What are your HR goals for this year? Do you want to communicate better with employees? Recruit more talent? Offer more engaging training and content? Whatever size your company, a few more free tools in your toolbox could put you well on your way to reaching your goals this year!

We know that in your role, especially if your team is small, you likely wear many hats, from recruiter and trainer to compliance and governance. Below we’ve rounded up some of the most popular free tools and resources for HR professionals.

Compliance Tools 

Society for Human Resource Management

Even if you aren’t a member, SHRM offers resources on their website to keep you up to date on the latest rules, regulations, and best practices. Their analyses of new laws and HR news are insightful and help in better understanding complex issues. Be sure to follow SHRM on Twitter for timely HR-related news! They have a main SHRM Twitter account and a SHRM HR News account. You may also find it helpful to follow your local SHRM chapter on Twitter if they have an account.

Department of Labor

The Department of Labor has resources that can save you a lot of time, money, and keep you compliant. Do you have the required safety posters in your workplace? What about compliance assistance? Stay up-to-date and meet federal workplace requirements at DOL.gov.

HR.com

Free membership on HR.com gets you access to thousands of articles, webinars, best practices and more! It’s a one-stop-shop for staying current and includes lots of professional development. There are even opportunities for you to share your own content and expertise as well as network with other HR professionals.  

HR Dive

Another good source of HR news and information is HR Dive, a website and digital newsletter covering human resources, recruiting, talent management, training, compensation, benefits, and hiring analytics. HR Dive does a good job of aggregating top HR news for the week and adding a layer of analysis and then pointing the reader to more in-depth articles on the topic at hand.

IRS e-News for Small Business

The IRS electronic newsletter, e-News for Small Business, provides tax information for small business owners and managers and self-employed individuals. The email provides helpful information including tax calendars, scam alerts, free webinars, IRS form changes, and tax change guidance. Also, the IRS’ Publication 15, Employer’s Tax Guide, is one of their best payroll tax resources for employers.

Communication Tools 

Grammarly

As business professionals, your HR team sends emails to the rest of the company. Here’s where Grammarly comes in. This tool checks your grammar for mistakes and inefficiencies automatically if you download its Safari or Chrome extension. In addition to spelling errors, it will suggest corrections to commonly misused words and alert you to grammar errors that other platforms miss. You can also upload or copy and paste your messages for corrections directly into the website platform. Grammarly is free for critical grammar and spelling checks, but it also has a premium plan if you need more advanced checks. While you might not consider this a traditional tool for HR professionals, it can save you from overlooking mistakes that make you appear unprofessional!

Slack

If your team is small, and you don’t have an internal communication platform, Slack is one to consider. Slack promotes teamwork and productivity by allowing conversations and work sharing to happen in real time and in one place versus a slew of emails. A separate channel can be created for each project or announcement. Because they are archived, messages can be searched for information that might have been missed. You can even use Slack to connect other apps for ease of sharing. Slack has a limited free version for small businesses.

Zoom

This video-conferencing platform has given HR professionals the flexibility and simplicity to make communication with candidates and current employees a breeze, especially in the remote work environment. It allows teams to share information quickly and easily, in a secure setting. HR professionals can use the tool externally, such as for communicating with a partner or vendor. The free version has a 40-minute time limit for group meetings.

Recruiting Tools 

Indeed

This website describes itself as the “world’s #1 job site with over 200 million unique visitors every month from over 60 different countries.” You can post job openings for your company anytime or search resumes to find the perfect fit for your business. If you want to be the first thing candidates see when they search for a specific job type, you can pay for a sponsored listing, but otherwise, job postings are completely free on Indeed.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers free (and paid) hiring tools for HR professionals to help find qualified candidates. The platform allows recruiters to share jobs and send messages within their networks and search for candidates within connected circles. You can also search for candidates using filters like job title and industry.

Do you use and love any of these free resources? Have a few we’ve missed? Email us at info@inovapayroll.com with your suggestions.

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