People Management: Priorities for 2012 Part II

The arrival of 2012 will see many companies wanting to start the New Year on a good note, and put out a list of priorities that need attention.

Previously we tackled employee engagement and retention, and the need to reduce red tape and unnecessary administration. The article also talks about absence management as well as management of older and temporary workers.

Attendance software will be very useful to address these issues, especially a time attendance system that utilizes a time sheet will be able to track employee attendance and absence. This time attendance system will also incorporate online leave application, allowing employees to apply for leave from a computer, cutting out the need to fill up manual leave forms and submit them. This not only cuts down on the red tape previously talked about, but also records every instance of absence and leave taken that will allow employers to monitor and manage human resource effectively. This form of leave application system will make lives for employees and employers alike much easier. Employee leave management is an aspect of any company that cannot be overlooked.

Having a time sheet will also ensure clarity for employers in sorting out payroll issues, especially for temporary workers. During this holiday season, many temp workers have come and gone, and sorting out who gets what amount, excluding days of leave and off, can be a real hassle and a complicated task. A clear time attendance system and time management system will show each temp worker’s attendance and can be easily used to generate the payslip for each worker. This will greatly reduce the administrative work for the employer, as everything can be done digitally.

These human resource management systems will help employers in managing the performance, presence and leave of their older workers as well. Having a wide range of employee types, from temp staff to more senior staff, may confuse a boss, unless he has the necessary software to aid him.

Your company will have a great start to 2012 indeed, as these important issues can be resolved simply and effectively.

People Management: Priorities for 2012 Part I

2012 is upon us, and companies all over the world are setting their goals and priorities for the New Year, if they haven’t already done so. This artcle mentions 10 aspects of employee management that every company should take note of.

Engagement is the first and most major aspect, as employees will be considering leaving their organization if there are not enough opportunities for promotion and training, and career prospects seems bleak. Employees are consistently looking for new growth themselves, and as the company grows, stagnation in their careers and payslips will not be good for morale and management.

A learning management system will help boost employee morale and performance, as employees will be able to apply for courses and training online, efficiently and quickly. Selection and choice of courses will depend on employee performance, and as such as an employee performance appraisal system is very useful to identity employees who have potential and drive to succeed in the company. This creates a cycle of performance, where employees who have gone for courses will be even more motivated to perform and do well for recognition.

Thus, a learning management system, or LMS, will benefit from co-usage of an appraisal management system or a performance management system where outstanding employees can be selected for grooming, settling the first issue of engagement.

This online digitization of employee performance evaluation and learning management will cut back on administrative lapse and red tape, which is the another issue companies have to address in 2012. The article mentions the need to cut back on bureaucracy and resolve issues in “poor performance management, poor training and a lack of investment in workers”.

A performance management system and appraisal management system will help address this problem, as employees’ careers and development can be tracked more easily now. Employee performance evaluation can also be tied to software for payroll, so a good appraisal or evaluation will directly affect payroll and an employee’s payslip. They will have added incentive to perform well. Employers will also now be able to monitor employee performance much more easily, without the previous hassle and difficulty of manual monitoring.

The company benefits from reduced red tape and administrative costs, and the human resource benefits from a much more streamlined workforce that engages them fully and completely. The perfect solution to this New Year’s resolution is in these human resource management systems.

Part II next week looks at the issues involving absence management, and managing older and temporary work staff.

Simplifying Human Resource Management

Human resource management, or HRM, is often times the backbone of a growing company. If it is done right, it can motivate people, resulting in a good working atmosphere, and drive the company to greater heights, but if it is done poorly, it can bog down the company in inefficiency, inane administration and employee dissatisfaction.

The article above states that HRM “should add value to the strategic utilization of employees and employee programmes”, and there is no better way to do that than with a capable performance management system and learning management system. A task that might have been previously complex and difficult to tackle solution-wise will now have been made simpler with this implementation of HR software. This software for human resource will motivate employees to aim higher while maintaining ease and clarity for employers.

With the use of HR software like HRIS for example, employers can access employee performance appraisals digitally, and can submit employee performance evaluations and staff performance appraisals into the database, making work easier and allowing all necessary information for individual employees to be gathered centrally.

These employees can also view courses and training opportunities they might want to attend, and be able to apply for them online with just the of a click of a button. This learning management system will greatly benefit workers wanting to improve.

The use of this central employee information pool is therefore double-pronged, with employers submitting performance appraisals and evaluation, and employees choosing courses they want, with matches made based on their performance eligibility. Human resource performance management is thus made more straightforward, with the technology linking both employer and employee.

This HR solution is the answer to making human resource work for you, and will help your company to do it right, to rise to greater heights.

Next week, we'll round off the year by looking at what kind of priorities HR should look at in 2012.

HRiQ: Proven in Practice

Many F&B companies find themselves struggling to manage their human resource, especially companies which have branch outlets and various types of ventures across different venues. Companies might have restaurants, cafes, bistro style eateries and even just stall shops selling the food items themselves. Such varieties of establishments demand varying numbers of staff, and this will cause a lot of work and trouble for a HR department that does not have a good human resource management system in place.

First of all, there will be difficulties in managing the payroll and staff payslips. F&B retail staff usually work by the hour, and usually clock in and out of a manual system. However, this is troublesome and prone to errors. A time attendance system or form of attendance software will help to correct these errors, more so if it is linked to payroll software. Such an attendance system will allow employers to monitor employee attendance using a time sheet and likewise, adjust wages using the software for payroll.

Secondly, another process that can be simplified is that of leave application. Previously employees had to physically approach superiors, ask for leave application forms, fill them up, send them in and wait for approval. This usually takes a long time to process, and employees had to apply many weeks in advance. It is therefore inefficient and a waste of precious HR, which has to consistently review and approve many leave applications. Leave software, such as an online leave management system, will greatly benefit the company. Online leave application will allow employees to apply for leave with the click of a mouse, which HR can then approve with another click of a mouse.

This leave application system greatly cuts down on administrative lag and provides a good HR solution to absence management. This also ensures that employees are compensated accurately, since employers can view the time sheet and match the payroll accordingly. This thus reduces error in payroll and cuts down on losses for the company. Coupled with the improvement of otherwise taxing and inefficient manual processes of leave application and attendance tracking, this digital HR solution will greatly benefit a company looking to streamline its functions.

F&B companies should look to HRMS, HRIS and other HR software to improve human resource management. Such leave software, payroll software and attendance software will reap great rewards for companies that wish to expand their market presence and open more outlets and branches in the future. Managing their staff will be a much easier task and companies can then place emphasis on product quality and customer service to stand out from the competition.

Engaging the Human Resource

It is important for any company looking to surge ahead of competitors to make sure that their human resource is fully equipped and engaged. Each and every employee should be able to maximize their potential and efficiently utilize the skills and knowledge they possess in order to further the company’s position in the industry.

Many companies in competitive markets are trying to attain such efficient use of human resource, and this can be done with human resource management software, or HRMS. Step one to managing human resource is putting a system in place for staff performance appraisal, and HRMS software will do that easily.

A competent HR performance management system will help employers track employee performance at various levels according to customized markers such as workload, attendance, and therefore provides a good method for employee performance evaluation. By allowing open-ended employer performance appraisals, employee performance evaluation will include input and comments that will make the performance management system more balanced and fairer.

Step two is to incentivize the human resource, providing the employees with opportunities to advance and grow. As the quality of human resource progresses, so will the company itself.

For example, employees identified to be performing well will be given chances to improve their abilities and rise within the company. They will be able to attend courses and training programs that will allow them to attain new skills and gain knowledge. This will further their career in both the firm and in the industry, giving them motivation to perform.
Additional monetary incentives could be added, with payroll software tied in to the performance management system. This provides incentive in the form of financial rewards if they perform up to expectations. This adds more value to the performance management system and makes the HRMS more streamlined and beneficial to the company on a whole.

It can be seen, therefore, that engaging the human resource will reap benefits for the company that will outweigh initial costs. These benefits will be most evident when the staff is competent, efficient, motivated and driven to bring the company to greater heights.

Costs and Benefits Analysis of Good HR Management

In this struggling economy, every firm needs to think about how to better manage costs to turn better revenue. Larger firms will naturally focus on managing human resource, as poor human resource management and structure strains the company and dredges the progress of the firm, especially one in competitive industries.

The first thing companies need to take note of is the allocation of employees. Employees cannot be wasted in a company of limited space and opportunity, and it requires a good human resource management system, or HRMS, to handle a large staff roster.

Employees who are unsatisfied with their progress, performance or treatment in a company will actively seek for other opportunities elsewhere, even possibly joining competing firms for the benefits they’ve been offered there.

Such employee reactions will result in large losses for the company: firstly, a cost in the productivity for the firm when employees take leave or go absent to search for other, more satisfactory jobs. Various technology production firms in Canada have registered a loss of more than CAN$1 billion due to this loss in productivity and the associating opportunity costs that were incurred.

Secondly, there will be a loss in human resource when the employees quit and move on, which will be need to filled in all over again. More costs are then incurred with the necessary follow-up search for new talent.

These issues can be addressed with good HRMS and competent general HR practices. A good leave management system will help employers keep track of employee attendance. Such attendance software and customized attendance systems will help employers to take note of staff who may be preparing to jump the ship. It will also help employers to improve their payroll systems and implement time sheets, which will reflect these attendance lapses in the payroll and employee payslips.

Absence management, leave management and payroll management will thus help firms reduce costs by making sure employees who are not performing up to task are not rewarded accordingly.

Further benefits can be gained if employers were to also use human resource management software to carefully manage existing staff in the company, giving them opportunities to train and develop better skills in their occupation. This will allow them to advance and proceed further in their career, giving them job satisfaction. This will in turn increase productivity and HR efficiency, positively benefiting the firm in the long run.

HRiQ Online News Buzz: Losing Workers and Hours

In a growing economy, employees in various larger companies are looking to expand their options and grow professionally within their career. Many of them are finding it unwise and unworthy to remain stagnant in one firm that does not offer them opportunities for improvement and expansion. Thus, to make up for lost time, more and more employees are taking advantage of management lapses to absent themselves from work, choosing instead to go for job interviews for companies that they’d rather work for. This all happens at the expense of the company they are currently a part of.

According to the Canadian HR article, Companies lost over CAD$1 million in the year 2010 due to unworked and unclocked man-hours, and this is set to increase in the year 2011. Companies are in need of some form of HR software or attendance system that could circumvent the issue as mentioned.

A timesheet would be crucial to these companies, allowing employees to clock in and out digitally, reducing lapses in human resource management. This time attendance software would also help in absence management. Employees would be unable to be absent and therefore cost the company valuable work hours and money. This time attendance system would also help in managing a company’s payroll.

This payroll software directly benefits the company, as it is now easier to track employee contributions and manage wages accordingly. Companies can now reward hardworking employees and better manage less efficient workers, reducing the wasted human resource in a company. This also helps to tackle the issue of growth and expansion in the company – employees that prove themselves in terms of time attendance get a better result in the linked payroll software, and better financial rewards and prospects as a result.

Leave software would also be extremely beneficial for company purposes, as it helps make keeping track of absences easier. Online leave application is the most commonly used leave management system, with employees easily applying for leave with just a few clicks of the mouse. Employee leave management is simplified for both employer and employee as well, reducing the hassle for employees wishing to take official absence.

This is a HR solution that deals directly with attendance management, a large issue especially in larger companies and enterprises that might not have the manpower or administration to deal with such lapses on the ground level. Companies should consider such software to increase productivity.

Read more: Employee Turnover on the Rise