Transformational HR

Time and attendance strategies - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 03:30:00 +0000

How important is this data?...Very Much! We looked at derivative studies and used four key performance criteria to distinguish the Best-in-Class from Industry Average and Laggard organizations. The four metrics reflect an organization's ability to reduce payroll errors, minimize inaccuracies, and improve business outcomes

1. Payroll Mistakes: In addition to the time and cost associated with redoing a pay check, there is a risk associated with the increased burden on HR and reduced employee satisfaction. Over the past two years the burden on HR, as has the case been with duties in most other job descriptions, has increased substantially. HR Automation and HRMS is slowly becoming the norm for wmployee management. Adding more manual workflows to the process due to payroll errors will impact HR’s productivity and its strategic impact to the business. Moreover, payroll errors also impact employee productivity and satisfaction as they work to address them with HR / payroll staff. Therefore, it is critical that time and attendance data is accurate in order to ensure employees are paid what they deserve and also ensure that there is no instance of payroll overpayment. This metrics is defined by the average percentage of pay checks that require redo every period.

2. Timesheet accuracy: This is defined by the per cent of time sheets that require modification on behalf of the manager or HR. When it comes to efficiency and the burden on the operational manager, modifying timesheets after creation to account for errors, addressing proven violations such as time theft or buddy-punching (not to mention consequent actions or reprimands), and working with HR on other related tasks, can be very time consuming. Accuracy is critical to maximize a payroll manager's time for, and attention to, the core competencies of the business. It also improves HR’s ability to focus on more strategic elements.

3. Paid time off accrual calculation and compliance: These two metrics are essential to the Best-in-Class definition. The third top-ranked factor driving investments in workforce management efforts is compliance. Since leave management, especially as it relates to paid time off / earned time off accruals and other regulation mandates (such as FMLA in the US), affects compliance, We decided to include these two indicators in its definition of the three maturity classes. Paid-time off accuracy is measured by the error rate in accruals, and compliance is measured by improvement in audit score over the previous period in which it was measured.

Other Metrics: Cost and Engagement

When used effectively with business performance data, time and attendance data can be used strategically to make better decisions that impact labour costs and payroll processing. It empowers the payroll manager with many advantages. Though not used to determine Best-in-Class performance, overtime cost analysis showed that capturing accurate time and attendance data does improve deployment decisions. Organizations that achieved top performance indicated that 6% of incurred overtime costs were unplanned versus 8% for all others. Another metric that respondents reported on was the change in manual transactions handled by HR as it related to time and attendances inquiries or cases. Best-in-Class organizations reported a 6% drop in this metric versus 1% for all others.

The last metric worth mentioning that correlates to timekeeping and leave management is engagement. Follow-up conversations with several organizations showed that they were faced with employee reports of unfair preferential treatment among managers in awarding certain employees with overtime hours, certain shifts, or time off. And as a result, employee engagement has suffered. We found that Best-in-Class organizations on average reported 70% engagement versus 39% for their counterparts. In fact, 83% of Best-in-Class companies in our study directly attribute positive changes in revenue to improved engagement.

HR Automation - Overview

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 10:04:00 +0000

HR automation is the transformation of the whole HR database to an electronic database interface. The HR department is one of the departments in most organizations that have the largest amount of paperwork and documentation. With such a load of documentation to be done, a lot of system errors can be incurred in terms of employee profiles, pension plans and account information. HR automation is the best course of action to take to create a high performance and easy access HR system for your organization.

One of the major benefits of HR automation is the amount of organization you get from compiling data. You could find yourself with a backlog of employee data that has not been properly filed or listed over the years when you don’t have a digital HR system. Digital HR systems are good for compiling and categorizing HR data in an organized electronic filing system that is more functional and organized than a manual HR processing system. Upgrading new employee information is even easier when you have easy access to a cluster of similar info.
HR automation enables easy access to record through one interface. This HR document management system enables an easier way to access large loads of information through the press of a button. Technology has extended to us easier and more organized ways of accessing information fast, with HR automation; you don’t have to go through piles of paperwork to find information. The document access is also secured for different user access levels. This is through identification systems that indicate the different employee and employer levels such as passwords and employee numbers.
HR automation offers content management solutions such as scanning and indexing of files for electronic storage. This is much better than the manuals filing systems since keeping track of filed information is easier and it takes less business hours that could have been spent on other levels of employee productivity. The scanning compresses large amounts of paperwork and therefore eliminates the cost of filing cabinets and offsite storage of large bundles of paper work. Condensing paperwork is also one of the most important elements of the digital HR. HR automation also allows for back storage of documents in various levels that don’t take large amounts of space.
Misfiled documents and missing data is a HR system nightmare that could cost an organization millions of money. The HR automation guarantees reduced chances of misfiled documents since the categorization of data is based on an organized system and digital HR systems can also locate errors in filing information with the right kind of enabled features.
HR automation has facilitated a better and organized HR system of operations that requires less employee labor and takes a lot less time in processing, organizing and recovery of data. The Digital HR system is what gives your business a competitive edge in current technological advanced business fields.

Minerva Time Office Implementation for one of the largest manufacturers of tyres in the world challenged by management of their shift cycles

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:03:00 +0000

The client was looking for a complete time office solution for their plant in the upcoming industrial belt of Chennai. They were facing stiff challenges in managing their shifts and rosters. Here is how Minerva Human Resource Management Systems from TenXLabs came to be their best choice.

Client Overview

The client is an OEM supplier to some of the most established commercial automotive manufacturers like Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and Eicher from its Chennai plant. The relatively new Chennai unit has already produced 3 million passenger car tyres, a testament to the dynamics of the workforce in the facility. However, during the start of the operations, there was a pressing need to set up an effective time office system. The facility had a workforce of 3000 employees and required an effective Human Resource Management System (HRMS).

Challenges

The human resource management was handled by a team of three before our HRMS solution was implemented. The sole function of 2 members in the HR team was to collect data for processing attendance reporting and payroll for the entire staff. The labour work force did not have access to the in-house HR system because the data was scattered over spreadsheets and custom reports. All biometric reports needed manual follow ups to take stock of regularization errors and missing attendance details. With a workforce of 3000 employees, the HR division was looking for a customized HR Automation that could handle the full spectrum of HR functions.

Pain Areas

Shift Creation and Management – There were three shifts to be managed. Two of the shifts were round the clock shifts that covered production on the floor. The third one was for the administrative staff.
Roster Creation – Roster creation was a weekly manual effort that required hours of planning and involved dedicated time to be put in by the entire HR Team.
Regularization issues – Problems pertaining to regularization like 'tailgating' etc. were manually tracked. This meant that the HR team had to look up month end raw biometric data and find missing inputs and cross check with the employees in person.

· Leave attendance management and payroll manager – With a labour force of 3000 employees, the plant needed a robust and customizable HRMS platform that could reduce the turnaround time for processing attendance data and deriving payroll information for a given month within just a few hours.

Solution

A customized version of Minerva human resource management system hrms and PayGenie was implemented and launched within 14 days. TenXLabs provided a frugally engineered yet powerful software solution which could:

Ensure that regularization was not a cumbersome process. For example, if there were missing biometric attendance data seen by the system, an alert was created and passed on to HR the same day. It allowed the team to cut down on collating information at the end of the month.
Payroll processing was handled through a customized version of PayGenie. All data was designed to go through the system cutting down on manual data collection.
The payroll engine had customizable rules that allowed the team to tweak.

Where there were instances of system side support, TenXLabs was available for assistance. However, such requests have been observed to be on the lower side.

Benefits

Minerva HRMS suite cost approximately 4 to 5% of what they would have spent for an enterprise resource planning system – with extended benefits and flexibility.
90% of online entry and data related tasks were reduced. Data is not aggregated monthly but daily – giving instant insights.
Data is not collected manually. One person for the team can now take care of the plant's entire HR function with just the help of the Minerva HRMS suite.
Now the labor force can also access the system through HR Automation function.
Developing a World Class Integrated HRMS is our Mission We take deep interest to assist your company's most important assets – human assets. HR automation is a critical process for boosting productivity within the organization. HRMS tools give management the ability to recruit right talent, improve employee morale and retain talent among other benefits. A system that automates these, if implemented correctly, will pay for itself and save the company much pain.

TenXLabs' PayGenie Software Implementation for a dynamic Wealth Management Company with an ever-so complex HR environment

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:54:00 +0000

They required a system that could manage a complex HR environment with a dynamic payroll scenario that required custom rules to process payroll. This was needed because they had both high attrition levels as well as aggressive hiring every month. As a result of continuous changes to payroll, payroll management was becoming a complex task for them. The firm had to have a human resource management information system in place in order to maintain its large amount of data transactions in an accurate manner.

TenXLabs PayGenie implementation was chosen for its scalability and ability to handle a complex rule based payroll management module.

Client Overview

The client's tryst with excellence in customer relations began in 1987. Today, they have emerged as one of the most respected Stock-Broking and Wealth Management Companies in India. With its unique retail-focused stock trading business model, this broking firm is committed to providing excellent value for money to all its clients. The Group is a member of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the two leading Commodity Exchanges in the country: NCDEX & MCX. They are also registered as a Depository Participant with CDSL.

Pain Areas

The custom requirements of this firm needed a bundled Payroll Module with Human Resource Management System (HRMS).

· The firm’s reports were manually processed for payroll. This led to payroll errors.

· Improper leave/attendance management led to persistent gaps in loss of pay instance tracking, and made leave processing and leave balance calculation for each payroll cycle difficult.

· Attrition and frequent change in staff data mandated by new hires and inter departmental human resource allocations was posing a challenge in maintaining the HR information system.

· Due to the lack of HR automation, the existing payroll software was not scalable to handle a large employee database (Estimated at around 10,000 employees and rapidly growing).

· Due to improper salary management system, full and final settlement for exits was a challenging process in terms of accuracy, cost and effort factors, and this demanded accurate payroll processing.

· The company was organized into multiple legal entities. The management information system was not up to date. Hence, there was no fluidic system at the given time that could amalgamate data across entities into a single front end.

· An estimate of one or two business days for getting the data in-line with the HRMS database and cost of errors.

Solution

TenXLabs' customized version of PayGenie took care of the firm's Payroll solution needs. PayGenie saw the need for a payroll manager who could manage and control the payroll errors and put in place a salary processing system.

· In terms of scalability, the implementation used state of the art SQL Express based processing standards, ideal for an organization with this transaction volume.

· Technical handshake was achieved within 10 days.

· The implementation of PayGenie integrated with the firm's existing HRMS seamlessly.

· The implementation included powerful customizations like the auto payroll calculator (deriving custom rules basis business inputs from the HR team), which improved payroll accuracy and brought down errors like payroll overpayment.

· As the salary payment software was put in place, the calculation of settlement numbers for the bulk employee exits were processed without any stress on the available resources.

· With the introduction of the HR software for payroll and with subsequent and extensive support, the firm was ensured of smooth transition into HR automation.

Benefits

· With the custom reports payroll software in place, excel based data inputs were cut down to zero. The payroll software seamlessly worked with the HRMS.

· The pay management system, reduced the time required for auto calculation of the payroll by more than 50%.

· The salary processing system, auto calculated the bulk upload of salary and exit settlement and resolved the need for HR to review it manually.

· PayGenie implementation managed all legal entities through a single front end console.

TenXLabs provides user friendly, dependable, cost effective payroll software. Flexibility is the key, whether the requirement is a simple payroll software or a complete solution by integrating other systems in HR domain namely Employee Self Service, HRIS etc.

TenXLabs' Implementation of fully customized HRMS

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 08:28:00 +0000

TenXLabs' Implementation of fully customized HRMS for Industry Leading Paper Manufacturing Company

One of the biggest, integrated pulp and paper manufacturing companies in India needed a complete Human Resource Management System and Payroll Processing solution that would take care of all HR processes for all its employees. The company provides direct employment to over 4000 families. Moreover, the company provides livelihood to over 10,000 families through indirect job opportunities.

Client Overview

The company was formed with infusion of funds and high calibre management of a well-known industrial house of Calcutta, who have interests in textile manufacturing, tea plantation, wind energy and trading and investment business other than paper. The production capacity of their units put together is 1,74,000 tonnes p.a.

Pain Areas

The company needed an end to end Human Resource Management Solution (HRMS) and a payroll engine that could handle complex payroll rules. Before TenXLabs was engaged for this requirement, the company relied on a third party organization to manage HR processes. The key constraints were as follows:

Inflexibility to handle inbound data from the company and ended up taking key processes offline.
Inaccuracy in payroll management. Specifically, overtime calculation and tabulation of overtime in a payroll cycle.
Leave management was based on offline data.
Repeated offline reviews by the in-house HR team.

Solution

TenXLabs provided Paygenie with 30 to 50 project specific components bundled into a consolidated payroll engine. The payroll engine was deployed for the in house HR Team.

Based on a detailed analysis of requirements the engine was loaded with rules that could take care of the enterprise wide payroll calculation. TenXLabs also implemented Minerva HRMS that ensured that payroll calculation was augmented with detailed employee data. Over time hours/ overtime calculation was not a problem anymore as the data was recorded in the HRMS and translated through rules built in the payroll engine.

Benefits

The leave management system is completely paperless. There is no offline data.
The third party organization is not handling HR processes for this company. This helped reduce overheads in terms of reviewing and managing the process for the in house HR Team.
Given all HRMS and payroll processing is in house, the company has seen cost effectiveness in HR cycles jump 100 times.
TenXLabs continues to provide back end SQL Scripting support for the HRMS and Payroll engine.
Continued support in the form of periodic consulting from TenXLabs (for clarifications and assistance with respect to the components used in the implementation)

Minerva HRMS Implementation for India's Top Logistics Service

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 07:06:00 +0000

The largest inter-modal logistics provider in India was based on a pen and paper HR setup. They decided to take their human resource management online. Given it was a big decision, they were apprehensive and concerned about a solution that was inexpensive and fit their requirements seamlessly.

Client Overview

The company owns and operates a fleet of 20+ trains, 235 road-trailers and 10 reach-stackers at its rail linked terminals. They operate regular container train service from these `Dry Ports to the maritime ports at Nhava Sheva (J N Port), Mundra (MICT and MPSEZ) and Pipavav (GPPL), transporting import and export containers. They have the largest number of container trains among private container train operators.

Pain Areas

This was the single largest initiative taken by the company.
The expectations were high when it came to their first online Human Resource Management System (HRMS).
With a pen and paper setup, the biggest challenge was disorganized record keeping and discipline.
They were hoping that automation would help in eliminating that aspect completely.

Solution

This customer chose to go with Minerva HRMS. The software was provided as a SAAS (Software as a service) posting.
The implementation was designed with all functionalities included with minimal customizations.
90% of the entire module was used without any customizations at all.
The HRMS functionalities are designed on a 'pay as you use' basis for the customer.

Benefits

Ready MIS Reports. Information was ready for analysis whenever needed.
For offline data processing, the company used to rely upon a team of 2 HR associates. Once Minerva HRMS was online, this team was utilized for other responsibilities. Data processing was completely automated.
Features such as the online HR profile, Performance Management Tools, Report enrichment options etc were tremendously effective for the company to improve their overall HR processes.

HR Analytics for business performance

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Mon, 14 May 2012 02:19:00 +0000

Brief: Talent Analytics is about understanding and making sense of workforce data to make decisions about people with the aim of aligning people decisions to business strategy. This article attempts to analyze what is talent analytics, how it is different from traditional human capital analytics, and where HR people are required to turn their focus.

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Talent Analytics or Human Workforce Analytics is the way by which data is analyzed to generate insights on meeting the complex needs of the HR and business challenges and thereby enabling high performance organizations. In the traditional HR role, the expectation was to somehow manage the people processes through insight and interpersonal relationships. Thus the complex understanding of organizational and human dynamics happens by a most subjective process of hearsay, observation and interpretation.

Though the field of Business Analytics has made great strides in the recent years, HR processes have not yet caught up to the task of analyzing these complex dimensions to make decisions on talent management, be it acquisition, development or retention. The typical tasks that would fall under these heads would be assessing capabilities, identifying leadership behaviours, predicting performance indicators or studying retention patterns. Leveraging on analytics would mean an improvement in workforce planning, alignment of organizational capabilities, improvement of business strategies and the like, all of which lead to improves organizational performance.

Companies like Accenture are taking the lead in defining what is human analytics and developing an approach that would help companies answer some critical people-related questions on what programs really drive better workforce performance, what organizational and talent levers impact performance and efficiency, how to retain top performers etc.Companies like IBM have developed Talent analytics software that provides insight into recruitment, learning, skills, succession and retention.

In understanding what is Talent Analytics, it is important to review what gets measured in the name of metrics related to human capital. HR managers take pride in estimating their employees cost of hiring, turnover rate, replacement rate, contribution to bottomline, all of which do not have much strategic importance. They are useful in managing people and information, not in creating value to the organization.

The shift that is required is from managing efficiency to creating effectiveness. To give an example, most organizations measure employee satisfaction levels or customer satisfaction levels. Providing this data to the top management is not enough if HR wants to be a strategic partner in managing the business. The next logical step would be to understand what type of management or employee behaviours influence this level of satisfaction, what is the level of increased aspired, hence what are the behaviours that are required to improve the quality of employee or customer experience and finally, what would be the impact of this increased satisfaction on the company’s performance.

And ultimately, employee and client satisfaction do not mean anything by themselves unless they result in business performance, increased market share and profitability. Talent analytics helps in mapping how well the workforce is meeting the needs of its business, how they are aligned to the vision of the business, to identify ways in which a high performing employee will continue to contribute to the well-being of the company.

For instance, Thomas H Davenport, in the HBR article “Competing on Human Analytics”, talks about how some companies that are very high on valuing employee engagement can precisely identify the value of a 0.1% increase in employee engagement among employees on the performance of a particular store or brand. The transcript of his interview relating to the article is found at http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2010/09/talent-analytics-how-do-you-me.html

Talent metrics is the most objective way of measuring what brings value to the organization, in fact, more objective than employee performance measures. The role of HR in providing intuitive analyses and creative thinking will still be required, but rather than applying it on behaviour, they will be required to apply it on strategy.

HR’s Role in Creating a Learning Organization

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Mon, 07 May 2012 06:09:00 +0000

Introduction

HR can’t expect an unchanging work environment. Change is continuous and HR organizations must ensure that they become adept at managing transformations in organizations and translating it to what action they need to take to ensure their people are prepared for this change. They must do this quickly and flawlessly in order to stay at the top. Only if they build the collective capacity for managing continuous change will they be able to manage this speed of transformation.

The collective capacity in any area is built if the HR organization aligns itself to business and focuses on disseminating information about what happens outside and the impact of it internally. In other words, organizations must invest and become adept at continuous learning, reflection, action planning and implementation.

This article focuses on understanding what is meant by ‘Learning organizations’ and what they must focus on doing to ensure continuous learning happens.

The Learning Organization

The emergence of the concept of the ‘Learning organization’ is wrapped up with the concept of ‘Learning Society’. Donald Schon (1973) has made a seminal contribution in this area. His work included studying how to enhance the learning ability of large organizations, institutions and governments, which, he classified as learning systems. Peter Senge’s work on ‘The art and practice of the learning organization’ through his book 'The Fifth Discipline' (1990) popularized this concept to a large extent. However, there is no single definition of learning organization that integrates all knowledge about learning organizations.

There are three definitions of Learning Organizations:

Learning organizations are organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together. (Senge 1990: 3)
The Learning Company is a vision of what might be possible. It is not brought about simply by training individuals; it can only happen as a result of learning at the whole organization level. Learning Company is an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself. (Pedler et. al. 1991: 1)
Learning organizations are characterized by total employee involvement in a process of collaboratively conducted, collectively accountable change directed towards shared values or principles. (Watkins and Marsick 1992: 118)

Creating a Learning Environment

There are various characteristics of learning organizations that HR organizations must understand and embrace in order to create a learning environment.

Management responsibility – to articulate continuous learning as a value and showing linkages to business success, to provide continuous learning opportunity for employees, to create infrastructure to support learning, to link individual performance and organizational performance, foster a culture of openness, risk-taking and creativity, and establishing learning objectives for every goal.

Employees responsibility – make use of the learning opportunities, give their personal commitment to learning, continuously translate their learning from the interaction with the environment into their work, permeate this culture to new entrants into the organization.

Systemic responsibility – Get the commitment of both Specialists and Generalists to drive learning. Often it is seen as the Specialist’s role to create learning in the organization, for instance the Training or Learning & Development anchor is given the responsibility for ensuring that learning happens in the organization. Generalists, on the other hand, operate from the business angle or the operations side and consider themselves as merely recipients in the learning process.

For example, one of the L&D initiatives in an organization is to identify employees for succession planning. These employees would be high performing individuals handling successful teams and they would be put through a rigorous one-year developmental programme, running alongside their routine responsibilities. The selection of these people is done through a participatory process every year, where the management reinforces it’s commitment to learning initiatives, the employees vote for people who can go through this developmental programme and Managers are responsible for identifying potential people who can go through this programme. HR is only a facilitator who receives applications and processes them.

Aspects of a Learning environment

Learning in organizations cannot happen through intent alone. There needs to be a rigorous systematic, planned effort from the Human Resource group to create space for continuous learning. Learning can happen through formal and structured interventions or through a natural process fostered by the organizational climate. The most important way by which Formal and Structured learning happens is through Training. When every change in the environment, every innovation in the market and every new regulation in the industry provokes discussion on the implications for the organization and is followed by the creation of action plans, the organization is said to have a natural process of learning ingrained in the culture.

A learning intervention that is able to recreate learning and provides for easy retrieval is one that will be more effective in the long run. The analysis, design and evaluation are critical stages to ensure that the learning intervention meets the outcomes set.

The most important aspects of a learning environment are:

Learning Needs Analysis
Instructional Design and Development
Training programs & Learning events
Evaluation and Measurement of learning effectiveness
Alternate learning methods - E-Learning, Learning applications, On-the-job learning
Facilitating informal learning
Strategic Planning & Change Management

Conclusion

There is an increased need for perpetual learning as people try to keep pace with technology and emerging markets. A learning organization that keeps its’ employees completely engaged by providing a fun-filled, challenging and innovative environment while at the same time constantly providing new learning and perspectives for business success, can be called a successful learning organization. People in such organizations experience a very high level of personal and professional growth which in turn translates into high performance and low attrition.

References

http://www.infed.org/biblio/learning-organization.htm

http://marciaconner.com/intros/informal.html

This article has been published in People and Management Magazine in March’2012. http://www.tenxlabs.com/newsroom-150312.php

Career Transition Services in India

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Fri, 04 May 2012 06:22:00 +0000

Companies often use Career Transition Services to manage layoffs. This article looks at the benefits of outsourcing this service to an expert.

One of the contemporary HR practices that has changed the way people think about retrenchment and lay-offs, is Career Transition Services (CTS). Simply put, CTS is the service provided to an employee who is being handed the pink slip. Organizations engage specialized consultants to offer this service.

But, let’s first look at the few reasons why organizations retrench people. One, and most poignant, is the change in Strategy. This could mean anything from the decision of the parent company to enter or withdraw from certain geographies, consolidation of their businesses, change of location within the geography, withdrawal of certain products from the market, change in people strategy etc. Sometimes mergers and acquisitions can result in laying-off people.

The other reason could be a change in Performance Strategy for re-distribution of available competencies or re-skilling. Productivity studies, efficiency and effectiveness parameters are all then introduced parallely.

The Career Transition Services is offered to help employees go through separation, and provide professional services to handle the transition. These specialist organizations have both psychological and career counselors, who work with the employees in providing alternate meaningful careers.

The Career Transition Services also include resume sprucing, support in getting them onto social networking sites, helping them in their job search, and providing the necessary contacts for networking. If the specialist organization also has a recruitment wing, the candidates are also placed in other organizations that the specialist works with. Typically, the company that engages the CTS provider pays for the service.

Though CTS is a well known phenomenon in countries like US, UK, Canada and Australia, it is less common in India, where companies engage recruitment consultants to do the job. CTS services are a good alternative which help companies manage transition in a more holistic fashion.

Payroll Processing - HR or Finance Function

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:57:00 +0000

Payroll function is very important for both the employees and the employer. For the employee, it is a mark of the value that the organization assigns to him, while for the organization, it is the reward given to the employee for his competence and loyalty. Organizations have their own reasons for assigning this critical function to either their HR department or to their Finance department. In this article, we shall explore some of the merits and demerits of both, and assess if one function is better suited to handle payroll than the other.

Payroll processing is a complex computational process that involves using Salary, Statutory, Income Tax and Legal implications to organize a set of pay related information in such a manner as to arrive at the amount to be paid to each employee as the reflection of his/her worth in the organization.

When organizations are confronted with the decision of assigning payroll to HR or Finance, usually availability of expertise is a key factor in determining the outcome. However, when the expertise is available in both the functions, then the question is whether the organization identifies payroll more as a motivator or as a routine mechanism.

One of the primary responsibilities of HR is to maintain employee confidentiality and it is the better custodian of confidential data in the organization. And salary data of employees is one of the most confidential data, as it is a measure of the employees’ worth in the organization. Payroll is also closely related to employees’ satisfaction or grievance, and HR, by the nature of its duties, is better equipped to handle the queries with empathy and understanding.

HR also plays a critical role in fixing salaries of employees while joining and at the time of revision. The holistic understanding of the complex interface of grades, levels, work experience and performance in deciding an employee’s salary is better understood by HR. And the input for all this is provided by the Payroll software or application. Likewise computing of performance related pay, bonus or revisions would also require the backing of the existing payroll and making permutations and combinations to decide the perfect mix. The other area of expertise is the compliance under Labour laws and Statutory laws.

However, a critical area of compliance where Finance might have a better understanding is tax computation. Tax planning support, computation, deduction advice and issuing of certificates is a domain of Finance function. In addition, Finance also manages loans and advances.

Beyond these tasks, Finance has better control in ensuring the accuracy of payroll data, as well as a better idea of cash to cash cycles in managing payouts and disbursal. Finance function is also known traditionally to possess more efficiency when it comes to managing complex sets of data.

From the management’s perspective, better financial perspective can be provided by Finance in the management of payroll data, while HR can use the same data for planning for resources as well as clarifying doubts of employees. Considering all this, a partnership in payroll processing would greatly benefit the organization. While HR can take on the role of an input provider and an output checker, Finance needs to take responsibility for payroll processing and disbursal. Thus the errors relating to input data, as well as those of process inefficiency can be avoided.

Getting HR Technologies to SMEs

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:27:00 +0000

Research has shown that companies with less than 500 employees do not feel the need to invest in a Human Resource Management System (HRMS). Depending on the industry, an employee count of 500 could be small, closer to mid cap and sometimes enterprise – small if you are in a workforce intensive services company, mid-cap if you are in a business that involves higher degree of automation and closer to enterprise if you are into design or consulting – but generally, the verdict is has been that small and medium enterprises haven’t realized the need to invest in an HRMS.

It seems ironic and against the core character of SMEs that they would not want to automate repetitive parts of their people management functions. HRMS is a compelling proposition for SMEs, given these core traits:

The environment of change and the pace of change
The need to specialize: often a David vs. Goliath situation, where David (the smaller, smarter challenger) needs to muscle up every ounce of available resources to reach the end goal (and bring down the established, larger competitor)
Small and medium enterprises are also the platforms for optimization, heightened utilization and hybrid roles

A 250 – 500 headcount services company could have human resources team of around 10. The functions of this team would include multi-channel talent sourcing, recruitment design, evaluation and actual hiring, induction and training, attendance and leave management, resource allocation, grievances, reporting, policy and much more.

Burdening this team with employee record management, manual leave balance tracking or payroll generation defies logic. Shouldn’t the Human Resource function of such a dexterous set up focus on better quality of resources, motivation, greater throughput and other qualitative aspects? Or should this chunk of valuable management time be invested in manually collating, verifying and proofing reports and data? This is the choice facing small and medium enterprises. And, the answer is obvious.

Is it under estimation of the costs - opportunity cost and effort consumed by the manual route? Is it an unfounded assumption that HRMS is somehow associated with ERP and stamped as the big boys’ game? Or is it genuine concerns about software – hardware management overheads?

TenXLabs Minerva HRMS changes the game by:

Providing a genuine automation option, where the system configures to your workflow
It is truth economy – fair priced and its returns justify the investments in weeks or months, not years
It is available on a Software as a Service (SaaS) model from a cloud – meaning: you pay by use and do not worry about support, hardware, admin or other overheads traditionally impacting software use

What is Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing solutions and software as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources are made available to customers over the internet, on demand. As defined by IBM, Cloud is a computing model providing web-based software, middleware and computing resources on demand. By deploying technology as a service, you give users access only to the resources they need for a particular task. This prevents you from paying for idle computing resources.

What is Minerva HRMS

Human Resource Management, traditionally considered a key spoke of enterprise resource planning has now evolved into its own life and automates key Human Resource functions. Minerva HR Suite from TenXLabs is designed to house all information pertaining to every employee in an organization from Recruitment to Retirement. Minerva is cloud based, can be configured (without need customizations) to implement existing workflow AS-IS, integrates with other software systems openly, is available as a life time license without user – usage restrictions and includes a query builder for custom reporting.

About TenXLabs

We take deep interest to assist your company’s most important assets – human assets. HR automation is a critical process for boosting productivity within the organization. HRMS tools give management the ability to recruit right talent, improve employee morale and retain talent among other benefits. A system that automates these, if implemented correctly, will pay for itself and save the company much pain.

More at http://www.tenxlabs.com/human-capital-management.php

Contact us

http://www.tenxlabs.com/contact.php

Schedule a demo

http://www.tenxlabs.com/demo.php

HR and the Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 06:02:00 +0000

Abstract

HR was often the last to catch up with technological advances in the industry. However, when it came to social media, HR has been at the forefront. HR professionals across the world are successfully using the social networking sites to connect with their stakeholders and building networks.

In this article, we will see how HR professionals can use social media effectively to UP THE ANTE and does it make sense for them to play the role of gatekeepers when it comes to employees using these forums.

Social media has provided us with a reach like never before to interact, engage and collaborate. And HR people have been gung-ho to embrace social media. Being a part of the social network keeps them abreast of the latest developments in both technology and people practices. It keeps the company in the news and helps disseminate the right information at right place at the right time.

Social media can act as a very powerful platform for recruiting. However, the buck does not stop there. It opens up a wide plethora of opportunities like networking, knowledge sharing, precipitating the corporate culture, positioning the company as a thought leader, raising awareness about the company, increasing employee engagement or simply having an ear to the ground and all this helps identifying and attracting the potential talent.

Talent Pipeline: Social media allows HR professionals to stay connected with a large audience who can prove to be potential hires at a later stage. This serves to keep the Brand alive and helps in sourcing at the right time. Staying connected with former employees also helps to arrest information loss and paves the way for rehiring.

Creating a network for knowledge sharing is also done admirably through social networks. Positioning the company, sharing the company’s vision, culture and best practices not just helps building the Brand, but also attracts the right type of people to it.

The challenge that HR people face is in the amount of regulation they need to deploy in allowing access to social networking sites for the employees in the organization. Unrestricted access is not going to help HR measure the impact of social media. Indiscriminate usage will also result in employees losing focus and time. There are industries-specific and topic-specific sites. Some even focus on networking within regions and nations. The trick is to identify which tools and applications provide the most value, as an engagement and collaboration platform and then establishing appropriate metrics to measure the results.

According to a TNN report, Gartner, said that fewer than 30% of large organizations would block social media in 2014. The agency said that in 2010, almost 50% organizations blocked social media websites in the office. The report carries the words of Andrew Walls, research vice president at Gartner saying that "Even in those organizations that (nowadays) block all access to social media, blocks tend not to be complete,certain departments and processes, such as marketing, require access to external social media, and employees can circumvent blocks by using personal devices such as Smartphones."

Constantly evaluating the impact of social media tools by asking employees for their feedback on the areas impacted by their interactions on social networks might help get a pulse of the usage and types of media. Another approach to evaluating the use of social media is to carry out polls and researches on those networks to check how much it impacts the organization positively.

HR goes the Technology Way!

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:43:00 +0000

Abstract

A function that is all about managing the needs of people uses a significant amount of technology to service its need. This article presents the role of technology in the HR function.

Article

Traditionally, HR was about managing people, but not any more. The magnitude of information that HR has to manage regarding people and processes can no longer be carried out without the support of Technology. Technology made its presence in HR in the early and mid 90s through the advent of ERP in taking over the administrative functions of HR. Overnight, HR professionals realized the value of technology in reducing the time spent on all forms of data management.

The HR function has three important roles to play – Administrative, Developmental and Advisory.

HR Administration & Technology:

The use of technology has virtually replaced the administrative part of HR, which is related to HR data maintenance, Wage and salary administration, Employee welfare activities like medical insurance etc. Through this, the efficiency of HR in managing business-critical information has increased manifold.

Efficient payroll management applications have ensured accurate, efficient and timely processing of compensation. The ease of analyzing salary data has helped in making benchmark studies and offer the right kind of salary to high-performers. The latest use of technology in HR is the usage of the online employee self-service modules (ESS), which enable the salary and other data to be available to the employee at the click of a button. This ensured more transparency and less ambiguity in what has traditionally been one of the more confidential areas of HR.

For example, a leading company in the travel and tourism industry uses technology to optimize business processes. In fact, they introduced SAP in all areas including HR and even won the prestigious SAP ACE award in 2006 for best SAP implementation in service industry. The company claims that IT has moved from being a support system to a Business enabler.

HR Development & Technology:

In the role of a Development catalyst, HR focuses on the key areas of Talent acquisition, development and deployment. Here, the impact of technology is greatly felt in the areas of recruitment, performance management and training and development.

Technology has revolutionized the recruitment processes – sourcing has been made very easy through online job portals. Data is available at the click of a button for both employer and job-seeker. Social media has also impacted HR operations to a large extent, which makes use of this opportunity to network with candidates and the HR community. In the area of performance management, technology has facilitated the analysis of historical data for effective decision-making. Past data on performance, potential and achievements makes promotion and fast-tracking decisions easier. And online and e-learning solutions have completely revolutionized the way HR plans, delivers and implements its learning and development strategy in the organization. Virtual classrooms have become the order of the day, and this has helped not only in maintaining global standards, but in keeping up with the fierce competition in the global arena.

In fact, the business of designing recruitment software to manage the entire selection process has become a very profitable business. Known as RMS or Recruitment Management Software in common parlance, the tool is used for maintaining a resume repository, screening, contacting the shortlisted candidates, and also sends the candidate information to the regular HR MIS for offer letter generation and payroll.

HR Advisory & Technology:

In the advisory role, HR is now empowered with enough information to guide top management decisions on business. This is very evident when we see that the latest trend in HR is Analytics or the management of business-critical information. Sophisticated methods are used to analyze complex sets of employee related information to make meaningful decisions regarding selection, placement, performance and retention decisions. HR no longer provides just intuition-based data on people trends, their propositions are backed by rigorous analysis of historical data. In this, Technology has become the backbone for HR decision-making.

Technology has taken over HR management too, as it has every other function in the organization. When we analyze some of the downsides, we see that there is grave danger in allowing technology to replace some of the human-intensive processes, like employee engagement, employee management and potential analysis and grooming. This is more critical for HR than any other function because HR is the custodian of human processes in the organization. The danger that the HR manager faces is the substitution of analyses and objectivity in the area of employee engagement, where empathy and intuition are required to manage what is essentially human.

Frugal Engineering: Inherent to India and Natural to TenXLabs

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:49:00 +0000

India is fast becoming the global head quarters for Frugal Innovation and Frugal Engineering. Its aspects are deep rooted in our culture and inherent to our thought processes. Frugal Engineering is core to TenXLabs ethos and permeates all functions, especially our engineering. Here is a clean-sheet look at Frugal Engineering.

What is Frugal Engineering

You take a wide spread deep-rooted problem. You identify several possible solutions and zero in on the best. Your best solution is defined as:

Focused in solving the central problem with great effect
No frills, no additional benefits or features
Based on and deriving from existing solutions
Solution attributes combining uniquely with a high degree of innovation

You then qualify your solution in these terms:

Delivering a wide spread impact – solving the key problem for most of your users
What the market is willing to pay for this solution (not what it costs you or your competition)
The least effort to deliver the solution to stay cost effective
The fastest time to implement the solution to remain relevant and cost effective

That is about it: the solution you have delivered is Frugal Engineering. And, the path that leads to the solution as defined above is Frugal Innovation.

What is NOT Frugal Engineering?

Just to be doubly sure, here are a few things that are generally confused with Frugal Engineering – these things are not part of Frugal Engineering:

Mindless cost cutting
Cheap sourcing
Cheap imitations – instead it is about a super effective alternate approach
Scale down versions of popular products

Critical Success Factors for Frugal Engineering Success

Having got a broad sense of Frugal Engineering, let us dive to the next level. Let us look at two critical success factors for Frugal Engineering success - The primary critical success factor in Frugal Engineering is the uninhibited ability to define a seemingly impossible or even ridiculous target. This must be given blanket support by the top management. The second critical success factor is the courage to question set processes, norms and status quo.

Why is Frugal Engineering Important for SMEs

Small and medium sized enterprises need software solutions that provide automation and allow them to scale their operations easily. However the solution needs to provide the essential features without too many frills and at the same time be timely and cost effective. They cannot afford to have the ‘ideal’ solution with all the bells and whistles, that takes years to implement. Hence for these companies frugal engineering solutions provide the essential value they are looking for without necessarily adding a lot of overheads.

Convergence of Process Automation, Data Analytics and Cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:37:00 +0000

Today, Small and Medium Enterprises in the emerging countries are in the midst of innovation and transformation. The market dynamics are rapidly changing and becoming highly complex, requiring companies to constantly innovate. If innovation is one side of the coin, the other side is to bring in cost competitiveness.

Reduction in costs can be done in many ways. But the ideal way to do the same without compromising on the innovation as well the resources is to make people highly productive. One way to make the company more productive is to bring in automation culture. Leverage the technology to drive productivity and innovation.

The key for any SME is to keep their employees highly engaged and well connected within the company. In this endeavor, following should be the sequence of thoughts. How to automate the entire HR processes and in the process build a robust collaboration platform, How to analyze the underlying data to make overall organization improvements and how the organization can afford it.

For Full version of the article kindly refer to the below link:

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Convergence_of_Process_Automation_Data_Analytics_and_Cloud-nid-98621-cid-100.html

Author Details:

Sreekanth Lapala, CEO, TenXLabs

Linkedin profile: http://in.linkedin.com/pub/sreekanth-lapala/1/417/b3a

"IT" is from Mars & "HR" is from Venus

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:30:00 +0000

"IT" is from Mars & "HR" is from Venus

BRIDGING THE GAP WHEN “IT” IS FROM MARS & “HR” IS FROM VENUS:
FIVE HRMS REQUIREMENTS THAT WILL SATISFY ALL

We’ve all heard the saying “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”, but when it comes to standardizing on a global human resource management system (HRMS), the same could be said for an organization’s Information Technology (IT) and Human Resource (HR) departments. In order to close the gap between these two departments, and create a happier co-existence, IT and HR departments should heed the advice of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus author John Gary, and learn how to communicate more effectively to ensure the needs of each are taken into consideration and that an emphasis is placed on creating a peaceful union of organizational equals.

Let us start with the following assumption:

HR understands what communication is necessary and the manner and timing with which it must presented to achieve strategic outcomes, while IT understands the security imperatives and has the ability to understand the capabilities of the underlying toolset to achieve these outcomes.

The HR Mandate

As organizations strive to build and sustain a high-performing, satisfied workforce, they place an even greater emphasis on the effectiveness of the Human Resource department. Today, the HR department is viewed as a critical contributor to an organization’s bottom line, facilitating the organization’s ability to attract top-talent, reduce turn-over and control the high cost of benefit enrollment and utilization. However, to be truly effective, HR needs to have the right combination of people, processes and technology in place to achieve success in this area. With the help of HRMS technology, organizations can now provide a number of strategic functions designed to automate a range of functions, including employee assessment or satisfaction; time-to-fill or cost-to-hire statistics; employee performance index; revenue-to-employee or productivity-to-employee metrics; turnover rate; etc. While few will dispute the value of an organization’s HRMS, the road to adoption can be quite challenging, and requires careful consideration and cooperation among all stake-holders, especially IT.

The IT challenge

While companies increasingly rely upon technology to streamline their business processes and create a competitive edge, they are quickly realizing that if they are to truly optimize their IT investments they must first work to align IT with their business goals. This is particularly true with Human Resource Management Systems, which need to be treated as more than just mere infrastructure or ‘back office’ applications, given the major impact an HRMS has on an organization’s overall business strategy, competitiveness and profitability.

Five HRMS Considerations Designed to Bridge HR and IT

In order to make the most of their HR technology investments, organizations must be sure to communicate the over-all goals and objectives of the HRMS and solicit input from both HR and IT. Careful consideration must be made to ensure that the solution can improve the organization’s business processes (not just recreate old paper processes); create efficient workflows with approval mechanisms, provide compliance reporting; and integrate all of the major components of HR, including compensation and benefits administration, recruiting and training administration, and strategic measurement tools like Metrics, Performance Management and Succession Management.

To ensure a long-term, successful co-existence among HR and IT, organizations should speak in terms that each department will understand and jointly select a solution capable of supporting the unique needs of both. More specifically, organizations should adopt an HRMS capable of supporting the following five criteria:

1. Scalable Infrastructure: Meets Current & Future Needs

To ensure the longevity of the HRMS, organizations must look for a solution that is capable of meeting the current and future needs of human resources, while reducing the involvement of the IT department. The HRMS needs to be scalable and highly flexible so that once IT deploys the system, HR can use it to support the needs of its existing employees and extend the system to include new employees (as the company grows--either organically or through mergers and acquisitions), benefits plans and/or business processes. The solution should also be capable of supporting multiple language profiles so that all users/locations can leverage a single, global HRMS platform in order to achieve an accurate picture of the company’s HR goals and objectives, on a global scale, without having to seek additional IT support.

2. Strong Reporting & Query Capability: Ensures Compliance & Internal Requirements

The HRMS should also have the ability to support various HR and compliance-related reporting needs, including Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), Military/Veterans (VETS), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), Wages and Filings (W2’s and 1099’s) etc. To ensure the long tem success of the system, IT teams should look for a solution that combines data from multiple systems, has built-in report writer features, offers native language and SQL query capabilities to ensure easy access by any level of user, and supports unlimited security profiles capable of defining the fields, tasks and actions that are permitted by each user. In doing so, HR professionals can easily add fields and tables to reflect the changing business and data needs of the organization, securely locate & disseminate information to appropriate and authorized stakeholders, generate sophisticated reports that comply with internal and external regulations and provide sophisticated HR-related metrics and data to senior managers for decision making and goal alignment.

3. Workload Automation: Organizes Tasks & Improves Process

In order to support today’s “do more with less” work ethos, it is also important to look for an HRMS that supports what is commonly known among IT departments as “workload automation”. Long recognized by the technical staff for its ability to seamlessly incorporate event-driven activity with calendar and scheduling functions, work load automation allows HR teams to organize daily tasks, prioritize work, and improve their process efficiencies. Leveraging automatic, user-defined ‘triggers,’ HR teams can set up email based alerts, notifications and reports that allow them to focus on more strategic tasks, improve communications and respond faster to employee requests and organizational changes.

4. Tight Integration & Import/Export: Reduces Redundancies, Improves Accuracy
Some other important HRMS considerations - ones that are especially important to IT folks involve the tight integration of (and turn-key interfaces to) other HR-related systems such as single sign on, email server integration, active directory, LDAP, third party payroll services, benefit carriers, or other internal legacy systems and the ability to import data from other source systems. This is a particularly important as Human Resources professionals strive to create a central point of access capable of streamlining their HR processes. The system should also enable them to eliminate redundant data entry functions, increase data integrity (by having the ability to import historical data form outdated legacy systems) and more importantly, provide additional analysis and reporting to other team members as needed. Lastly, organizations should consider an HRMS that is capable of easily exporting HR-related data to other software utilities such as Word, Excel, etc. In doing so, HR teams can provide additional analysis and reporting across the organization using existing systems and popular formats without the need for additional IT involvement. With improvements in architecture and with the proliferation of Web 2.0 traditional imports and exports can be reduced to Web Service requests that allow the posting and exchange of information to become seamless and automatic. This kind of advance allows the manager and employee to be managing data without worrying about the administrative task of running an import or an export to manage the integration of systems.

5. Advanced Workflow: Eases Use & Promotes Self-Service

The final, and perhaps the most important HRMS consideration, involves the system’s advanced workflow functionality. Leveraging user-configurable menus and role-based forms, HR teams can automate time-intensive and multi-step/multi-person processes such as life change events (name change, new dependant, etc.); new hire activity, terminations, training, etc. As a result, Human Resource professionals will enhance their productivity, reduce their training and administrative expenses, ensure faster and more accurate transaction processing and lower the cost of collecting and delivering HR-related services throughout the enterprise. IT and HR departments alike should look for a solution that is capable of being deployed online, with Employee Self-Service (ESS) and Manager Self-Service (MSS) portals, to encourage easy and secure access among employees, to document company procedures and workflow, and to ensure compliance with mandates such as Sarbanes/Oxley. By selecting an HRMS that supports advanced workflow capabilities, HR and IT groups can optimize and extend the technology platform to drive bottom line efficiencies and profitability.

Put simply, if an organization is to build and sustain a high-performing and satisfied workforce, then a fruitful relationship between HR and IT must exist. So instead of thinking in terms of Mars versus Venus, IT and HR professionals should consider these five easy requirements and use them as a means to openly communicate their goals, objectives and system requirements. In doing so, and by giving proper consideration to people, processes and technology, you and your organization will be well on your way to a long-lasting, satisfying marriage of HRMS equals who are working together to meet a mutually satisfying goal.

Launching mexpress- the lite version of HR Software from MinVesta

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:30:00 +0000

http://www.esnips.com/doc/6883ddb4-aa3f-44c8-88ec-e879141d1db2/mexpress-print-ad

During recession kind of turbulent times, HRMS can help CEO, you know why?

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:23:00 +0000

It is true that recession had hampered our growth rate but we are not in a bad economic situation when compared to some of the developed countries. Positive signs are there in some of the industrial segments and IT. Unfortunately certain segments in our economy are very much affected, many people lost job and many investors faced bankruptcy. If we look back to our economic history, these are quite temporary and we can regain our growth rate very soon.

In US,whenever something happen to business front, investor will immediately go for bankruptcy suite or say goodbye to all employees. But here in India, our management style is quite different. Most of the organizations are not running on credit and investors used to save money during good times to manage unexpected ‘no sale/fall in businesses’. Survival rate of companies in India has been deep routed to excellent management expertise. Recently somebody in US commented that in the coming years, it would be very difficult to get skilled people in US for IT jobs because students are not opting IT (this can be in the outsourcing context).This can be a strategic mistake or a bottleneck in US in coming years.

Let’s come back to India.Except some of the MNC firms operating in India, layoffs are not common here.But we lost considerable number of jobs in garments and construction sector in selected geographical locations. This can be partly due to economic downtime or huge export loss to United States. In some segments, we can see substantial amount of correction. For example, a builder may find difficult to find a buyer for his deluxe apartment worth Rs.1.5 crores till the market regains its momentum.

HR Managers are facing unusual challenges in organizations which are not recession proof. There is pressure from investors to get more output to beat recession,where as employees are looking at increased benefits or pay hikes. Board will be requesting to come up with countless analytical reports with zero down time.Many are working on profile GAPA and realigning corporate goals and communicate across organization. HR folks managing scattered organizations and that too using paper office are facing many difficulties in delivering quick information as well as realistic inference to corporate management. Many used to work late nights at office or failing to manage personal life. This made CEO or HR Heads of the organizations to buy and install HRMS on a war foot basis. Even though advertisement budget across companies are reduced, market research and business intelligence expenses are not at all freezed and companies in that segment are getting more projects (this reveals that there is tremendous need towards inferences based on accurate information). Accuracy and relevance of any decision related to people and processes and certainly credibility of HR department itself is very much depends on quality of information available.

There can be a decline in sales of enterprise software license which cost more than Rs.25 lakhs but I think demand for Integrated HRMS suites [Employee Information, Leave Management, Attendance Tracking, Payroll, Exit Management etc] selling at Rs. 5-25 lakhs is still consistent. Small and Medium enterprises are moving towards subscription model and SAAS is getting its grip over there.

Today,Investors are not considering HR Department as luxury but as strategic business partner. HRMS is considered as an efficient tool to streamline processes, an inevitable decision support system and a cost effective tool to enable new age HR Road Show (online) and to boost employee motivation.

During recession kind of turbulent times, more proactive resource management, decision based on live data, employee self service, more transparency in terms of organizational, team and individual performance are so critical. HR Department can market Corporate as well as HR initiatives to employees through HRMS.

360 Degrees Performance Appraisal

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:49:00 +0000

An Outlook.

Background

Contemporary 360-degree methods have roots as early as the 1940s, however, there is some disagreement regarding the exact genesis of the technique.
Despite these disagreements, one point that most scholars can agree on is 360-degree performance appraisal has historical roots within a military context.
During the 1950s and 1960s this trend continued in the United States within the Military service academies.
At the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, the midshipmen used a multi-source process called “peer grease” to evaluate the leadership skills of their classmates.
In the corporate world during the 1960s and 1970s, organizations like Bank of America, United Airlines, Bell Labs, Disney, Federal Express, Nestle, and RCA experimented with multi-source feedback in a variety of measurement situations.

The Concept

For example, subordinate assessments of a supervisor’s performance can provide valuable developmental guidance, peer feedback can be the heart of excellence in teamwork, and customer service feedback focuses on the quality of the team’s or agency’s results.

The Process

The Appraisers

Superiors

It’s Contribution:

The 1st line supervisor is often in the best position to effectively carry out the full cycle of Performance Management.
The supervisor may also have the broadest perspective on the work requirements and be able to take into account shifts in those requirements.

Cautions to be addressed:

Superiors should be able to observe and measure all facets of the work to make a fair evaluation.
Supervisors should be trained. They should be capable of coaching and developing employees as well as planning and evaluating their performance.

Self

It’s Contribution:

Self-ratings are particularly useful if the entire cycle of performance management involves the employee in a self-assessment.
The developmental focus of self-assessment is a key factor.
Approximately half of the Federal employees in a large survey felt that self-ratings would contribute “to a great or very great extent” to fair and well-rounded PA.
Self-appraisals are particularly valuable in situations where the supervisor cannot readily observe the work behaviors and task outcomes.

Cautions to be addressed:

Research shows low correlations between self-ratings and all other sources of ratings, particularly supervisor ratings. The self-ratings tend to be consistently higher. This discrepancy can lead to defensiveness and alienation if supervisors do not use good feedback skills.
Sometimes self-ratings can be lower than others’. In such situations, employees tend to be self-demeaning and may feel intimidated and “put on the spot.”
Self-ratings should focus on the appraisal of performance elements, not on the summary level determination. A range of rating sources, including the self assessments, help to “round out” the information for the summary rating.

Peers

It’s Contribution:

Employees report resentment when they believe that their extra efforts are required to “make the boss look good” as opposed to meeting the unit’s goals.
Peer ratings have been an excellent predictors of future performance and “manner of performance”.
The use of multiple raters in the peer dimension of 360-degree assessment programs tends to average out the possible biases of any one member of the group of raters.
The increased use of self-directed teams makes the contribution of peer evaluations the central input to the formal appraisal because by definition the supervisor is not directly involved in the day-to-day activities of the team.
The addition of peer feedback can help move the supervisor into a coaching role rather than a purely judging role.

Cautions to be addressed:

Peer evaluations are appropriate for developmental purposes, but to emphasize them for pay, promotion, or job retention purposes may not be prudent always.
Generally, the identities of the raters should be kept confidential to assure honest feedback. But, in close-knit teams that have matured to a point where open communication is part of the culture, the developmental potential of the feedback is enhanced when the evaluator is identified and can perform a coaching or continuing feedback role.
It is essential that the peer evaluators be very familiar with the team member’s tasks and responsibilities.
The use of peer evaluations can be very time consuming. When used in PA, the data would have to be collected several times a year in order to include the results in progress reviews.
Depending on the culture of the organization, peer ratings have the potential for creating tension and breakdown rather than fostering cooperation and support.

Subordinates

It’s Contribution:

A formalized subordinate feedback program will give supervisors a more comprehensive picture of employee issues and needs.
Employees feel they have a greater voice in organizational decision-making.
The feedback from subordinates is particularly effective in evaluating the supervisor’s interpersonal skills. However, it may not be as appropriate or valid for evaluating task-oriented skills.
Combining subordinate ratings, like peer ratings, can provide the advantage of creating a composite appraisal from the averaged ratings of several subordinates.

Cautions to be addressed:

The need for anonymity is essential when using subordinate ratings as this will ensure honest feedback.
Supervisors may feel threatened and perceive that their authority has been undermined when they must take into consideration that their subordinates will be formally evaluating them.
Subordinate feedback is most beneficial when used for developmental purposes. But precautions should be taken to ensure that subordinates are appraising elements of which they have knowledge.
Only subordinates with a sufficient length of assignment under the manager should be included in the pool of assessors. Subordinates currently involved in a disciplinary action or a formal performance improvement period should be excluded from the rating group. Organizations currently undergoing downsizing and/or reorganization should avoid this source of PA.

Customers

It’s Contribution:

Customer feedback should serve as an “anchor” for almost all other performance factors.
Including a range of customers in PA program expands the focus of performance feedback in a manner considered absolutely critical to reinventing the organization.

Cautions to be addressed:

Generally the value of customer service feedback is appropriate for evaluating team output (there are exceptions).
Customers, by definition, are better at evaluating outputs as opposed to processes and working relationships.
It is a time-consuming process.

Important factors in 360 degree feedbacks

The mission and the objective of the feedback must be clear.
Employees must be involved early.
Resources must be dedicated to the process, including top management's time.
Confidentiality must be assured.
The organization, especially top management, must be committed to the program.

Advantages:

To the individual:

Helps individuals to understand how others perceive them.
Uncover blind spots.
Quantifiable data on soft skills.

To the team:

Increases communication
Higher levels of trust
Better team environment
Supports teamwork
Increased team effectiveness

To the organization:

Reinforced corporate culture by linking survey items to organizational leadership competencies and company values.
Better career development for employees
Promote from within
Improves customer service by involving them
Conduct relevant training

Problems

It is the most costly and time consuming type of appraisal.
These programs tend to be somewhat shocking to managers at first. Amoco's Bill Clover described this as the "SARAH reaction: Shock, Anger, Rejection, Acceptance, Help".
The problems may arise with subordinate assessments where employees desire to “get the boss” or may alternatively “scratch the back” of a manager for expected future favors.
The organization implementing this type of performance appraisal must clearly define the mission and the scope of the appraisal. Otherwise it might prove counter productive.
One of the reason for which 360 degree appraisal system might fail is because the organizations attempt to assimilate the 360-degree method within a traditional survey research scheme. In traditional survey research, investigators attempt to maximize data collection with as many items/questions as possible and with large sample sizes. In the case of 360-degree appraisal, creating measurement instruments with many items will substantially increase non-response errors. In addition, large sample sizes are not typically possible considering that perhaps 4 or 5 sources will rate an employee’s performance. As such, statistical procedures that rely on large sample sizes in order to ensure statistical validity might not be appropriate.
Organizations must consider other issues like safeguarding the process from unintentional respondent rating errors.
The culture shock that occurs with any system that creates “change.” And especially with a modern system like 360 degree performance appraisal; must be taken care of.

Conclusion

Because many of the more conventional performance appraisal methods have often proved unpopular with those being appraised and evaluators alike, 360 is gaining popularity with many managers and employees.
It offers a new way of addressing the performance issue.
When used with consideration and discipline, feedback recipients will feel that they're being treated fairly.
In addition, supervisors will feel the relief of no longer carrying the full burden of assessing subordinate performance.
The combined effect of these outcomes should result in increased motivation, which in turn improves performance.

Wishing You All A Happy And Prosperous New Year Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:14:00 +0000

Team MinerVa HRMS Wishes You All A Happy And Prosperous New Year Ahead

HR/Payroll Software - Why It's So Hard To Get A Price

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:14:00 +0000

By Expert Author: Clay C. Scroggin

The topic of this article is to describe why getting a price for an HR Payroll software application is not as easy as getting a price on a house, a car, or a new pair of shoes. Think of all the decisions you would have to make, before getting an accurate price, if you were going to build your own home.

Using Google Adword’s keyword tool, I did a little research into how many people in an average month are searching for the price of HR Payroll Software. The resulting numbers are lower than I might have expected. Still, per month, just on Google it appears that at least hundreds of people are searching for the cost of HR and Payroll software based only on the keywords I uncovered below.

Keyword Average Searches Per Month

• HRIS Price 12

• Cost of HRIS 58

• HRIS Costs 170

• HR software pricing 36

HR Payroll software prices depend on too many variables to simply offer a quick quote

When I was selling HR Payroll Software systems, I worked with one HRIS product that offered 15 unique product options, two platform options, and two purchase options. The cost of that system for a 200 employee company varied tremendously. This price could have ranged from $3,000 to well over $40,000. So, if someone simply asked for a price, or even a ball park price, it was hard for me to present one without knowing exactly what options they were interested in and what their needs were. Often times the prospect did not know either until I performed a needs analysis and/or showed a demo.

HR and Payroll Software Salesmanship

As an HR and Payroll software sales person, if I was selling product X and knew my competition was product Y, which offered half the functionality and 30% less on cost, I would be hesitant to provide a prospect a price of my HRIS system until I was able to show the added value. This is not only salesmanship; it’s also good service. It’s important that you not base your decision for HR Payroll software only on price. The best value may not be the lowest price but may be found in the closest match to your company’s unique needs. You may be impatient to see the cost, but in the example above, the customer wins by waiting.

There are sales training courses which teach sales people to say in control of the sale by holding off on providing a price as long as possible. I am not one of those that agree with this strategy but you may very well see it.

The HR Payroll software companies want to keep the prices as secret as possible.

We have asked all of our HR Payroll software participating vendors to include at least some type of price range for our site, but currently 8 of 13 have elected not to do so. Part of the reason is what I have laid out above but these companies are also very secretive about their prices. The least expensive systems on the market have no problem publishing their prices. The more expensive and comprehensive systems on the market are much less likely to do so.

I lost a vendor earlier in the year because they would not participate in our service unless every vendor on our site, not only showed their pricing, but showed it in exactly the same format as they offered theirs. I can’t say I disagree but I am not in a position to force our vendors to comply.So can other websites actually provide quick quotes for multiple HR and Payroll software applications?

NO! For the exact same reasons I have laid out here, the HR Payroll software vendors aren’t going to provide the cost without understanding who the prospect is and what their needs are. So, the site I am referring to without mentioning them by name, simply distributes your information to a number of HRIS or HRMS vendors and then let’s those individual vendors contact you, and after a needs analysis and perhaps even a demo, the “free HRIS quotes” can be provided. There’s nothing quick about it; nor would you want it to be.

The funny thing is our keyword position for HRIS pricing is number nine on Google. And I’ll be the first to tell you that of 13 systems currently on the site, we only offer price ranges on 5 of those products.

Closing..

There are valid industry reasons why you may find it difficult to quickly and easily receive prices on a number of HR Payroll software applications. I would recommend staying patient and realize a quick price may not be the most reliable or in your best interest.

MinerVa HR Suite Modules

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:56:00 +0000

For more details email us: sales.india@minvesta.com

Click here for a Proposal/Demo request: Request

HR Software Industry in the global meltdown....

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:47:00 +0000

Human Resources Leaders Express Uncertainty about Extent of Economic Impact on 2009 Talent and IT Investments

My thoughts on -Demand for HR Software Products in Current market downturn : Niraj Pradhan, Product Evangelist at MinVesta

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:02:00 +0000

Author: Niraj Pradhan,Product Evangelist, MinVesta Infotech

These days we keep hearing the words " SLUMP" ,"Recession", "Layoffs", "Cost cutting", "IT industry down turn" etc...

All these are also the reasons cited for slower growth of Indian IT companies.

It is said that there will be lesser new projects coming to the IT companies in India-All due the recession in US economy.

The companies in US have become conservative and there is literally no scope for getting revenues from these markets.

Recently even wipro has shifted its focus to Latin America and Africa -as these are now the emerging market.

Amidst all these..I have seen a reverse process- The need for HR products-especially in India and middle east and also Africa has shot up!!

yes its true-i will put in facts and explain to you but first let me put some reasons for it.

Current objective of companies in India would be to sought "Cost Cutting measures" and also to "increase Employee productivity."

They would rather have say 1500 employees( cut down work force from 2000) and have maximum productivity to match the earlier figure of 2000 employees.

By adopting above techniques they are aiming to have maximum output with minimal cost.

Now let me give you an example-where the employee's productivity goes waste.

every day there would be transactional activities to be carried out-Both by Employees and and also HR Managers or Management.

Simple example- Leave Application- i would treat this as an transactional activity.

There are many more transactional activities- example: marking attendance/requesting Forms( leave forms/loan forms), queries,payslip requests,Travel request -form based,address proof request etc-all these in case of manual process consumes huge amount of time and effort.

Now coming back to example of leave,

Every employee would have an activity to perform-i.e Leave Application( also some times cancellation/withdrawal)

Consider a manual process-Where leave application is sent by an employee by either filling up a leave form( hard copy) or writing and email and sending it to respective persons.

Every employee will have a minimum of 30 leaves in a year? ok lets make it 20.

Now an employee needs to apply for a leave-

He would take a print of the form( lets put 5 minutes for it)

Fill it up- 5-10 minutes

( or other wise compose an email- will take 10 minutes)

walk up to reporting manger to get it signed and approved- 10-15 minutes

again it might involve a chat/discussion/explanation- 10-15 minutes

( The reporting manager might not have instant access to employee's leave balance data)-might have to check with HR dept before granting-10-15 minutes.

Now the employee needs to walk up to the HR department to submit the application-10-15 minutes

( situations- HR manager not at his/her desk or HR Manager on leave/ etc etc)

He/she would submit the application-this might also involve a chat etc-10 minutes

HR Manager would update the leave balance details-in excel etc-10 minutes

and in situations like cancellation-modification-withdrawal this would involve the same cycle and also the time-

Now if i would add up the minutes that involved in a single transaction-i.e Leave Application and that too for one leave application by an employee ( lets assume he/she might take 4-5 times a year) the total minutes would be: 115 minutes average- hence almost 2 hours - which can be 1/4 th man-day

in case of 4 leave application by the employee- it would be 8 hours or 1 man day.

If you multiple by the man-day rate of your organization you can get the cost involved

i am assuming INR 3000 as per man day rate and hence one employee spends 1 man-day implies INR 3000 is the cost involved by one employee for one transactional activity.

Lets say an organization has an average 200 employees- in such a case, the total cost involved would be 200 * INR 3000= INR 600,000 six lacs-

or 200 man days spent for carrying out leave transaction- that too without full proof efficient manner.

imagine if the 200 man days was utilised in some project- you would not Only save in terms of time- but eventually in terms of Money!!

Now- How do we save cost- how do we increase employee productivity??

How can we save this 200 man days for a single transactional activity or this INR 600,000 going down without any return???

well- it can be saved...

By adopting methods of Automation- A simple leave application tool -may be a web based( browser based).

A considerate amount of time/effort and money can be saved by automation.

Through this tool the employee has instant access to his/her leave balance and can also apply immediately citing the reasons/remarks etc-

now the leave application would go to the Reporting manager- who can not only view the application-but approve/reject in a single click - also the sub ordinates leave plans/leave balance details etc present with him to take help in decision making.

Like wise HR department/Manager's task is also eased and time saved.

There are much more than just ease of transaction... the system can send alerts/reminders/validation/report generation /year ending process/en cashment etc.

The entire process of leave application can be finished or carried out in less than 10 minutes as compared to nearly 120 minutes by the manual process...

and yes i forgot to mention the cost involved for taking the hard copy of the leave form:)

Over all the ROI from the automation method is much more than the investment.

If you would do an similar calculation for other activities and arrive at the cost of it...i am sure after reading this you would search for an Automation tool and suggest your HR dept or the management.

Well...this is one example that i gave to explain to you the reverse process that is taking place -

yes demand for the HR Softwares has gone up during this Slump/recession etc..

and Especially in INDIA, middle east and Africa.

Well are few more reasons for the demand in these countries...

I can also include few Asian Countries-Japan n China.

What i feel and think could be a possible reason- 20-30 years back the market in US /Europe was emerging- which now has emerged and got a hit by the economic conditions there.

If you compare the Indian economy and the market conditions here....its not that worse.

I would agree with what Rakesh Jhunjhunwala said- India is protected- the liquidity crunch and factors are different here- a lot of Liquidity is yet to flow into the markets-Indians are still holding on their liquid assets.

the market in India can be called as emerging market- Indian companies are growing- they have their alternate market- INDIA

countries and companies would now shift their focus to emerging markets- INDIA/ middle East /Africa- literally a virgin market

The IT industry would not be dependent on the US/Europe market...

This has already started to happen...

Personally i have witnessed a sudden spur in the demand for the HR softwares....

and i have seen the sales cycles to be remarkable shorter- something which can be surprising-

but I am not amazed:)

Organizations- in India have closed on to buying the HR softwares in very short cycles and also have spend handsome amount in buying them-

Undoubted they understood the cost involved in manual process ( as calculated above:) ) and were quick to under stand the importance of Automation.

well...these are my views...i might be not be an expert doing this analysis...but have put down what i feel and think...

Thanks & Regards,

Niraj Pradhan

Product Evangelist| MinVesta Infotech Ltd. |Mob:+91 9246190827 | Ph: +91 40 23738072 Extn:201||email: niraj.pradhan@minvesta.com | website: www.minvesta.com |

Blog: http://minerva-hrms.blogspot.com/|

http://www.linkedin.com/in/nirajpradhan |Blog: http://hcmgyan.blogspot.com/|

How to Choose a Human Resource Management System to Satisfy IT and HR

noreply@blogger.com (Minerva HRMS) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:23:00 +0000

We’ve all heard the saying “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”, but when it comes to standardizing on a global HRMS (Human Resource Management System), the same could be said for an organization’s IT and HR departments. In order to close the gap between these two departments and create a happier co-existence, IT and HR departments need to learn how to communicate more effectively. This can help ensure that the needs of each are taken into consideration, and that an emphasis is placed on creating a peaceful union of organizational equals.

Let us start with the following assumptions: The HR department understands what communication is necessary, and the manner and timing with which it must presented to achieve strategic outcomes. The IT department understands the security imperatives, and has the ability to understand the capabilities of the underlying toolset to achieve these outcomes.

The HR mandate

As organizations strive to build and sustain a high-performing, satisfied workforce, they place an even greater emphasis on the effectiveness of the HR department. Today, the HR department is viewed as a critical contributor to an organization’s bottom line, facilitating the organization’s ability to attract top talent, reduce turnover, and control the high cost of benefit enrollment and utilization.

However, to be truly effective, HR needs to have the right combination of people, processes and technology in place to achieve success in this area. With the help of HRMS technology, organizations can now provide a number of strategic functions designed to automate a range of tasks. These tasks include employee assessment or satisfaction, time-to-fill or cost-to-hire statistics, employee performance index, revenue-to-employee or productivity-to-employee metrics, and turnover rate. While few will dispute the value of an organization’s HRMS, the road to adoption can be quite challenging. It requires careful consideration and cooperation among all stakeholders--especially IT.

The IT challenge

While companies increasingly rely upon technology to streamline their business processes and create a competitive edge, they are quickly realizing that if they are to truly optimize their IT investments, they must first work to align IT with their business goals. This is particularly true with an HRMS, which needs to be treated as more than just mere infrastructure or a “back office” application (given the major impact an HRMS has on an organization’s overall business strategy, competitiveness and profitability).

Five HRMS considerations designed to bridge HR and IT

In order to make the most of their HR technology investments, organizations must be sure to communicate the overall goals and objectives of the HRMS and solicit input from both HR and IT. Careful consideration must be made to ensure that the solution can improve the organization’s business processes, not just recreate old paper processes. The solution must also create efficient workflows with approval mechanisms, provide compliance reporting, and integrate all of the major components of HR. These major components include compensation and benefits administration, recruiting and training administration, andstrategic measurement tools such as metrics, performance management and succession management.

To ensure a long-term, successful coexistence between HR and IT, organizations should speak in terms that each department will understand, and should select a solution capable of supporting the unique needs of both. More specifically, organizations should adopt an HRMS capable of supporting the following five criteria.

Criterion #1: Scalable infrastructure to meet current and future needs

To ensure the longevity of the HRMS, organizations must look for a solution that is capable of meeting the current and future needs of HR, while reducing the involvement of the IT department. The HRMS needs to be scalable and highly flexible so that, once IT deploys the system, HR can use it to support the needs of its existing employees and extend the system to include new employees as the company grows (either organically, or through mergers and acquisitions). The solution must also enable HR to include future benefits plans and/or business processes. The HRMS should also be capable of supporting multiple language profiles so that all users in all locations can leverage a single, global HRMS platform. This is needed in order to achieve an accurate picture of the company’s HR goals and objectives--on a global scale--without having to seek additional IT support.

Criterion #2: Strong reporting and query capability to ensure compliance to internal and external requirements

To ensure the long-term success of the system, IT teams should look for a solution that combines data from multiple systems, has built-in report writer features, offers native language and SQL query capabilities (to ensure easy access by any level of user), and supports unlimited security profiles capable of defining the fields, tasks and actions that are permitted by each user. In doing so, HR professionals can easily add fields and tables to reflect the changing business and data needs of the organization, securely locate and disseminate information to appropriate and authorized stakeholders, generate sophisticated reports that comply with internal and external regulations, and provide sophisticated HR-related metrics and data to senior managers for decision making and goal alignment.

Criterion #3: Workload automation to organize tasks and improve processes

In order to support today’s “do more with less” work ethos, it is also important to look for an HRMS that supports what is commonly known among IT departments as “workload automation.” Long recognized by the technical staff for its ability to seamlessly incorporate event-driven activity with calendar and scheduling functions, workload automation allows HR teams to organize daily tasks, prioritize work and improve their process efficiencies. Leveraging automatic, user-defined “triggers”, HR teams can set up e-mail-based alerts, notifications and reports that allow them to focus on more strategic tasks, improve communications, and respond faster to employee requests and organizational changes.

Criterion #4: Tight integration and import/export to reduce redundancies and improve accuracy

Some other important HRMS considerations that are especially important to IT folks involve the tight integration of, and turnkey interfaces to, other HR-related systems. These include single sign-on, e-mail server integration, active directory, LDAP, third-party payroll services, benefit carriers or other internal legacy systems, and the ability to import data from other source systems. This is particularly important as HR professionals strive to create a central point of access capable of streamlining their HR processes. The system should also enable them to eliminate redundant data entry functions, increase data integrity (by having the ability to import historical data from outdated legacy systems) and, more importantly, provide additional analysis and reporting to other team members as needed.

Lastly, organizations should consider an HRMS that is capable of easily exporting HR-related data to other software utilities such as Word, Excel, etc. In doing so, HR teams can provide additional analysis and reporting across the organization using existing systems and popular formats without the need for additional IT involvement. With improvements in architecture, and with the proliferation of Web 2.0, traditional imports and exports can be reduced to Web Service requests that allow the posting and exchange of information to become seamless and automatic. This kind of advance allows the manager and employee to manage data without worrying about the administrative task of running an import or an export to manage the integration of systems.

Criterion #5: Advanced workflow to ease use and promote self-service

The final (and perhaps the most important) HRMS consideration involves the system’s advanced workflow functionality. Leveraging user-configurable menus and role-based forms, HR teams can automate time-intensive and multi-step or multi-person processes such as life change events (name change, new dependant, etc.), new-hire activity, terminations and training. As a result, HR professionals will enhance their productivity, reduce their training and administrative expenses, ensure faster and more accurate transaction processing, and lower the cost of collecting and delivering HR-related services throughout the enterprise.

IT and HR departments alike should look for a solution that is capable of being deployed online, with Employee Self-Service (ESS) and Manager Self-Service (MSS) portals. This will help to encourage easy and secure access among employees, document company procedures and workflow, and ensure compliance with mandates such as Sarbanes/Oxley. By selecting an HRMS that supports advanced workflow capabilities, HR and IT groups can optimize and extend the technology platform to drive bottom line efficiencies and profitability.

Put simply, if an organization is to build and sustain a high-performing and satisfied workforce, then a fruitful relationship between HR and IT must exist. So, instead of thinking in terms of “Mars versus Venus”, IT and HR professionals should keep these five easy requirements in mind, using them as a means to openly communicate their goals, objectives and system requirements.

By giving proper consideration to the people, processes and technology in both your IT and HR departments, you and your organization will be well on your way to a long-lasting, satisfying marriage of HRMS equals who are working together to meet a mutually satisfying goal.

Author:Shafiq Lokhandwala is President and CEO at NuView Systems, Inc.