Mobile Leave!

Ramco HCM and Mobile Life!

Here is first of the series of Mobile Life!

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Designing a Portlet to enhance user experience

Users are tired of wasting time by navigating to and from different sources. At the same time, they want the information to be organized so that it was not overloaded. To solve this, I have designed a Manager Analytics portlet with the help of Ramco’s PDK (Portal Developmental Kit) tool. Portlets are visual representation of data; usually role based i.e. if a manager signed in then it will show what is relevant for the manager. If I’m looking at a coworker it will give me the basic details. In this Manager Analytics portlet, I have designed it to show the career development, Behavioral Appraisal, Succession Planning in a single glance.

Portlets have many rich features to design the best user experience ever. Let me explain with behavioral appraisal which shows the 360 degree view, comparison view of last 5 appraisal, top behaviors exhibited by employees and training development plan.

In designing this behavior appraisal portlet, I have used tab navigator, image list, charts, transparent grid, link, text and label. With the image list control all the appraisers are listed with photos and a label. It will automatically enable a scrollbar when there are more images to display than the available space. Then moving on to charts there are several type of charts available and I have used bar chart, radar chart, and line chart. Bar chart is used to illustrate a set of data in a way that is as easy to understand as it is simple to read here, I have used this chart for top behavior exhibited. Radar chart are useful way to display multivariate observations with arbitrary number of variables, In this case I have used the radar chart for 360 degree appraisal; Line chart which displays information as a series of data points connected by straight line segment, I have used this line chart for showing the behavior trend for the past 5 appraisals. This would visually excite the users and give them the required information at a glance.

What’s next with enterprise social networks?

Contribution: Shankar B, Ramco Systems

Enterprise and Social Media have reconciled successfully.  The combination does not sound oxymoronic anymore.  So, what’s next here?  How would organizations really make use of (internal) social media?  It is time to go beyond a ‘feel good’ network of employees.

1) Social media with context:  Standalone enterprise social networks are hard to sustain.  It’s hard to quantify and qualify what a person is doing there and how it contributes to business.  So, social media should be more embedded and social business networks should happen more in the context of a business situation.  

We see this happening a lot in the HCM and CRM space.  In HCM, social recognition and gamification have stared becoming mainstream.

2) Predictive Analytics:  A lot could be deciphered from an active enterprise social network.  Questions such as

§  Will my project run on time? 

§  What is the likelihood of this prospect converting? 

§  Will the new product succeed in the market?

can be answered more easily through the crunching & analysis of all the informal information/ data floating in an enterprise social network.

3) Insight into employees: An enterprise social network can provide great insight about a company's talent:  Who are the key employees?  Who are the leaders? Who are the influencers, high-networked employees?, experts in a particular topic, overall employee sentiment, satisfaction levels are some areas where a social network can provide quick insight (which a typical HCM software will find hard to provide).

Are you using your social network for any of these purposes?  Please share your thoughts.

Ramco HCM team at the 11th HR Director Business Summit, UK

Ramco HCM- offers Unified Payroll Solution with Multi Country capability

Why the bad luck with your enterprise social network?

Author: Shankar Bharatan

Employee social networks is no more the ‘the topic’ today.  Many organizations have jumped on this bandwagon.  In the initial days, there were skepticism and concerns that employees might crash the site, connecting and conversing the way they do in popular social networking sites.   But the employees completely surprised their employers.  After the initial check and a cursory ‘Hello World!’ nothing much happened.  What happened?  Aren’t people crazy about social networks?

The fundamental flaw lies there, in that social network analogy.  Personal social networks are interesting places where one can meet his friends, know what’s happening with them and in general with the world.  Apart from the general networking pleasures, it’s a great place for a person to learn new things and validate his own ideas.   There’s so much of personal incentive in using Facebook. 

Sadly, enterprise social networks don’t provide these incentives.  They just become one more channel for internal marketing, thus offering no new learning. Moreover, most enterprise social networks have such loosely defined purposes that to an employee it conveys a message that it need not be taken serious.  

On the contrary, enterprise social networks with well-defined purposes can work a great deal to improve employee productivity and workplace processes.

HR is a great function that can get you started on a fantastic note on your enterprise social network initiatives.  Here are 3 areas where you could use your enterprise social network, and, for the incremental effort put in, reap big benefits:

§  Its estimated that 80% of learning happens through informal means whereas organizations spend 80% of their training budget on formal courses.  Rethink your learning strategies.  Apart from videos as learning materials, many courses can be converted into an experience-sharing format, a form of question and answers that makes them easier to consume.  Your authors and trainers can come from your own talent pool.  Incentivize them enough to keep up the good work.

§  Use the social network to greatly complement your regular appraisal process.  Allow employees to validate their coworkers’ skills and competencies, provide contextual references and testimonials of their work.  As compared to the annual appraisal process, this is a much more natural way of understanding one’s performance and potential.   Besides, it saves a lot of time in collating all information during the final appraisal.   It might be possible that this initiative might be used as a mutual admiration club, but in most cases, employees will not risk their own reputation by vouching for the wrong guy. 

§  Social networks are a great place to stay in touch.  Why restrict it to your current employees?  Build an alumni network, or a network of external talent.  Together with your employee references, these networks could be the sources from where you’ll pick more than 50% of your next hires.

Ramco HCM helps you even when on the move!

Supporting Workforce Mobility

Author: Abhijith Kohli

Traditionally, a mobile workforce is defined as one which does not have one fixed place of work or which moves between work locations but is linked to the company and its resources through virtual private networks, the Internet, and mobile networks. It was this set of people that initially necessitated workforce mobility support and given their limited numbers the mobility support was usually optional and mostly limited. It was limited in terms of the number of people to be supported, the numbers of business processes to be supported and the number and type of platforms to be supported.

However, with rapid strides made by technology the concept of workforce mobility has undergone a paradigm shift. With the proliferation of mobile devices, especially smart phones, and the decreasing cost of mobility services, the days of the 9 to 5 worker are long gone. Workers today have the ability to stay connected to their organization 24X7. The estimated number of the new mobile workforce is expected to cross the 1 Billion mark by 2013.

Hence, the need to support workforce mobility is no more optional but essential for organizations. If it needs to engage its workers and help improve their productivity, it needs to reach out to them using the platform they prefer the best. A few key factors that need to be considered for providing workforce mobility support are:

·         Identifying Business Processes – An organization has to first identify which business processes should be provided on mobile, given the obvious limitations of smart phones – the screen size. Therefore not all business processes, especially those which require heavy data entry or complex steps, are ideal candidates to be taken mobile. Every business process needs to be designed and if required tweaked to fit the mobile landscape. A guideline for choosing the appropriate business processes could be:

o    Approvals – The first set of business processes that can be taken mobile are Approvals. Approvals usually do not need heavy data entry or complex steps per approver, hence they are the ideal candidates for mobile adoption. Moreover, there can nothing more frustrating for an employee than delayed leave or expense approvals just because their supervisors are travelling and do not have access to their systems.

o    Frequent Self Service Transactions – The next set of business processes to be taken mobile could be frequent self service transactions like leave application, time booking, expense claims etc. Enabling an employee to perform such transactions on the go using their mobile devices boosts their productivity while in office.

o    Dashboards – The leadership of the organization, which is often on the move, should be provided mobile access to intelligent dashboards which helps them gauge the health of the organization and take corrective action as and when required.

·         Cross Platform Support – The days of Blackberry being synonymous with enterprise mobility are history. We are in the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) era now. Iphones have taken over the mantle of leadership with Android devices in hot pursuit. Employees prefer to use their own mobile devices, even if they are provided one by their organization. The bottom line being that whether an organization likes it or not they need to provide cross platform mobility support. Even in a single platform they have to contend with varying form factors. Hence an organization should always be on the lookout for products or services being provided using technologies like HTML5 or cross platform tools like Sencha, Appcelerator etc.

·         Tablet Support – Providing cross platform support was just playing catch up. To be future ready an organization needs to ensure that their mobile designs are Tablet ready too. With the cost of tablets coming down it is estimated that 58% of mobile workers will rely more and more on tablets by 2013.

These are just a few of the factors and organization needs to consider before going mobile, there are other things to consider like native apps vs cross platform apps vs HTML5 apps, mobile device monitoring, mobile application security etc. The factors to be considered may be many but there is no running away from the fact that a mobile enabled enterprise is no longer an advantage but a necessity.  

Achieving one’s potential

Author: Shyaam Sunder

CKO & Vice President-Ramco Systems

Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, “The Ugly Duckling” is 150 years old but still relevant in the message that it delivers. It is a story of a barnyard bird that is jeered for being ugly in its childhood and then growing up to be the most beautiful bird of all – the swan. It’s widely regarded as a tale of transformation.

The author confessed that the tale was inspired from his own life. He was apparently ugly looking boy who had a good singing voice and a passion for the theatre which was mocked in his childhood and youth. He then went on to win the attentions of the peoples of the world with his creations.

The important point is that, the ugly duckling does not face any challenges in its transformation into a swan. By its natural growth it becomes a swan.

In Ramco’s Talent Management software recognizes that the transformation of an employee, from being a “Novice” to a “Leader”, should be enabled just as naturally.   While the standard processes of career planning and training enable this transformation, a lot attention is given to “employee speak” – that is employee’s changing views about their work and progress. These changing views act as powerful inputs in crafting the employee’s journey. Listed below are some of the “employee speak” mechanisms.

1.    Confirmation Appraisal: This appraisal is usually done 6 to 12 months after a new employee joins in. It captures the experience of the employee in these first few crucial months. It gauges their “fit” into the system and the maturing of the understanding of the business.

2.    Training Requests: Employees may request for training courses by way of this self-service mechanism

3.    Employees may record their feedback into annual or semi-annual appraisal systems

4.    Employees may record their suggestions, grievance etc.

5.    Their activity in knowledge banks may easily be gauged through analysis of frequency of visits and tests performance.

6.    Results from their social media and gamification activities may be combined for further analysis

The most tangible of the channels (of employee speak), hence a perpendicular, is usually the performance measurement (KPI) aspect. This cannot be the only parameter through which an employee is measured. A system that relies only on KPI measurement can never explain why an employee is parked in a certain grade for prolonged periods with the same average performance. How can anyone grow if they aren’t updating their skills or connecting with the outside world through professional networks is the question?

This also points to another important aspect of leadership development – locus of control. The louder the “employee speak” and more aligned it is to their career aspirations, the more independent the employee. This is in turn implies potential to work without supervision or an ability to manage their own time. This is how a leader grows – through a series actions that bolster their ability to perform and hence set direction. 

TRADITIONAL RECRUITING METHODS VS. MODERN RECRUITING

Source: TRIBEHR

Recruiting is one of the most important things things your company does. You recruit not only to succeed as a business, but also to excel compared to your competitors. After all, what’s a company without employees? Ensure that your company continues on strong, long after you’ve moved on, by taking the time to attract, screen, and secure the best job candidates.

Traditional Recruiting Methods

Recruiting is hardly a new concept for businesses, no matter if they’re new or established. Despite the rapid pace of change in HR methods, many of the classic recruiting methods still have roles to play in today’s world.

Job Ads in the Local Paper

Like the many iterations of a building, there are things to like about both traditional and modern recruiting methods.

Newspapers are one of the oldest methods of connecting with people in their homes, and are still picked up and read by a large segment of the population today. In addition to traditional home delivery papers, most media companies now operate parallel online news sites. Make sure you check if your ad will be posted to both mediums, before you decide if it’s worth the investment.

Postings at the local Employment Office

Your local unemployment office will always be filled with people looking for work. Usually operating an extensive candidate database, financial hiring support programs, and supplementary training for struggling applicants, the employment office is a great place to affordably find many types of employees, very quickly.

Using Temp Agencies

Temporary employment agencies are quite common, and are occasionally their employees’ only source of income for extended periods of time. Experienced temporary workers can often pick up new tasks very quickly. When employers aren’t confident what the right applicant for the job will look like, or are only in need of  short-term project help, these are a great way to go.

Hiring Internally

Hiring internally is a time-tested way to ensure you have the right person for the job, and is also probably one of the easiest. You and your team already personally know the people who work at your company, and you know their work history and performance. Making a decision can be difficult, andhiring internally can cause problems, but the savings in recruiting and training costs can be significant.

Modern Recruiting Methods

The world is growing and changing, and so is the world of recruiting. New technologies like the internet and smartphones have made information is available any time and anywhere.

Leverage Smart Phones

Smart phones access to countless applications and virtually any web page. Job candidates the world over are glued to their phones. Interact in their space by optimizing your careers portal, providing ample information about your company online, and even leveraging older phone features like SMS for recruiting.

Tap in to Social Media

Most young professionals use Facebook and Twitter more commonly than they read the newspaper. Facebook and Twitter are used for everything from news to family updates. Even sports recruiters have used Facebook and Twitter for scouting. You can maximize the benefit of social media and other erecruiting strategies by ensuring that you engage with your customers, your employees, and your job candidates through these channels.

While the mediums of traditional recruiting and modern recruiting are different, the underlying strategies are still largely the same. Find an audience, talk to it, and hope that words spreads. Modern recruiting, however, offers the added convenience of faster and wider information dissemenation, with opportunities for feedback and engagement.

Locating and Nurturing Good Talent

 Author: Shyaam Sundar,

             CKO &VP, Ramco Systems Ltd

The functions of locating and nurturing good employees are enabled by the running of exceptionally good Talent Management processes. We are familiar with the scope of global recruitment or succession planning processes. These should be tuned to targeted business requirements and local/cultural demand.

In Talent Management, one of the challenges is to have ready a set talent pools; sets of peoples with grouped by capabilities and performance. The idea is that when a key position falls open, talent from these pools may be analyzed for their fit into the position in question. In practical execution, organizations look at the experience profile and other typical HR parameters such educational qualifications etc before making the decision. There is always the possibility that the answer to this succession is not in black and white. This may be because the candidates in consideration may be too close in terms of performance and profile.

Extra data points are needed to make such a decision. The following additional questions may have to be answered. If the position in question has been measured by native parameters such as position size etc. That is, positions are measured by the target they carry or the number of people reporting into it. We submit it must be measured further by environmental factors such as cultural and social parameters.

Cultural Parameters are paramount in succession decisions; especially in the higher level positions as these positions affect many others in the organization. For instance, senior project directors must have demonstrated “outcome orientation”. Granular referencing to budget and time parameters of projects may be yield more important information than typical KPIs and performance records. A second level parameter could be “people orientation” – this can be valued from attrition numbers and key words from exit interviews. While outcome orientation helps us understand how the successor performed in project delivery, people orientation measures the ability to lead the team as they fight their way through delivery pressures.

Social Parameters are indicated by the number of connections into interest groups that feed the domain of job in question, the number of tweets, followers, etc.

And these are not going to add up to one whole in as in financial statement. They will sit as measures in multiple dimensions, leaving the importance of these dimensions and therefore the need to reckon with the measures to be determined by the planners. Growing organizations may place emphasis on social parameters – connections that the successor brings in. Mature organizations look at the culture of execution and outcome orientation. 

Whatever may be the case, decision making is by making an exception – choosing the best fit candidate to a context and not to a position. What is the demand of the position in the current business environment? What sort of social and cultural leadership is needed in order for the successor to meet the targets assigned to the position?

  

Managing Complexities of a Multi Country Payroll

Managing Complexities of a Multi Country Payroll
By : Gurinder Pal Singh, General Manager-HCM & Payroll Practice.

Large multinationals with presence in multiple countries often face the challenge of reducing their payroll processing costs.Since payroll is governed by the country statutory and industry regulations, it is important to ensure compliance to avoid any fallout arising out of inaccurate computation. Many companies have found to their horror that they have been underpaying the wages
and overtime for years. Such issues not only jeopardize the company’s reputation but also put a huge strain on the payroll department since the entire credibility of the payroll is lost.
Most companies have taken the route of outsourcing the payroll to external vendors. However,most outsourcing vendors do not have a unified solution to address legislative requirements of all countries. Payroll Aggregators are bridging this gap by managing the multiple vendors in each region/country and being the single contact point for their clients. This calls for high vendor management andintegration costs.
Since multinationals run multiple businesses, it is impossible to implement a policy that fits all.
Mergers and acquisitions require exception handling. Some businesses demand exceptions to match the pace of the industry. Exceptions are also often created for the senior management and the rising stars of the company. Since most payroll systems do not allow such fine-tuning of the policies to suit business demands, this results in a lot of manual work for the payroll team, thereby increasing the payroll cycle times as well as the risk of over or under payments. Sometimes the payroll systems are customized to deliver a solution on case-to-case basis. Not only this calls for continuous spend to fund such customization  it also means that the payroll software becomes impossible to upgrade when the provider releases the next version. Many large companies have been stuck with older versions of the payroll software for this reason.
Companies like Ramco Systems (www.ramco.com/hcm), have invested into building a unified payroll platform that enables companies to run their entire payroll on a single platform. Coupled with its integrated Human Resource Management functions, this comes as a sweet alternative to eliminate the pains of distributed vendor management, data management and consolidation. Designed with powerful capabilities on exception handling, the solution allows configuration of policies based on parameters that can be fine-tuned easily to meet the ever-changing business demands. Exception riders can be setup by company, department, position, employee type and other organizational attributes thereby automating any complex payroll calculation. Ramco is now developing a path breaking optimization for its payroll engine, called Ramco Minnal. Using in-memory processing and advanced optimization techniques, this will reduce the processing time for thousands of employees from hours to a fewminutes saving precious computing costs and improving the payroll cycle time.
Currently available for 48 countries across the Globe, Ramco’s multi-country payroll solution is fast catching up with large players like SAP and Oracle to provide an alternative to the business community, who has been spending millions of dollars for system integration and customization.

Exception!

Here's a good definition of an Exception!

"An Exception is an action that is not part of ordinary operations or standards. These actions are important in the discovery of talent"