The role of HR as any businesses has seen some dramatic changes over the decades and with the current pandemic, it is not more crucial than ever that HR teams are provided with the best tools to ensure their roles are performed to their best and our staff are looked after appropriately.
Small businesses can be presented with barriers in providing this, without access to the right resources, problems can quickly arise. Investing in flexible HR management software for growing UK and international organisations is becoming one of the most essential decisions any new businesses can make.
HR’s responsibility for talent acquisitions, handling staff data, building a strong work culture and providing aid for employee growth is a job of many facets. Alongside these, any person taking on an HR position is expected to have admirable people skills. Small businesses can feel the pressure even more with directors and managers often taking these roles alongside their daily tasks and HR differing from larger companies.
Ease the burden of these undertakings for anyone involved and take a look at why implementing HR software can make a substantial difference to small businesses globally.
1. Efficiency & Streamlining
For many small businesses, a barrier for completing tasks on time and correctly is the lack of man-hours in the day. With fewer members of staff, each team member likely takes on various roles throughout their time there.
Although essential, HR management can often be pushed aside with a priority focus on achieving targets and delivering projects.
Keeping track of your employees can quickly become a complicated and confusing task if things are not kept on top of. HR software can safely store all employee information in one place with easy access as often or as little as you like.
Employees often request information, such as copies of previous payslips, instead of trawling through months of paperwork looking for the relevant information, these requests can be completed in seconds.
Security is always at the forefront of this form of software and password protected information means no sensitive data can accidentally be disclosed to the wrong person.
As this data is stored in cloud-based software, there is no risk of it being lost, even if your computer becomes damaged, lost or stolen.
2. Make Payroll Easy
From the moment you take on a new member of staff to their last payday with you, everything money-related can be stored on HR cloud-based software.
Each staff member will have password-protected access to their payslips that can be reached from any device at any location and any time.
Not only can this be used to keep a paper trail of basic salary but can also for travel, bonuses, expenses and commission.
3. New Employee Information
When inducting a new starter, there is always plenty of information that needs to be passed onto them and vice versa.
By creating a platform that fits your exact requirements, you can ask your new employee to input this information on your HR software, without fear of anything essential being missed. It is then automatically stored in a secure location so there is no worry of it going missing.
4. Self-Service
No matter how much we try, as an employer or employee, we can lose track of the goings-on in our workplace.
By providing employees with full access to their profiles and calendars of colleagues, your staff can take ownership of their profiles.
Annual leave can be booked, tracked and paid, without the worry of team members clashing with their days off. Remote working days can be logged and details of expenses or reimbursements can be logged in real-time for review and approval.
Staff can edit their contact details themselves should they change, meaning you know everything is up to date.
5. Reduce Risk Mitigation
The thought of legal repercussions is a scary one of any business, but small business owners can be impacted the most from the threat of this.
HR software can keep track of signed documents and training that have been implemented, meaning you can prove an employee was aware of a policy or were properly trained in a process or use of equipment if they are trying to dispute this.
Most HR cloud-based systems offer a ‘read and accept’ facility that gives all parties a paper trail to prove when a party has agreed to something.
As each profile can be set with their own login and personal password, there can be no dispute as to who agreed to this.
6. Improve Internal Communication
It is not uncommon for a member of the work team to need to be contacted and no one in the office has their details.
It could be needing information from them on their day off or annual leave that can not wait until they are back in and this could cause delays in your daily tasks.
Easy access to telephone numbers and personal email addresses means there will never be a delay again due to lack of communication efforts.
7. Eradicate Paper
Keeping information on physical paper is not only seen as archaic but bad for our environment. Not only this, but paper and printer ink costs and any small business can feel the impact of even the smallest expense.
There really is little excuse for keeping data physically, it is not secure, wasteful and takes up precious floor space in our working environments.
You also don’t need to worry about the safe disposal of sensitive information as this can be permanently deleted from HR software with no concern it could end up in the wrong hands.
While it may seem like another expense, small businesses really can not be without HR software. It improves efficiency across the board while reducing long-term costs and reducing any headaches from trying to manage HR with your own filing systems.