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?

  

Gamification for HR

Source: http://artofservice.com.au

How Instituting Gamification processes can boost efficiency and increase employee 

satisfaction in the process.

Anyone who says they don’t like games, or prefers sticking to highly structured unrewarding tasks in lieu of them, is probably playing mind games with you.    An overwhelming majority of people would much rather engage in something fun and rewarding, and would likely take preventative measures to avoid overly boring or complex tasks.  This kind of thinking often extends into many individuals career fields as well.  The field of HR (human resources) is certainly no exception here; HR is mostly confined to an office and requires a certain level of productivity and devotion from its workers.  Too often in an office environment (where tedious and repetitive work is being performed), individuals may become complacent and slip in their duties.  This is to be expected however, as human beings often require stimulation, gratification and/or exploration to keep them interested in something for an extended period of time.  It’s mostly due to the way our brains process information (in an abstract manner) and our desire to ‘problem-solve’ or achieve. This of course brings us to gamification, and how it might be able to energize employee morale and foster an atmosphere of progress.

Gamification is simply put, another way for employers (in this case, HR) to create incentive without devoting too much time, money or energy to the cause.  At its core, it’s really about giving employees an even greater level of creative freedom in exchange for their loyalty and steadfastness.  Obviously, an employer cannot simply eliminate all rules, schedules, timetables, deadlines, codes of conduct and short/long term goals.  However, they can create things like bonuses for certain achievements, awards for diligence or various other incentives.  This is what gamification seeks to achieve in HR; to give employees a reason to feel good about their job and offer them a potential for future growth and expansion in their duties and position.

One of the age old quandaries in business management is how to keep things running smoothly at a brisk pace while at the same time, maintaining employee contentedness.  It is in the business manager’s best interest to keep his/her employee’s satiated for a number of reasons;

1. Satisfied employees are easier to manage, more dependable and of course, more consistent in their output (which is normally much higher than that of a dissatisfied employee).
2. As employee approval increases so does the capability for increasing levels of both production (output) and efficiency (constancy).
3. Contented employees are often prone to implement creative problem solving or devise inventive solutions, which in turn, produces / saves profits.

So, the idea is to institute certain incentive programs (via gamification elements) in order to strike a balance between productivity and freedom.  In doing so, an employer can expect nothing ore than loyalty and renewed fervor from employees in their duties.   This is especially important in HR, where employees in that department are expected to help others resolve their workplace difficulties.

With gamification it is also extremely easy to generate competition within the workplace.  One needs to be mindful of the ethical implications associated with competition and gamification however, pitting employees against one another for the company’s benefit (or your own) is disgraceful and counterintuitive to any businesses true goals.  However, tapping into the competitive aspect of any professional environment is a sure-fire way to generate interesting activity (with gamification).  Competition isn’t all bad though, it often attracts the most determined and resourceful individuals and prods them toward even greater accomplishments which in turn, benefit the entire organization.  A more competitive atmosphere might also increase the numbers of individuals that are actively participating in certain projects or tasks.  Gamification is especially useful in this regard.   For example, the easiest way to get that “difficult and/or tedious” project completed done (which might have been lying there dormant for weeks/months) is to begin offering comparable incentives to those employees that are able to complete it.

In many ways, Gamification represents a microcosm of the way larger economic elements function and interact with one another.  Sure, some incentives or awards might not be that outstanding, but compare them with endlessly performing the same type of tasks day in, day out with absolutely no acknowledgment.  In fact, most people go out of their way to avoid dealing with management, because seeing them usually means something went wrong, or some disciplinary measure must be taken.  Gamification essentially reverses this stigma (associated with all forms or levels of business management).  With gamification in place, the next visit from your boss might be to offer you a promotion instead of the opposite.

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.