ROI on automating the Payroll Function

January 6th, 2010 Tushar Bhatia

It is difficult to anticipate the benefits of taking your payroll online. This was a challenge faced by one of our recent customers where the HR department found it challenging to estimate the ROI derived from implementation of an integrated Payroll software.

This article describes some of the benefits analyzed and presented to the senior management such that critical purchase dollars were allocated for the procurement.

The exercise which started as a small initiative actually helped me dive deeper into how a CFO or CEO perceive their human resources department and what are their expectations from an HR platform.

What I will share here is a small part of the study in how organizations are managing their human capital assets and the challenges being faced versus what are the best practices. In this, I will share what are the different metrics and how can organizations save costs in this critical area.

Elements of ROI

To determine the ROI, we had to first understand how the payroll process works in a manual environment. Our interactions revealed that there are three distinct steps in the successful processing of a payroll which are:

1. Data gathering
2. Processing
3. Disbursement and Reporting

For each of these steps above, there are multiple sub-processes which may take substantial effort and time.

To understand the complexities involved in payroll processing and gaining deeper insights into challenges being faced, we further analyzed many other companies across multiple industry verticals, different employee types (blue collared, white collared, management) and found a median effort for each of the sub-processes. Some of these sub-processes on which we could identify the metrics are: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Compensation Planning, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Payroll | 8 Comments »

What Web 2.0 and SaaS Software offer that Legacy ERPs do not provide?

October 27th, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

In the last few years, Web 2.0 and SaaS have captured a significant portion of the market led by legacy ERP systems. Even large enterprises (which only showered their love on ERPs) are now accepting the value of SaaS application over legacy ERPs.

A survey about SaaS conducted in August 2009 by Business Week Research Services found that four out of five managers and senior executives in North America are either interested in, or in the process of, adopting the Software as a Service approach to information technology. In fact, roughly a third of the 326 respondents’ companies have already fully or partially adopted the SaaS approach for at least one application. Read more …

What is in SaaS that is enticing senior executives from all streams of management (IT, finance, HR or S&M), apart from cost benefits?  Talent Junction explores eight key features of SaaS applications that are usually missing in traditional ERP software.

1. Usability: Web 2.0 SaaS software cares much more for usability than its older cousin ERP did. Vendors have understood the value of usability to end-users and are committing more budgets in analyzing the user behavior while working with the software.

Using this analysis, developers continually re-engineer the design to make it more usable. Menu structures, buttons, messages, user interface, and even application colors are chosen keeping web conventions in mind.

Read more about usability from expert Jacob Neilson.

2. Intuitive Graphic User Interface: SaaS and Web 2.0 applications are far more intuitive than legacy ERP systems. The actions, buttons, messages, etc. communicate to users in a way that most can understand what to do next. Graphics, images, and icons all are designed to convey meaningful and user-friendly messages.

The intuitive interface of SaaS application significantly reduces training needs. Thus, for large organizations, where training multiple teams requires big budgets, SaaS applications are a money-saver.

I would love to share a comment from a happy customer who uses SaaS application for Performance Management “We made the decision to roll this out without any training. Our employees took to it without any effort. We did so without any special training for employees. They all found it easy to manage and intuitive. We’re very happy with the end result.” Read the complete comment here…

3. Collaboration: With the advent of social media and its impact on businesses, collaboration is seen as a tool to develop social learning within the organization. Web 2.0 and SaaS software is significantly advanced in terms of facilitating collaboration among the user community. These applications allow users to share insights, comments, notes, references, and documents within the user groups. The use of such applications not only improves employee productivity but also enhances social learning within the organization.  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in HR Best Practices, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS) | 4 Comments »

Employee termination or firing - HR’s role is critical!

September 22nd, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

Termination or firing employees at work is a not-so-liked but mandatory process at business. All businesses big or small at time terminate or fire employee because of business compulsions. However, the recent downturn has accelerated the employee termination largely due to financial and performance problems.

Decision to fire an employee is never welcomed, however, there are some acceptable reasons for terminating an employee:

• For poor performance at work or low productivity.
• Being indisciplined or showing unethical behavior at work.
• Not conforming to the company policy.

Above reasons are well accepted by other employees, business community and also by the legal framework of the country and states for growth of business.

Unfortunately, we also witness incidents of “unethical and unacceptable” terminations. These are neither acceptable by the communities nor by the legal framework. It is needless to mention that law has reprimanded such actions of the employers severely, whether they were intentional or unintentional.

It is unethical and legally unacceptable to terminate an employee -

• On basis of sex, race, color, ethnicity;
• On basis of medical disability;
• On basis of religious faith;
• On basis of pregnancy;
• On base of age, etc.

The law says says that it is “illegal to discriminate in any aspect of employment, including hiring and firing”. Read more information on Unethical Discriminatory Practices.

Firing employees also exposes the organization to potential risks ranging from motivational to legal. Here are some of the common risks:
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in HR Best Practices, Human Resources, Performance Management | 3 Comments »

Importance of HR Data for a CEO

August 9th, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

I used to believe that HR Data was useful for HR Departments only since the department was responsible for employee development & management activities. Alternately, the CFO and CEO were only interested in metrics such as cost of hire, total compensation, cost for training etc which were more oriented towards financial goals and treated employee costs as a “cost-center”. My perception changed in a recent customer interaction.

It was during an EmpXtrack training session for one of our clients in India, when their HR Director asked that we provide extensive HR dashboards to their CEO. While these reports were available for the HR Managers, I wasn’t sure if it could benefit the CEO in any way and hence I resisted.

Since the HR Director seemed to be a nice & patient gentleman, I thought of arguing a little and also better understand why he believed that the CEO would want to look at all this data. There were over 25 crucial dashboards already available for the CEO and what could be the benefits of having access to 100s of additional reports. Many questions came in my mind like –

• Will the CEO have time to go through the reports,
• What will be the implication of training him in using these?
• What if one of the reports doesn’t work correctly? (It does happen!!!)
• Was the CEO from an HR background or believed in Jack Welch’s theory of HR Management etc. etc.

The HR Director was obliging and I got some deep insights into how CEOs think and work. This also helped me better understand the needs of an effective HR department – especially for a company that has global ambitions and aggressive growth plans.

The HR Director said that they are into a Knowledge Intensive Business Services and their core strength lies in the quality of their people. While meeting potential investors and even large customers, our CEO is often asked following questions:

1. What is it about your management team / people that makes them uniquely capable of executing on this business plan?

AND/OR

2. Do you have the Right Leadership?

AND/OR

3. Does the team have passion for the business? Have they done it before: experience; market experience; intimate contact with potential customers, partners, and suppliers; etc. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Employee Appraisals, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources, Motivation, Performance Management | No Comments »

Strategic Benefits of Online Leave Management System

July 23rd, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

Leave Management is one of the most important HR processes, that consumes a small but significant portion of managerial time. While managers are usually overloaded with projects & hunger for resources, approving subordinates leaves is a tight rope walk. On one hand HR has to ensure compliance with leave policy & ensure availability of sufficient resources for business continuance; while on the other hand it has to improve employee satisfaction. Most of us have witnessed bitter manager-employee relation on issues of leaves. Thus, leave management becomes an important strategic task for the organization.

Strategic Value of Leave

While many companies may take the leave management “not so seriously”, research shows that poor leave management has had bad impact on business performance. It can impact project deliveries and employee morale negatively. Here are some of the critical business issues, that are directly related to leave management.

1. Meeting Project Delivery Deadlines: Availability of manpower directly impacts the project delivery schedules. While committing Project Delivery dates managers need to keep in mind the general availability of sufficient resources. They need to know what are the peak leave months/ weeks and should commit the delivery dates accordingly. Also, while crucial projects are nearing dead lines, they should approve leaves prudently.
2. Legal Issues with Leave: Each country has legal rules for employee leaves. Like FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) in United States - with its broad definition of medical conditions and generous leave provisions -it can scare employers, especially smaller companies who rely on a handful of key employees. Failing to comply with the complicated requirements of this law can result in serious liability for both companies and individuals. Similarly, in India THE FACTORIES ACT CHAPTER VIII, Annual Leave with Wages, lay clear guidelines for leaves. If organizations do not comply with these rules, they risk being sued by the employees and penalized by the Government Authorities.
3. Emotional Factors related to Leave: Getting leaves in time is a major employee satisfaction factor. Employees have several personal needs which requires their absence from work. Read our another post denying leaves can cause emotional stress, where we studied a case of mismanaged leave request.
4. Financial Implications of Leave: Accrued leaves are financial liabilities on organizations, especially Paid Time Offs and Privileged leaves which are to be reimbursed at the time of separation (or as and when required by employee ) according to the leave policy. If employees do not take enough leaves, the financial liability of organization increases and the HR should report this to management at regular intervals.
5. Performance Vs Leaves: Work Life Balance have a direct impact on an employee’s performance. Employees who do not take enough leaves (and suffer from stress) or the employee who takes too much leave (and is careless towards job), both have negative impact on their performance. Both type of employees need to be monitored carefully and coached on maintaining a productive work life balance.

Important Leave Metrics/ Dashboards that HR should keep an eye on:

Organizations need to capture and know several leave metrics at frequent intervals for a better understanding of its human resources.   Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in HR Best Practices, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources | 6 Comments »

Web 2.0 and SaaS for Human Resource Managers

July 6th, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

Recently we were asked by “People and Management” a popular HR magazine in India to explain Web 2.0 and SaaS to their readers who are mainly senior HR Folks, CEOs and other management profiles. Our thoughts were published in the magazine as an article titled “Web 2.0 and The SaaS Factor for HR“. Here is the summary of this article. (Full version PDF available at request.)

If you visit Internet often, you will have, most certainly, come across the two buzz-words, Web 2.0 and SaaS. Let us discuss what these two actually are, how these are redefining the workplace and why as HR experts, should we be interested in these technology issues. It has to be borne in mind, however, that Web 2.0 and SaaS concepts apply to several domains. Here follows its application in HR Management.

The Web 2.0

This Web 2.0 is a specific type of design of a web site that allows “communication, and information sharing” amongst the owner of the website and visitors. Unlike previous forms of websites which only allowed one-Way Communication (apart from filling a contact us form), Web 2.0 websites allow visitors to communicate with the owners about the content and also enables them to communicate with each other.

The Free Factor

The most significant thing about Web 2.0 is that it is free. Unlike yesteryears, when you needed to pay to create a web site, Web 2.0 works on the concept of free utilization of this powerful resource. Now anyone who has access to Internet can create a blog or website or open an account for free. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources | 10 Comments »

Writing SMART Goals (also called KRAs) from Job Descriptions

April 14th, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

Many Managers (Including HR managers responsible for writing others Goals) often ask to help them on creating Goals (Key Responsibility Areas) for different designations, which they can use for setting Goals and/or conducting performance appraisals. While most of these managers are completely aware of their job profile, they find it difficult to shape it in a written form.

Knowing your Goals and writing them effectively is an all-together different game. To describe your Goals (KRAs) you need to have effective writing skills and sound knowledge of terminology. Unfortunately, some executives/ managers may not have a flair for writing and thus unable to write their Goals (KRAs). This is true for HR also. So here are some tips that will help Talent Junction users to write Goals (KRAs) from the Job Descriptions.

SMART: A Smart Goal (KRA) is one which is:

1. Specific : Clearly stated what to do and how to do?
2. Measurable: States how the performance for this goal will be measured.
3. Achievable: It can be achieved by employees if they work really hard (You can draw this conclusion by talking to employee, manager or someone who has done this job successfully).
4. Relevant: The KRA (Goal) is relevant to the job and the performance on this goal will improve productivity of the employee.
5. Time Frame: States a time frame to achieve the goals.

How to WRITE  SMART Goals (KRAs)?

Here are the steps how anyone can write Goals (KRAs) from Job Descriptions: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Goal Setting, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources, Performance Management | 20 Comments »

Successfactors of a Leader – Remembering Names

December 10th, 2008 Gireesh Sharma

Sometimes back I wrote a post ‘What’s in the name? SuccessFactors for HR‘ where I mentioned the special skill of an HR manager who knows every employee by name. While I was reviewing a new feature in the software EmpXtrack, called Employee Hierarchy (similar to an Organization Chart), I recollected a motivating incident.

It was in the beginning of year 2002, I worked with a business process outsourcing organization. One day I was working quite late and trying to finish a training project before leaving for the day. The Managing Director, Mr. Aashish, just passed by and saw me. Five minutes back, he came back to my desk and said ,”Hi Gireesh, why are you working so late today?” The rest was a normal chit chat.

This incident left me highly motivated for many months to come. I was amazed by the fact that my Managing Director knew me by name, while I was merely a grass-root level executive, almost a nobody in the organization which was 2500 big. Sometimes later I discussed this incident with my manager and he revealed that on seeing me working so late, MD has called him just to ask my name.

Later on a friend’s recommendation I read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. In this book Dale Carnegie (Section “Six Ways to Make People Like You”)says, “Remember that a man’s Name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”, which highlights how important it is to remember and call people by name.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in HR Best Practices, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources | 1 Comment »

Ten Tips For Downsizing with Grace in Difficult Economic Times

November 26th, 2008 Gireesh Sharma

Difficult economic times call for tough calls, and, downsizing is one of the toughest calls that leadership and HR have to take. Though downsizing is the most hated task and nobody wants to do it; it is a necessary evil for saving a company from an economic collapse.

With little efforts organizations can minimize the effect of downsizing on economy and employees to a some extent.  Here are 10 tips that one can consider while downsizing:

1. Do a manpower analysis before you Downsize!

Think twice, do you really need to vacate those seats and happy faces. Do not make subjective decisions!

Work and re-work on your manpower requirements - for today and for tomorrow. A good manpower planning software can assist you and your mangers to accurately assess your manpower requirements. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Performance Management | 7 Comments »

Top Ten Bad HR Practices

October 14th, 2008 Maj. Gen. B.K. Bhatia

Every body talks about the best HR practices, it is good, but merely bringing in the best cannot give the desired results if some Bad HR practices co-exist in the organization. So what are those Top Ten Bad HR practices which caution & alert an organization.

1. Employee has no access to personal data (over-confidentiality): Can’t view, can’t update personal information; has no access to his/ her Leave records, salary data, attendance record, training & promotion details. Not sure if the management’s decisions are based on correct information. This breeds suspicion since there is a perceived lack of transparency.. Impact is on employee-employer relationships.

2. Lack of clarity on Deliverables: Absence of a well-defined job-description leads to lack of accountability. Nether the employee nor his/ her immediate superior (boss) are able to define the job-deliverables. Result is the loss of focus & interest.

3. Absence of Goal-based performance: Employee is unaware of the goals to be achieved during the year. There are no quarterly targets and no process to track their completion. The organization carries out merely an end of the year postmortem of an employee’s performance. The unaccomplished tasks go unnoticed. Difficult to build a performance culture in such organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in HR Best Practices, Human Resources, Motivation | 4 Comments »