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HR Software Systems

How HR software can make your managers better leaders

No doubt you’re already using software for your accounting and view it as essential to the success of your business. But have you considered implementing an HR information management system? HR automation isn’t new, but with cloud-based technology it’s now cost effective and feasible for small and medium-sized businesses.

Much like your financial software, an effective HR system will quickly prove itself as a tool that saves you time, money and frees you and your managers up to focus on the more important aspects of leading your people.

If you’ve been manually handling HR operations in the past, you may be wondering about how a software system will benefit your business, particularly your managers.

  1. It will help your managers make better use of their time

Time is the one thing none of us can get more of. If your managers are having to manually create, print, sign, scan, save and manually upload documents, they don’t have time for things that matter more – like coaching and mentoring their direct reports.

Sadly, HR software won’t solve all of your time management woes, but it certainly helps to save time so you can better allocate those resources.

  1. It will provide you and your team with important insights

When you’re manually handling HR records, you miss out on some valuable information. HR software collects and analyses data to provide you with accurate insights in order to make strategic decisions.

  1. It will support effective performance appraisal processes

Gone are the days where you need to purchase expensive performance appraisal software, or muck around with multiple Word documents and hard copy forms. A good HR software system will incorporate a performance appraisal system that will facilitate an efficient process and focus your managers attention where it should be – on having quality conversations with their employees about their performance.

So, what should you look for if you’re in the market for HR software?

  • It pretty much goes without saying, but a cloud platform is essential
  • You should also prioritise ‘employee self-service’ features. The more you’re able to shift responsibilities from your managers, the more useful they can be. For example, with self-service a new employee can log in and view their employment agreement, digitally sign and have this saved to their file where they can access it throughout their employment
  • Alongside affordability, scalability is also important – you only want to pay for what you need, when you need it
  • Full functionality will ensure your managers get the best out of your system. Essentially, HR software is an HR administration tool. However, along with HR document management, look for a system that incorporates:
    • Recruitment process / candidate management
    • A performance appraisal system
    • Health and safety management

This will ensure all relevant HR documentation is correctly stored and easily accessed.

Positive People partner with enableHR HR software. We’d be happy to arrange a time to show you around the system so you can get an idea of how it might work for you and your team. We think you’ll find it ticks all the boxes.

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Change Management

Making Changes Smoothly and Without Drama

Plan a smooth restructure that enhances the business and allows the future to be tackled with confidence.

Sometimes it is essential to make changes in your organisation. Markets shift, customers demand more, technology advances and business practices move along. It is imperative that organisations stay ahead of the game and adapt to rapidly changing environments.

Making changes within your organisation to meet these challenges can often involve difficult decisions that will affect your people’s employment.

It is not just the human side of the changes that can keep you awake at night, but also the legal risks involved. Additionally, a badly handled restructure does your employment brand no favours. A badly handled change initiative can sully how attractive your business is to work for as well as negatively impacting on your current team’s satisfaction, engagement and retention.

Successfully navigating your way through a restructure, relocation or major system or process change requires expert planning and careful implementation. A fair process throughout is essential.

Once the decision is made to explore the possibilities of a change, then a proposal needs to be developed which explains the background, provides the genuine commercial reasons and provides a justification for the proposed changes.

Any changes contemplated must be for a genuine commercial reason.

A key element to be aware of is that from the moment a change idea is conceived until after all relevant feedback has been received is that it is only a proposal. Only after a fair process has been conducted, and all relevant feedback received and carefully considered can a decision on the proposal be taken. Up until that time the change contemplated is simply a proposal, nothing more. This is still the case even if you’re facing a certain change – for example, the lease running out on a premises meaning that some sort of change is inevitable.

The people affected need to be provided with a fair opportunity to provide their response to the proposal. If redundancies are a possibility then all alternatives to redundancy need to be explored to see if any people affected by the changes could be accommodated elsewhere in other roles, or other working arrangements introduced.

Once the decision on the proposal is made, then those affected need to be informed.

Throughout the process everyone affected needs to be treated with the utmost care and consideration. Suitable support in the form of the offer of counselling and CV/career path assistance should be offered to those affected. This will reduce your risk, but also ensure you are acting as a good employer and looking after your employees.

Because the discussions that are held are confidential, it can be difficult to maintain the engagement and morale of the rest of the team in the organisation as they naturally want to know what is going on. However, there is little choice but to wait until the whole process is completed before information like a new organisation chart and role descriptions can be shared.

If your Company is committed to creating a work environment where open dialogue, honest discussions, trust and fair processes are nurtured and promoted as part of the organisational culture, you and your team are most likely to come out of a restructuring process with a sense of optimism.

Following these guidelines should help you emerge from any change program with minimum risk and ready to take on the future with confidence. Positive People are well experienced in guiding, assisting and providing support to companies who need to make changes. Contact us today at info@positivepeople.co.nz or 09 445 1077 to discuss the details.

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Upcoming Legislative Changes

ER Changes – What is planned and when is it happening?

With several recent announcements from the Government around employment standards and reviews it can be confusing to keep up with what is planned, when it’s planned and what this means for you.

Below is a brief outline of the proposed changes and some information on what stage they are at in the process, so you can keep ahead of the game and make sure you remain compliant.

Areas to keep an eye on are:

  • Changes to the Holidays Act
  • Fair Pay Agreements
  • Changes to the Employment Relations Act, including the 90 day trial period
  • The Minimum Wage

Changes to the Holidays Act

Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway has commenced a review of the Holidays Act, following several high-profile cases where employers have failed to pay their employees the correct rate for annual leave.

The current Act states that holiday pay can be calculated two ways; either on the basis of ordinary weekly pay at the beginning of the holiday period or on the average weekly earnings over the previous 12 months, and that employers must pay whichever rate is the highest. Where employees are part time, have overtime rates or have bonus or incentive payments these rates can be significantly different. The practicality of calculating this every time an employee goes on leave is very difficult and many payroll systems are not set up to do this correctly. The review will cover this, as well as the full Holidays Act with the aim of simplifying the regulations, ensuring the Act is fit for purpose for the current work environment and making it easy for both employers and employees to ensure that correct entitlements are paid. This review is expected to take one year.

Fair Pay Agreements

A working group has been established to consider what a Fair Pay Agreement would cover and look like, with the aim of providing recommendations on how these may work in the future.

Fair Pay Agreements, as outlined as one of the Governments election promises, would be collective agreements which cover whole industries and set out the minimum requirements for that industry. While little further detail has been provided on these, the Government has indicated that it expects Fair Pay Agreements to be used in occupations where there is already a high level of Union membership (like nursing, teaching or manufacturing), and that once a Fair Pay Agreement is in place, it would be compulsory for all employees in that industry to be covered. There is some discussion around small employers being exempt from Fair Pay Agreements. However this will be up to the working group to establish.

The terms of reference for the working group indicate it will also be able to look at whether regional variations should be allowed in Fair Pay Agreements, how often they should be renegotiated and if they should apply beyond workers (for example to contractors.)

Recommendations are expected to be made by this group by the end of 2018.

Changes to the Employment Relations Act 2000

Earlier this year a bill was introduced to parliament which proposed changes to the Employment Relations Act. The key proposed changes are:

  • Limiting 90-day trial periods to employers with fewer than 20 employees
  • Reinstating set rest and meal breaks, with limited exemptions
  • Restoring reinstatement as the primary remedy in unjustified dismissal disputes
  • Removing the small to medium enterprise exemption to the requirements in Subpart 1 of Part 6A of the Act when a business is sold and restructured.

This bill is still at the select committee stage, so no date has been set for the changes to come into effect. This means that for these areas the provisions still stand as in the current legislation. A report is due on 1 August 2018, so we should know more about the changes, and when and if they will come into effect, then.

Minimum Rate Increases

While a commitment has been made to raise the minimum rate to $20.00 per hour by April 2021 no further specifics have been provided on how these will be achieved, what the annual increases will be and when. Traditionally 1 April is the date when annual minimum rate increases would occur, so currently it seems we will have to wait until closer to this date to understand how the annual increases will work to achieve this target by 2021.

Keeping up to date on changes to employment legislation is critical for any employer to make sure you minimise risk and remain compliant. Positive People can help you keep up to date so if you have any questions on current or proposed legislation, please contact us.