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 »

Free Human Resources (HR) Software Download Facts

April 22nd, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

Free HR Software

Many visitors on EmpXtrack’s website come to look for Free HR software. Because there are many softwares in different domains that come for FREE, they expect that there can be a Free Human Resources Software too. This post will discuss “Is there any free lunch (software) at all?” for Human Resources Management. I will also try to bust the myths about the softwares that are available for Free.

Why HR Software is NOT free?

Let me begin with why there can’t be free software in HR Domain.

My first argument is that it takes lots of efforts to develop an HR Software, because an HR Software is not merely a plain database of employees information fields (like in an Excel Sheet or MS Access) but a large collection of various types of information which are linked to each other in a logical way so that an output can provide a Common Sense View about the employees.

If I need to define HR Software I will say “HR Software is a process for the collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of employee’s data. It can provide tools for prediction and forecasting based on data. Thus it can be used for a wide variety of management decisions, financial decisions about manpower, performance of people, succession planning and removal of non-performers.” Such an important software, which provides a total MIS on human resources has to be created with great care. How can you get it for Free. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Employee Appraisals, Goal Setting, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources, Performance Management | 13 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 »

Employee Appraisal Scores can be DECEPTIVE

March 30th, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

Recession has done at least one good thing for organizations. Shifting the FOCUS from Gut-feelings to qualitative and quantitative analysis of business performance and decisions.

“I think Steve is a great guy.” doesn’t work anymore. It has to be “Look at John’s sales performance report. It says he is doing great job.”

The next thing that comes into picture is Employee Performance Appraisals. More than ever organizations are looking to set SMART goals and conduct performance appraisals honestly. But does HONESTY itself gives accurate results?

Consider the case of three managers in the same department of an organization in Year 2007. The performance of the teams of these managers was at par with marginal differences.

Manager A: Ram is one of the youngest managers and hails from Generation Y. He is very optimistic and looks for positive side of the employees. He believes in motivating by carrots.
Manager B: Sonia is in the middle of her career. She has high career prospects in the company and looking for promotion in 1-2 years. She likes to play safe.
Manager C: Johnson is an ex-government employee. For him discipline and loyalty come foremost. He cannot tolerate any deviation from policies and authorities. He believes in the stick.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Employee Appraisals, Human Resources, Performance Management | 9 Comments »

Case Study on HR Management in Retail Industry

March 5th, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

EmpXtrack HR Consultants team has released a new case study on the Human Resource Management in Retail Industry. This case study covers the challenges faced by HR in management of employees in an organization having chain of stores in multiple locations.

The organization in the study is one of the largest retail stores chains. They have around 100 retail stores in different locations and looking to expand further to more than 200 store across the country.

Organization has a centralized Human Resource Department located in Head Office. HR decision and process are controlled centrally. However, many HR tasks, policies and procedures are managed by retail Store Managers or regional offices.

The organization used excel sheets to exchange reports. Reports coming from various regional offices and stores were compiled in Head Office by a team of HR Executives and HR managers.

Keeping in view the nature of organization, the case study is equally applicable to organizations having retail chains in Consumer Goods, Health Care, Multi Locational sales offices etc.

Download Counter: 908 downloads so far.

Posted in Case Study/ White Papers, Economy, Human Resources | 9 Comments »

The Ray of Hope in Recession for Human Resources

March 4th, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

While reading Jon’s Carnival of HR titled ”Carnevale delle Risorse Umane: 18 February 2009 ” I realized how much clouds of sorrow surmount the Human Resources domain due to recession.

And why not, after all it is the Human Resource Department that is bearing the burns. HR has to do the most disgraceful job of laying off people, because Businesses can no more afford to pay them. Employees that are chopped off curse HR, even though most HR Managers will be at no fault . HR that used to be hero at the time of a flourishing economy is now suddenly considered a villain making plans and strategies to show door to people. Adding to the sorrow, HR has also been ordered to chip off salary packages, incentives and benefits, making the life tougher for those who are fortunate enough to remain employed,,and to bear their blames and curses.

Sad, but it triggered me to search for the rays of hope that prove that Recession will not last long. Here is my list:

Hope 1: Determination of Leadership

There is a very strong determination amongst the political and business leadership to curb the recession. Never in the last few decades we saw such a global and massive effort to fight economic crisis. This determination is sure to find ways out of the recession and foray into another blooming decade 21st century. I think recession is the birth pang of human society into a new era.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Economy, HR Technology, Human Resources, Performance Management | 6 Comments »

The Future of Human Resources Management

February 5th, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

Prayag Consulting, a leading technology marketing firm, recently interviewed President of Saigun Technologies and the Chief Architect of EmpXtrack, Tushar Bhatia, regarding the trends in HR Technology, the future of HR Management and entrepreneurship. Here are some excerpts from the interview that appeared in their newsletter Focal Point.

What the future holds for HR Technology

With the baby boomer generation retiring, there is a massive talent shortage in the Western countries. Organizations will have to optimize their workforce to deliver at the lowest possible manpower requirements, and any solution that can help them do this effectively will be a sure winner.

The maturing of Internet based technology platforms, acceptance of the SaaS concept by the market at large, good security standards and low cost of bandwidth are further enablers. We are fortunately in a good period at the right time and hope to capitalize on the trend.  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in HR Technology, Human Resources, Motivation, Performance Management | 3 Comments »

Why employee performance appraisals are ineffective, sometimes?

January 12th, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

One of my HR Community friends,  Basheer wrote to me:

> Dear Mr. Gireesh Sharma,
>
> When most people consider traditional performance appraisals a time consuming and expensive task, I also believe they are ineffective in the present work culture of organizations.
>
> I would like to hear from you the better ways to get the performance appraisals done effectively ,successfully and quickly. Or is there a way out of performance appraisals?
>
> Regards.
> A.A Basheer

Basheer’s concern was to a large extent genuine. I would like to share with you what I replied to him:

Dear Mr. Basheer,

Thanks for writing.

I (to some extent) agree with your thought that “most people consider traditional performance appraisals a time consuming and expensive task“. Is there a better way to do it? Yes it is! Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Employee Appraisals, Human Resources, Performance Management | 5 Comments »

What is a bigger problem: Managing employee appraisals or writing accurate appraisals?

December 24th, 2008 Gireesh Sharma

While, I was organizing a software training workshop for a major Electric Power Distribution Corporation in New Delhi, I asked Vikram Singh, one of the participating Senior Managers, who has a team size of 150 employees for performance review, “What is the bigger problem when conducting employee appraisals: managing appraisals or writing accurate appraisals?“.

[Background: This 2,500 employee big company opted for EmpXtrack Performance Management System. Prior to using a web-based performance management system, they used paper based appraisal forms.]

“I have a team of 150 people to review, for me managing employee appraisals is a bigger problem. With an experience of 10 years, writing accurate appraisal is not so difficult. It may be difficult for younger managers but not for an experienced one.“, said Vikram. He continued, “For senior managers like me who also have to review appraisal of my juniors’ teams (I have 8 juniors managing teams of 15-20 each), managing appraisals is a far bigger problem. There is already a long list of urgent tasks with me and then managing 150 employee appraisals, usually in a span of 1 month. It makes me sweat.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Employee Appraisals, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources, Performance Management | 5 Comments »