.png?height=168&name=appogeehr%20(1).png)
When systems develop alongside organisational expansion, it’s not always a smooth process.
Sometimes there are hiccups, and these can have a tangible impact on your operational capacity. For an organisation with systems that are falling behind, digitised HR systems may represent a solution to avoid these hiccups and ensure ongoing efficiency.
When we speak about digitising processes, we don’t necessarily mean you’re coming from a fully paper-based starting point. It may be the case that you have some digital aspects to your process already, but that a more powerful and efficient system could be put in place.
Here’s how to tell when this may be the case.
1. Things are starting to get too complex
All organisations have some degree of complexity, and this usually only increases as you grow. When the ability of systems to handle this complexity doesn’t evolve at pace with the wider business though, things can start to strain. One place this strain is commonly felt is managing leave, whether it be holidays, sickness, or other types.
For example, the University of York has over 150 members of staff in a complex hierarchical structure. where leave allocation can vary between roles. Their previous system was struggling to handle leave management and requests were starting to slip through the net, but moving to Appogee Leave - a system built to handle complex staff structures - has been transformational.
2. Your staff are spread far and wide
Trinity Mirror is one of the UK's largest newspaper publishers, with an award winning portfolio including five National newspapers, over 130 regional newspapers and 500 plus digital products. The Group employs over 6000 people in more than 60 locations across the UK.
They use virtual teams to allow teams to work across large geographical distances, but their systems had fallen behind this modernised system: requests for leave were being approved without the virtual team manager being consulted.
If you’ve got staff spread across a wide geographical spread, your HR systems need to handle the changes this entails. It may be the case that heritage systems are unable to do so, in which case it may be time to update. Our staff location recording tools, present in Appogee HR Essentials and Success give instant visibility on who is working where, and when. Combined with clock-in and clock-out tools, you have the peace of mind that remote working won’t cause any disruption to employee efficiency or deliverability.
3. Projects keep running over time
Project management is hugely complex, especially as projects grow in size and number. In an organisation without refined systems, it’s easy to over- or under-deliver, and for the profitability of projects to be impacted as a result. The likelihood of this scenario is compounded by staff contributing to projects from various remote locations.
Appogee Time, our project management software, features a suite of tools designed to improve tracking capabilities, including tracking against customers, projects, tasks and teams; pre-project planning; billable vs non billable tracking, and more.
Ancoris are one of many businesses who have discovered the power of these tools: Dave Fenton, their Vice President of Services, noted that Appogee Time has equipped their teams with the ability to monitor working practices across departments, and leverage data in a way that facilitates internal reporting up to board level.
4. Opportunities for training and development are going unnoticed
A large part of keeping staff engaged is creating opportunities for their development, ideally with the view towards progression. In many organisations, however, this process is under-developed or absent entirely.
Computeam, one of our customers who provide IT support services to schools and other organisations, note how the Appogee HR Performance management module empowered managers to set and track quarterly goals, monitor employees' progress, and strengthen internal development opportunities.
5. Your onboarding process is creating the wrong impression
As well as a massive increase in engagement when they implemented OKRs through the Goals module discussed above, cryptocurrency provider Energi Core Ltd revamped their internal onboarding process with the Appogee HR Essentials Onboarding module.
Onboarding is your opportunity to not only equip new starters with the information and messaging they need to get going, but also to set the tone of the relationship between employee and employer. A disorganised process that sees new hires passed between harried staff doesn't make a good first impression, but a portal designed to guide users through a pre-defined sequence of information provides the welcome each new starter deserves.
6. You can't tell whether or not staff have read required documents
After onboarding, you sometimes still need to know that your staff have read or accessed documents with required information. You also need the peace of mind that multiple people accessing these documents won’t create confusion, and that there’s no risk of accidental edits being made.
This is where company document management comes in: these tools allow centralised access of documents while keeping versioning consistent, meaning that everyone is accessing the one true version. Acknowledgement requests can also be sent, as a way to ensure that people are accessing the documents and the information they contain when requested: a surefire way to ensure awareness of and adherence to updated policy, for example.
7. You aren't tapping into or benefiting from staff insights
The people working for an organisation are one of its most crucial assets. They have direct experience of internal processes, and do the work that enables the business to succeed. Too often, though, their thoughts and feedback go unnoticed.
Accessing and leveraging these insights requires a platform where comments can be made and ideas shared, such as the collaboration tools in Appogee HR Success - our advanced HR software package.
Britt Chavers, Office and HR Manager at ASE Direct, explains how these features have "truly fostered a culture of learning and growth" in his organisation, because staff have "a safe space to vocalize their opinions and thoughts" - such a collaborative, expansive culture can be transformative for any company.
8. Paper and digital systems aren't meshing properly
In a situation where paper and digital systems are in use, it’s often the case that things slip through the cracks. Keeping employee information up to date is one area where this is often the case: as people get new mobile phone numbers, move house, get married, and otherwise progress through life, it’s crucial that your internal records are updated to reflect this.
Our centralised employee information module, present in Appogee HR Essentials and Success, gives staff access to a self service portal where they can keep their own information up to date, removing a significant chunk of paper filing requirements. Records managed in this manner are also fully consistent across your organisation, meaning that no erroneous or outdated information will be used.
9. Missing or poorly-handled data is leading to policy breaches
FirstGroup PLC is a transport company with over 30,000 employees. The group encompasses the UK’s largest bus operator - First Bus, as well as multiple rail operators - Great Western Railway, Transpennine Express and Hull trains, to name a few.
Due to the configuration of their systems, HR managers had very little visibility on absence records for their staff: a situation which risked policy breaches around data access and management. In such situations, moving to dedicated absence management software can avert the risk of breach and make the process easier for those involved in using it.
10. You don't have any absence overview tools
Software engineering company Execom found themselves struggling to report on absence data kept in spreadsheets, because there was no reliable or intuitive way to collate the required data.
With specialised HR software, this is no longer an issue. Reporting and review tools are built in from the ground up, meaning you can quickly and easily generate custom reports on whatever metrics are required: our HR software lets you utilise any combination of business metrics to monitor and report on whatever success looks like for your organisation.
Wondering whether it's time for a change?
If you’ve read this list and can see some of these pain points in your business, perhaps it’s time to look at modernising your systems. Our HR software offers an extensive range of features to align with a broad array of organisational goals. We also offer a demo to showcase these features, or a 14 day free trial where you can try them out for yourself.
