to onboard employees from anywhere. hh2 offers mobile construction onboarding software so employees can get trained on the job site and make an immediate impact.
  
  
• Digital document management. HR software should make it easy to store information digitally and to find it when needed. Secure systems like hh2 easily store licenses, certificates, and other paperwork, making it easy to find exactly what teams need.hh2 Document Flow streamlines and digitizes paperwork, creating a single location for all documents.
  
  
• Seamless sync with payroll and ERP systems. HR software should connect data sources to streamline processes and eliminate redundant work. A robust construction payroll service like hh2 integrates into existing ERP and accounting software (such as Sage 300, Trimble, or Foundation) for seamless data connection.
  
  
• Field-friendly user interfaces. A construction employee management system should be easy to use so field workers can access the tools they need and get to work. Construction teams need reliable access to time tracking and payroll services, no matter where they work. Mobile time tracking for field workers reduces payroll errors and creates a smoother approval process.
  
  
• Real-time visibility and audit trails. A cloud-based HR system allows users to see updates in real-time and stay connected, whether they're in the office or on a job site. hh2 Document Flow and time tracking create comprehensive records, making it easy to document progress and stay compliant.

hh2’s Construction HR Solution

With its many complexities and moving parts, construction needs purpose-built tools. A generic HR platform simply doesn’t cut it if construction companies want to stay competitive and grow. 

hh2’s HR tools lead the industry. Easy to use and fully customizable, our wide range of tools are designed specifically for construction and helps with every step of operations. 

Streamline your workforce management with software built for construction. Learn more about hh2’s Construction HR software and book a demo today.