How Unified Human Resources Management Leads to Profits

Going by the Singapore Department of Statistics ^[1]  having a business in Singapore comes with advantages: a high literacy rate of 95.9%, a low-inflation rate of 2.8%; a respectable, annual growth in labor productivity by about 10.7%; a GDP of $300 billion; and a hard-working, English-speaking workforce.

None of these advantages can be leveraged if your business is not equipped with the problems that come with business growth, though. One of them being human resource management. HR management comes with its own challenges, and more so in a country like Singapore, with rapid economic changes, a growing economy, vibrant industry, and a wide pool of skilled professionals:

Systematized & Integrated management HR Solutions

Rob Walker, in his feature article ^[2] at Inc.com, recollects how Gerd Gigerenzer, an author and a psychologist “makes the case for intuition” in his book Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious. Rob mentions numerous instances and examples of non-number crunching heroes and world-renowned business greats such as Steve Jobs, Sir Richard Branson, and Jack Welsh – all examples of success by going by the gut.

“Going by the gut” is good for overall business strategy and might just work for product positioning. For human resources, however, the 'gut & feel’ system rarely works. It’s not to say that innovation is abortive when it comes to new, innovative HR solutions; it’s just that smooth and efficient operations are a must for businesses to function.

Screening, interviewing, and hiring the right talent is just the start. Payroll processing, financial management for employees, tax scheduling and processing, appraisal management systems, employee performance appraisals and evaluation – all of these critical processes need a streamlined, efficient, and a unified system to help businesses organize their resources and human assets.

Profits stall without continuous improvement

HR function involves setting standards for employees. It involves deploying workflows, executing key HR processes like audits, benchmarking, employee performance evaluation, etc. It also sets individual and group performance goals, task objects, and performance criteria. Smoothly aligned HR processes incorporating all of these elements are better positioned to harness business Return on Investments.

No measurements, nothing to work for

How many billable hours do your employees actually work? How do you rate an employee as compared to others with regards to performance? How to ensure best training made available to deserving employees? Who gets promoted and on what basis?

Although these questions might sound intrinsically simple and basic, your business success lies in not just answering these questions. Business success and sound Human resources policies can only originate from justifying your answers based on hard, relevant data. Metrics need to be set in place with systems to measure individual parameters.

The high-profile marriage with technology

None of the above business objectives can be met without the hallowed marriage of your business with technology. The latest advances in cloud computing, the soaring advantages of business intelligence, and the fact that any business – small, medium or big – can tap into a realm of options as far as technology is concerned. Our HR solutions (HRiQ Talent, HRiQ Core, HRiQ Cloud, etc.) have been designed with the above challenges in mind with our HR solutions using technology at their crux.

McKinsey Quarterly published a feature ^[3] that mentions two surveys done by McKinsey for its “War of Talent” series. In the survey, it’s apparent that ever since it’s first survey in 1997, and another one that followed almost a decade later, the shortage of talent is imminent all over the world. It’s critical to nurture talent, track performance, bring in the change, and leverage human resources better than ever.

Unified, strategic, and highly dependable technology solutions can help you acquire, manage, nurture and retain talent.

[1] Department of Statistics, Singapore: GDP Timeline -- http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/economy/hist/gdp2.html

[2] Fastcompany: Going for the gut -- http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/going-for-the-gut.html

[3] Making Talent a Strategic Priority: McKinsey Quarterly -- http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Organization/Talent/Making_talent_a_strategic_priority_2092

Appraisal Management System as a Talent Development Strategy

According to a recent Human Resource Forum Poll, 16% of the respondents indicated that they did not have any appraisal management system for measuring performance. In fact, both HR managers and employees found the appraisals procedure uncomfortable. From the managers’ point of view, judging someone was difficult; while for the employee, it was unpleasant to be judged. This is where the appraisal management system comes to the rescue. A performance management system aligns individual goals with the overall organization goals. And the key to the success of any appraisal system is its timeliness and objectivity, which require both transparency as well as confidentiality.


Benefits of an Appraisal Management System
An appraisal management system provides the following advantages for the employee, HR managers and company:


1. Performance Based Compensation and Rewards
Most of the time, managers get caught up in fulfilling their various responsibilities and often don’t have much time to interact with the rest of the staff.  A performance management system forces managers to discuss performance issues with employees and allows the managers to reward the right employees. It also allows the company to budget properly and set the stage for performance improvement plans and any other actions that may follow. It also encourages and motivates employees to perform at advanced levels.

2. Aimed Staff Development
A performance management system is a good way to discover developmental opportunities and is an important part of a progression process. It helps employees remain updated on ongoing performance evaluations, so that they can act thoughtfully and consistently to the facts. This way the appraisal management system helps improve morale and increase productivity.

3. Poor Performers Identified 
Not only it is important to reward good work, we also need a platform to deal with employees who need improvement. An appraisal management system helps in identifying and documenting poor performers and allows a smooth transition if the relationship needs to be terminated.

4. Documentation of Employee Performance
It is crucial for an organization to keep performance records of all employees. These documented records can be used in the event of any legal occurrences to explain why certain actions were taken. They also serve as proof that company policies and employee and company rights have been upheld.


Companies should take an overall look at their appraisal management system and have very specific goals that are tied to planned initiatives and the performance management system. An appraisal management system, administered fairly by skilled supervisors and managers, is the best thing for a company and for its entire staff.

Time Attendance Software: Effective Solution for HR Managers

 

Did you know, according to a survey conducted by the American Payroll Association and published in 2009, 82% of the companies surveyed planned to purchase new or upgraded time attendance software within the next two years. In another survey, by Nucleus Research in 2008, 60% of the respondents said that their employees aren’t accurately reporting their time, or that they don’t know if the reported time is accurate, while 19% of the employees admitted to buddy-punching.

 

If you are still manually entering time and attendance data into your payroll system or if you don’t want to suffer the same fate, then it may be the right time to consider time attendance software. You can easily use this software to maintain indisputable time records.

 

Features and Advantages of Time Attendance Software in Managing Employee Time and Attendance

Time Attendance Software is an attendance tracking system that replaces the typical time clock used to track employee attendance. It helps in tracking and monitoring attendance precisely in real-time, from anywhere in the world.

 

Managing attendance and leave takes up precious time that the HR and administration department could invest more fruitfully. With a user-friendly and effective system, it provides managers with the ability to accurately plan and schedule employees' work schedules to optimize available resources. This, in turn, helps to release the bottleneck of enquiries made to the HR and administration department pertaining to leave. Therefore, this software also helps to increase work efficiency and productivity.

 

Features of Time Attendance Software: 

• Customization features help meet specific requirements
• Managers can create flexible schedules for fixed and rotating employee shifts and make adjustments on a need-to basis
• Track leaves, absences or any other off time
• Accurate identification of employees with biometric devices
• Optimize resources by managing employees schedules, thereby improving productivity
• Automate employee attendance via integration with various time clock devices
• Also automate calculations for late arrivals, early departures, short leaves and half days
• Automate calculation of overtime repayments
• Suited to various tracking methods to comply with business operation policies
• Create multiple shifts patterns, working groups, rostering, allowances and more. 
• Manage and assign employees to different shifts easily.

 

Benefits of Time Attendance Software: 

• Flexible and inclusive
• Prevents buddy punching and fraudulent time keeping
• Keeps track of real labor costs and prevent overpayments
• Allows full audit trail and full accountability
• Reduce time needed to verify attendance data
• Reduces time needed to calculate and process payroll
• Eliminates mistakes in calculating work hours and other human errors, such as manual reentering, etc.
• Easy to use, scalable and  expandable
• Precise, accurate and extensive reporting
• Seamless administration
• Helps managers and supervisors in controlling overtime
• Real-time labor data availability - no more waiting for days and weeks to get the latest labor costs
• Save your time and allow you to react more quickly to staffing problems
• Monitors multiple locations
• Timely analytical reports to support business decisions

 

Time attendance is an affordable HR software solution that allows you to easily keep track of employee attendance.  It provides easy to read reports, which can be passed on to your Accounts department, saving hours that you would otherwise have spent tallying hand-written punch clock cards or time cards. This way, the software helps increase productivity by eliminating time consuming tasks. The bottom line, however, is that sustaining such a system provides insight into your workforce’s functioning. It can greatly enhance the effectiveness of your business operations, if used correctly.