Movement within the workplace continues to put pressure on businesses to invest time and money into making sure they are compliant with the many rules and regulations they face. HR is an area that has particularly felt the impact of this. Remote working is a growing trend, and it is challenging companies to provide employees with the highest quality of support, no matter where they work. Having everything stored digitally is now more important than ever.
A stream of court cases, often as a result of a lack of visibility and monitoring by HR, has kept compliance high on the business agenda. Stories of large settlement fees, disputes and court cases act as a constant reminder of the cost of errors in HR administration. The impact of a dispute can be significant, damaging an organisation’s reputation and wasting time and money in dealing with it, as we’ve recently seen for example, with checks on businesses by the border agency. Having everything in the same place and accessible is essential to making sure minimal time is wasted getting information together when it’s required.
HR Cloud
Moving HR records and process into the cloud will go a long way in transforming HR for the better; simplifying processes for both employees and managers, dramatically reducing paper, and allowing key data and records to be accessed with just a few clicks.
As any HR professional will tell you, getting the right balance between management, paperwork, engagement and support of staff can be a real challenge. Simplifying procedures and introducing digital workflows together with visibility of checklists for activities such as new joiner processes, performance reviews and training, both for managers and employees, will go a long way to reducing workload as well as paper. Automating some processes, or at least digitising them, will also help to free up time, allowing HR managers to focus on meaningful conversations with staff.
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A recent study revealed 97 percent of HR managers believe there is a clear link between wellbeing and performance. Clear targets and – regular review processes can go further than you might think in making sure staff wellbeing and engagement levels are high.
Efficiency and Mobility
Cloud technology can, if implemented correctly lead the way in the transformation of the HR department, in the same way that it’s improving mobility in the workplace. It has the potential to increase efficiency wherever it is introduced, allowing information to be consolidated in one place, and accessibility increased. Mobile workforces can be managed and communicated with as if they were in the same building, allowing an overall business to become more agile, with less of a focus on a traditional workplace model. Efficiency can be improved by providing employees with access to data relevant to them, and introducing self-service allows personnel to maintain and manage their own digital spaces with their information, activities and even to-do lists. This will not only reduce errors in HR records, but also empower staff to take control of their own profiles and lower the workload of HR.
Consolidation also brings with it data security. Personal and sensitive information is arguably more secure when it’s stored digitally than physically, especially when lots of different people require access to different bits of information. In organisations with complicated structures, organising access to databases and files can be a nightmare if they’re all stored in situ. Digitisation can provide HR managers with the means to control permissions and access to confidential information, giving individuals access to specific data.
Ignoring the cloud is an error few are committing, but HR is a department that can benefit in a way unlike any other. Entire operations can be transferred, increasing the ability to maintain compliance in an HR department that continues to come under pressure. Equally, greater agility and efficiency, results in more time for HR to actually support staff which can go a long way to improving engagement, and ultimately a business’s bottom-line as a result of happy high performing employees.
Stuart Keeble CTO Appogee HR
Stuart has over 20 years experience of leading IT Services and Development teams at a Worldwide and UK level and leads our Google Cloud product and custom development teams.
Stuart founded Appogee in 2010. Stuart's career includes 12 years as Development Director at Portal Partnership (and its predecessor NetInfo), a leading IBM WebSphere and Lotus Partner and 13 years at Lotus Development (now IBM) where he finally held the position of Director of Technology, Worldwide Customer Service and Support.
Stuart holds a BA (Hons) in Management from the University of Kent
