Gaining Efficiency And Business Value Through Effective Management Of Your IT Infrastructure
Gaining Efficiency Through HR Technology
Transcript of Gaining Efficiency Through HR Technology
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consulting | software|solutionswww.selecthr.co.uk
www.theaccessgroup.com
A directors guideGaining efficiency through HR technologyAn information guide
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2 Access 2010. E&OE. Version 1
Introduction
The evolution of HR
HRs remit has changed a lot sinceyesteryear. While some HR managers
are still expected to hire, fire, even
offer tea and sympathy, most arepredominantly focused on becoming
business partners, pushing strategy,not paper.
As HR has evolved from satellite
function to central hub, HR solutions
have evolved apace. The best HRsoftware no longer operates separately
from the daily running of the businessbut is strategically aligned with it.
Greater visibility
Todays solutions often referred to as
HRIS (Human Resources InformationSystems) are designed to give you
visibility of every area of yourorganisation. Utilising the latest
technology, they provide you with the
accurate and timely information youneed to lower costs and improve
employee return on investment.
And while you may know a fair bitabout HRIS systems, its often a
struggle to command stakeholder
interest. This paper is designed todemonstrate how you can do just that.
About this guide
This guide is split into four key areas:
1. Key functions p1
How todays integrated solutions can
help you better manage key areas of
your organisation. Includes checklists
to help you identify the functions of
your ideal system.
Legislation & compliance p2
Recruitment & selection p2
Learning & development p3
HR reporting p3
Business intelligence p3
Self-service p3
Payroll p4
Document management p4
Health & safety p4
Absence p4
2. Signs youve outgrown your
existing software p2
Identifying the factors p5
Identifying the impact p5
3. How to select a new HR
solution p6
The research process p6
Partnering p6
Choose your project team p6
Choosing the technology p6
Requesting a demo p7
4. Implementation p7
Key stages p7
1. Key functionsLegislation & complianceFrom the introduction of the fit note
to the knock-on tax and salaryeffects of anticipated publicspending cuts, managing compliancein 2010 looks no less complex than inprevious years. Indeed, the risk
associated with managingincreasingly complex legislation is akey concern for many organisations.Most regulations involve significant
reporting requirements mistakescould lead to penalties, fines, and at
worse, lawsuits all of which havetime and cost implications.
The good news is that todays HRsolutions are designed to make keeping
on top of your companys legalobligations as straightforward aspossible. Good vendors will keep youinformed of changes in tax andemployment law so you can determine
what applies to your organisation.
Software releases
More importantly, they will releaseversions of the software that enable
you to easily gather the informationrequired for reporting.
Most systems cover standardprocedures, so finding the functionality
you need shouldnt be too difficult butmake sure that updates are supplied to
you regularly and in a straightforwardformat, for example, downloadable viathe internet or email.
While this list is not exhaustive, thefollowing gives you an idea ofimportant legislation that may berelevant to your organisation:
ISA Registration (IndependentSafeguarding Authority replacesCRM)
Immigration and Asylum Fit Note
Maternity
Paternity
SIR (Further Education sector)
Recruitment & selectionHiring is back on the agenda for mostorganisations. Yet as youve probablyexperienced yourself, the fiercecompetition for places doesnt make
recruiting any easier. Compound thecurrent job market with thecomplexities of the recruitment process typically involving many stakeholdersand far too much paperwork and itsno wonder that recruitment is often themost costly process within HR itself.
Workflow and automationBut it doesnt have to be so. Todays HRsystems optimise the end-to-endrecruitment procedure by automating
the workflow around each stage ofthe process. By decreasing the timetaken to get positions out there, andby making it easier for applicants toapply and recruiters to respond, youget to focus on the key attributes ofthe applicants and which recruitmentmethods yield the best results.
A recruitment solution should fit withyour organisation, whetherresponsibility is largely HR-owned ordevolved to managers. In other words,it should enable all participants tointeract with the software at therelevant stages of the process andthat goes for recruitment agenciesand applicants too.
Online recruitment
Whether using agencies or not, animportant consideration is the abilityto advertise (and accept CVs) online.This not only enables you to attractthe broadest audience, but reduces
admin, cuts paper waste and ensuresyou can provide the fastest possibleresponse to potential talent.
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Good HR software will enable you to:
Create vacancies
Manage the hire process
Enable applicants to apply online
Provide web access for agencies
Monitor success, costs and equal
opportunities
Generate bulk correspondence bypost or email
Advertise/retain details ofspeculative candidates
Learning & developmentEven in a period of economic recovery,there are compelling reasons toprovide quality staff training notleast because your best talent will
steer you through times of difficulty.
If you are unable to provide the levelof training they expect, then theyrelikely to look elsewhere a factsupported by the 2009 NationalManagement Survey which foundthat 46% of staff blame a lack oftraining opportunities as a reason forleaving their organisation.1
Equally, you want to be sure that the
training youre providing youremployees is strategically alignedwith your business objectives. Someorganisations for example providefree training on the basis that themember of staff stays with thecompany for a specified time period.
Managing overlap
The key to managing this effectivelyis choosing a HR system that gives
you visibility of the linked areas oftraining, learning & development
and performance management.
As these areas impact each other, youcan then see where the skills gaps are,closely monitor activities undertakenand maximise your knowledge of youremployees abilities. A good HR systemwill give you detailed analysis of costs,attendance and effectiveness, all ofwhich will help ensure you gainmaximum ROI per employee.
Some of the key learning &development functionality to look forincludes:
Training course administration
Online booking
Ability to cater for CPD membership
Integration with Microsoft Office(for diarising)
Online appraisals (including
competency models) NVQs
Skills search and management
HR reportingAccording to a survey by talentmanagement company Taleo, providingleadership with better managementinformation and reporting is one of thetop three-ranked challenges for HRprofessionals in 2010.2
The first step to efficient, pain-freereporting is having a system thatholds all employee information inone place. This not only savessignificant time pulling informationfrom separate sources but ensuresthe information youre analysing isaccurate. Any system should give youcomplete visibility andstraightforward analysis of all thefollowing:
Personnel details (including
diversity, work permits andemployment checks)
Job and salary history (includingmultiple jobs, salary scales andbands)
Employment details (including exitinterviews and Ts & Cs)
Disciplinary and grievance(including stage tracking anddocuments)
Skills and competencies (linked totraining and appraisals)
Absence and holidays (includingwork patterns, LOS, part-timecalculations)
Health & safety (including accidentreporting and medicals)
Benefits, pension, fleetmanagement, P11D
Salary modelling
Organisational structure (e.g. byemployee, department and division,headcounts and turnover).
Business intelligenceOne of the key drivers behind todaysgeneration of HR software is to delivertimely, accurate information when andwhere its needed. Closely related toreporting but going beyond it,Business intelligence takes manyforms including Excel based add-ins,
user-friendly report writers and mostrecently, web-based dashboards.
Dashboards draw information held inyour wider HR system and presentspecific KPIs such as headcount,turnover, training needs andrecruitment analysis. The ability todrill-down into the source dataensures that decision-makers canquickly spot any issues and get to theroot of any problems quickly.
See what you need toThe power of this type of reportinglies in its configurability and ease ofuse. For example, a good systemwould have the ability to providedifferent dashboard views to you, yourHR team, your staff and management,all presented in graphical formats andupdated in real-time.
The following gives you an idea of thefunctionality to look out for:
User-configurable views Real-time information
Information delivered via a range ofgraphical formats (charts, gauges,listings, rolling presentations etc)
Ability for dashboards toincorporate information fromexternal sources (e.g. RSS feeds)
Self-serviceOver the last few years, demand for
self-service functionality has grownsignificantly understandably, givenits ability to help organisations do farmore with less.
Self-service works primarily by savingtime. It takes information held in yourbusiness system and makes it easilyavailable, both to view or to edit typically via a web browser foranytime access. Useful for both staffand managers, self-service can bedeployed across your organisation and
can be made to fit with your existingways of working, for example, as anextension of your company intranet.
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Manager self-service
Manager self-service cuts down thetime taken to carry out administrationsuch as approving staff holiday,timesheets and training requests. Itcan also show this information viaeasy-grasp formats, enablingmanagers to view KPIs relating to
their departments turnover, sickness,headcount or budget spend.
Self-service for staff
For employees, self-service reducesadministration within the HRdepartment, dispersing tasks outinto the wider organisation. Forexample, this would enable yourstaff to enter their own trainingrequests, self-certification forms andholiday bookings.
With the responsibility for enteringinformation into self-service lying withthe employee and not HR, its easy tosee how self-service can speed theflow of accurate information into thesystem. Whats more, the ability toaccess information thats important tostaff such as payslips, P60s, holiday,training, and appraisals, is a powerfulway to improve communication andempower employees.
Good software providers will provide awide range of self-service specificprocesses. However, some of the mostcommon ones include:
Holiday/planned absence requestsand authorisation
Training requests and authorisation
Online appraisals
Sickness self-certification
Vacancy requests and authorisation
Timesheets
PayrollOne of the key drivers in HR softwareis the ability to share commoninformation with other departments payroll in particular. Aligning thesetwo systems will smooth out spikesof work associated with, for example,the onboarding of new starters andupdates to employee information,reducing duplication and improving
accuracy.
Seamless data transfer
Payroll systems obviously vary but thegood HR providers will enable thisinformation to be transferredseamlessly between the two areas ofthe business. This stands whether thepayroll is held in a separate softwarepackage or via an electronic interface
with a payroll bureau. Integrating witha payroll from the same productfamily as your HR solution has theadvantage of linking dynamically,including for example, a full workflowfor the authorisation and update ofHR information to the payroll.
For advice on selecting a payrollsolution, click here.
Just some of the information youshould be able to share with payrollinclude:
New starter/leaver information
Employee names and addresses
Job/organisation details
Bank and salary details
Document managementFrom training documents to CVs,spreadsheets to correspondence, HR ispacked with documents, paper-based
and otherwise. As your businessgrows, the ability to store thesedocuments centrally is therefore key tothe overall efficiency of your operation.This not only reduces paper and waste,but enables fast retrieval, howevermany employees you have.
Some of the functions to look for
include:
Ability to support all standard file
types (e.g. PDF, Word, Excel and
image files, as well as scanned hardcopy documents)
Ability to locate documents by
individual and content
Search facilities by category, author,
date range
Search CVs by keywords (e.g.
applicants and employees)
Ability to hold non-employee
specific documents (e.g. policies
and job descriptions)
Health & safetyWhether you operate out of an officeor a factory, no business can affordnot to maintain up-to-date healthand safety records. But time-consuming, paper-basedadministration often meansinformation is recorded long after
the event, leading to inaccurate orincomplete records.
A HR solution makes the processmuch simpler by providing you with aweb-based accident book. Via self-service, staff and managers can goonline to enter the informationrequired, capturing all the informationneeded in just a few minutes.
Health & safety reporting
Good systems will enable you to sliceand dice this data any way you require,enabling you to report incidents by, forexample, type, employee, anddepartment as well as providingspecific Health and Safety analysis suchas Riddor reporting. This way, you havethe complete visibility of informationneeded to reduce and manage riskswithin your organisation.
AbsenceReducing the cost of absence isperhaps the key priority for anyorganisation investing in a new HRsolution. But before you can make adent in absence figures, you of courseneed an accurate way to record andmonitor absence-related information.
Key issues
Research by IRS for XpertHR suggeststhat this is problematic for asubstantial amount of companies. Ina recent survey, 36% of respondents
experiencing problems with absencerecords and of those, inadequateabsence information recorded andinaccurate records came in top with74% and 66% of employersencountering problems respectively.3
Absence self-service
The priority of a good HR solutiontherefore is to make collecting thisinformation as easily and cost-effectively as possible. Self-service is
ideal for this.
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Via a web-based interface, thistechnology enables staff to requestabsence of any conceivable type (e.g.holidays, doctors appointments,hospital visits) and for managers toquickly record sickness and otherunplanned absences. Being web-based, staff and managers alike can
access the system easily, at any time,helping speed the flow of informationinto the central system.
Authorisation
All good systems will provide anauthorisation workflow to ensure thatall absence requests are approvedprior to updating your HR solution.Requests should be able to passthrough as many levels as requiredand take a precise route around your
company even if an approver is onholiday themselves! (see below formore about workflow).
Analysing absence
The ability to view this informationvisually (for example, as a calendar) isanother highly useful feature. Seeingat-a-glance who is in the office for thedays and weeks ahead is invaluablewhen planning workloads, and duringthe absence authorisation process.
Ultimately you need this information asa report and a good vendor will be ableto accommodate what you need to seeand how you need to see it. For example,if Bradford Factor analysis is importantto your HR strategy, you should be ableto get this data on-demand, whether viastandard reports or user-friendlyBusiness intelligence tools.
Workflow
As weve seen with self-service, todays
HR software enables us to re-engineerour existing processes and make themwork how we want them to not howtheyve always been. Workflowtechnology plays a key part in this.
For example, using workflow tools,you could create a series of steps toensure company-specific processesalways take place in a certain way.Appraisals, for example, mightinvolve the HR manager, a line
manager and the employee.
Workflow would allow for therequired information to be captured,authorised and followed-upaccording to your organisationsspecific policies and schedule.
Flexibility
Good systems enable you to
incorporate any number of steps andfor processes to take place in parallel.This last point is particularly usefulduring the authorisation process, sinceit will automatically divertresponsibility for approvals to anotherperson in the chain for example, ifthe main approver is on holiday.
When choosing a HR system, ensurethat it gives you the freedom todesign workflows yourself without
the need for additional consultancy.A system based on the WindowsWorkflow Foundation (WWF) is ideal,since it lets you design processesusing Windows familiar and intuitivedrag and drop tools.
2. Signs youve outgrownyour HR software
Identifying the factorsAll organisations, however small, relyon some form of system to manage
their HR operations. And as you mayhave discovered yourself, the timecomes when this existing system nolonger measures up. For somecompanies, its business growth thatdrives the change from a paper-based system to an electronic one.For others, its the lack offunctionality thats the catalystbehind a new modern system.
The previous section should have
given you some ideas about how amodern HR system can help youovercome any challenges that youcurrently face. But to help youfurther, weve summarised a list ofquestions to help you understandwhere your existing software may beholding you back:
How much time is spentmaintaining personnel records,recording timesheets, runningpayroll, appraisals, maintaining a
corporate training curriculum etc?
Can your system deal with flexible
working/part time staff (e.g.
automatically calculating pro-rated
holiday)
Are you relying on
spreadsheets/pulling information
from multiple databases to run the
reports that you need?
Can you easily report on the
information required to fulfill your
legislative requirements?
How much re-keying is being done
to maintain multiple systems (e.g.
HR, payroll, recruitment and
training databases?)
What would the bottom line
benefits be if real-time data was
available throughout your entire
organisation?
Identifying the impactsOnce youve identified that your
existing HR system is no longer fit for
purpose the next step is to work out
the tangible impacts of not changing.
To get you started, here are some you
may want to consider:
Manual recruitment processes tie
up key employees on recruitment
tasks, meaning a loss of efficiency
elsewhere, increased time to hire,
greater internal resource and
limited visibility of recruitment
effectiveness
Poor systems to manage absence
can mean limited visibility on
absence days, leading to higher
number of lost days and no way of
spotting frequent offenders
Insufficient process for employee
training and development may leadto lower productivity, lower output,
loss of skills and knowledge, higher
staff turnover and an increased
requirement for recruitment
Lack of integration between HR
and payroll means time is tied up
in duplicate tasks e.g. processing
employee information such as
personnel updates, new starters
and leavers. Information is never
in sync, leading to inaccurate
reporting
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Personnel information e.g.appraisals, learning anddevelopment documentation isheld separately to personnelrecords, meaning lack of visibility,communications and reportingacross all areas of the organisation
Days (and costs) are consumed in
HR as staff spend their timeperforming mundane, manual taskssuch as entering personal detailsand recording sickness, when theycould be adding value to thebusiness
Too many manual processes,duplication and re-keying of datawhich is costly from a processperspective, causes errors, andmeans there is no single view ofthe truth
Bottlenecks in the HR process causedelays in workflow, e.g. holidayrequests, impacting staffengagement
Risk is increased without an easyway to collect all the relevantinformation required for legislativereporting and compliance
Conduct a cost analysis
Based on the inefficiencies identified
above, you can begin a cost analysis ofcurrent processes. This will help todetermine time intensive activitiesbuilt into the current HR system andweigh these against the bottom-linebenefits of a new system.
While many time-savings are usuallythe easiest (and most compelling)benefits to clarify, your case should alsoinclude an assessment of intangiblebenefits. In fact, most of these may turn
out to convert to the bottom line forexample, an increase in staff retentionthrough the provision of stimulatingand targeted training.
Your cost analysis can also be used tobenchmark the success of your new HRsystem an exercise that youll need toundertake on a regular basis as yoursystem and needs grow and evolve.
3. How to select a new HR
solutionThe research processWith many suppliers offeringseemingly similar functionality, it canbe difficult to know where to start.
To help you in your search, weve comeup with a list of questions to ask. Itshould give you a good idea of whichvendors should be on your shortlist and those that definitely shouldnt!
How long have you been inbusiness? Check that you aredealing with an established vendor
How many HR installs have youcompleted? A greater number ofinstalls means a higher likelihoodof encountering and fixing a broadrange of customer issues
Do you develop your own softwareor resell on behalf of a softwareauthor? The former has theadvantage of a straight through lineto the software developer but checkhow this support will be provided
Do you serve other organisations inmy industry? Any provider worthconsidering will be able to provide arange of customer casestudies/testimonials
Do you have a reference site in mysector? The ability to ask existingclients about their experiences withboth the system and provider mayprove decisive in the final stages ofnegotiation. Some of the questionsto ask include:
Was the implementationcompleted on time and withinbudget?
Would you recommend theproduct?
How was the vendor atexplaining technical issues?
Were you delivered what waspromised?
What do your users like
most/least about the software? What training do you offer?
However well-designed, there willbe an inevitable learning curve asnew users get to grips with thesoftware. Satisfactory answers tothe following will ensure that thisprocess is as pain-free as possible:
Does you offer full producttraining?
Would you be able to provide
training at our site? Can you tailor the training to
meet different end userrequirements? How would yougo about that?
What support methods do youoffer? A hotline is the veryminimum you should expect. Askabout opening hours and responsetimes as well as the ability toprovide remote (internet based)support and on-site consultancy forthose more complex issues.
Whats covered in the cost of myannual licence? How are updatescharged for?
How do I ensure my software stayscompliant? All suppliers shouldcomply with the legislationavailable at the time of release, butits important to check that theseupdates are made regularly, and inan accessible format.
The importance of partneringPartnering with the right vendor is keyto ensuring that your HRimplementation is a success.Understanding the limitations of yourexisting system and quantifyingwhat you want to achieve is a greatstep in the right direction.
A good vendor will not object to beingthoroughly interviewed about howtheir proposed solution can effectivelyreach your companys expectations.
Include HR administrators andmanagers in the process to increasebuy-in and personal responsibility forthe overall decision. This process willmake it easy to see if there are anygaps between the expected benefitsand actual software capabilities.
Choose your project teamInvolving a cross-section of people is keyto the success of your implementation.After all, your aim is to implement asolution that benefits your entirebusiness not just the chosen few! Thismeans involving a mix of primary users- thats you, your HR team (if you haveone), finance and IT, as well as secondaryusers (management and staff).
Your aim is to find willingrepresentatives from each divisionwho will become product champions,playing an active role in shaping thesolution as your organisation evolves.
Choose the technologyChoosing the right platform for your
new solution will depend on many
factors, not least your size, your business
processes, your users and your budget.Access 2010. E&OE. Version 16
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