Sapphire Systems is a provider of financial accounting and business management solutions globally. Established in 1993, the company has more than 20 years’ experience supplying and implementing a range of solutions, including Infor and SAP systems, for companies of all sizes. Headquartered in London, with operations throughout the UK, US, and Asia-Pacific, Sapphire is now optimising people and absence management across their global workforce with the help of Cezanne HR’s cloud-based HR software.
The company had been managing multiple HR operations using a paper-based system and Excel spreadsheets, which proved cumbersome and time-consuming. Head of Global HR Operations, Tony Martin, began looking for a single solution with automated workflow to save time and improve efficiency.
He said:
“With a number of employees working on a part-time or flexi-time basis, a configurable system that could accommodate and easily manage these working-time patterns was a key priority for us. We were also seeking to streamline the finance department’s access to salary-related information, including holiday and illness details.”
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As a multi-national organisation, Sapphire Systems also needed a solution that could be adapted to support the different requirements of each of the countries it operates in.
Martin added:
“Cezanne’s ability to manage international requirements made it a particularly attractive choice for us. The system automatically registers local public holidays, languages and other requirements, which makes things a lot easier for our HR team.”
After researching the available solutions on the market, Sapphire were drawn to how simple it was to use Cezanne HR and to configure it to their individual needs and policies. “Cezanne is a user-friendly system, and staff are already finding it much easier to manage their own profiles. It has saved us a lot of time and we have also benefited from an environmental standpoint, as previously a lot of our processes were paper-based,” Tony said.
Reporting is simpler too. Information searches are easy to run and data can be exported to Excel with just one click, dramatically cutting down on HR time spent pulling together reports. The ability to record employee assets, such as mobile phones and laptops, through the new starter and leaver processes in Cezanne’s system was also an attractive feature – making it easy for the company to keep track of loaned items.
Keen to get up and running quickly, Sapphire were able to roll out the system in a very short time frame, after just one day’s training from a member of the Cezanne support team. Having initially implemented the People and Absence modules, the company are now preparing to roll out the Performance module too. They plan to use Performance to build a skills matrix of their employees’ qualifications and skills that can be updated by both employees and HR.
Martin concluded:
“We are confident this new module will prove especially useful for matching appropriate members of staff to projects that require particular skills – and as an evidence base for clients to see the skillset of their hired consultant.
“Ultimately Cezanne HR has already greatly improved our processes and we are confident this will only improve as we continue to utilise additional functionality within the system.”
Steff joined the HRreview editorial team in November 2014. A former event coordinator and manager, Steff has spent several years working in online journalism. She is a graduate of Middlessex University with a BA in Television Production and will complete a Master's degree in Journalism from the University of Westminster in the summer of 2015.
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