Many businesses are aware of the pent-up demand for holiday across their workforce. It’s been a challenging year and across the UK as we make good progress towards achieving more normality and freedom in our daily lives, it’s understandable that so many of us are now thinking about taking time off from work.
Various announcements about the prospect of travel both in the UK and abroad have prompted plenty of people to finally start making plans for holidays over the coming weeks and months. And all of this presents a potential issue for line managers and HR staff to deal with.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
Unless you know what business problems your organisation is facing, how do you know what the Board considers important? And, therefore, how can you build a strong Business Case for HR technology and get Board buy-in?
- Topic:
- Human Resources
The constant interest in agile HR mirrors a global trend towards adoption of agile practices in many areas of the organisation: from project management, to operations management and beyond.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
Recently, Access People were invited to participate in the CIPP National Payroll Week roundtable event to discuss how market forces are shaping payroll departments of the future. High on the agenda was technology and how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for payroll teams to start automating transactional tasks.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
Travelling towards simplification
The prospect of changing your HR and payroll software could be intimidating. At this point, you can choose your metaphor. Perhaps it seems like you’re going to be turning a tanker around. Maybe it’s more akin to trading in a dated but familiar, family car. Or, the perceived complexities might make it feel like you need to get a space rocket off the ground – a moonshot project. Whatever your outlook in this respect, it’s crucial to ask yourself why you need certain software now, but also to identify both your current needs and where you need to be in a few years. In short, to know where you are and where you want to get to.
The average HR and payroll software is changed somewhere between every seven to nine years and with the right people and purpose steering the project, a simplified system can be truly liberating. So don’t let the fact that you’ve always done things a certain way constrain you and do ensure you have the right people involved. Let’s take a look at some of the factors to consider and the things that can help when you’re planning to change your system.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
Once more unto the avoidance of breaches…
As we all know, nothing is certain in life except for death, taxes and the pressures of compliance. With time moving us towards a new financial year then, let’s take a look at some key regulatory areas to be aware of in the weeks and months ahead.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
The question many HR leaders are currently asking is: How do you create a positive candidate experience in the new normal? So much has changed over the last year, yet the challenge of recruiting and onboarding the best candidates remains, even as most (if not all) of this process is now completed remotely in many cases. So what is the secret to success?
As businesses have made the shift from predominantly face-to-face recruitment processes to more virtual interactions, many have found the change to be extremely effective. The breadth of technology now available – for example, cloud platforms, AI-powered analytics and streamlined automation – makes it even more likely that online recruitment and digital onboarding will become the preferred approach, even after pandemic restrictions have been removed.
So what are the companies having the most success with remote recruitment doing differently? At Access, we work with HR leaders across multiple sectors and businesses, and we’ve discussed multiple approaches with them. Of course, each business has its own unique way of doing things, however, we also found the following 5 approaches usually prove advantageous.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
An experience shared by everyone
Did you know that the origin of the word ‘pandemic’ is rooted in Greek? The term comes from ‘pandēmos’, derived from ‘pan’ – ‘all’, and ‘dēmos’ – ‘people’. It’s a word that’s so familiar to everybody now, after a difficult and deeply strange 12 months. It aptly describes something huge, a phenomenon that has undoubtedly affected all people and transformed every personal and work life in some way.
The world is dramatically different. Face masks have become as much of a habit as the brushing of teeth. There’s a heightened focus on health and wellbeing, nature and hobbies. We’re binging on TV series (ok, perhaps that’s not totally different) and learning to keep our distance, with changed greeting customs and different forms of social recognition – memorably demonstrated by the clapping for key workers. Banking and shopping have altered too, with an exponential increase in online transactions. As a result, more people are tech-savvy, with digital screens of some description now even more common than they were before.
Looking at all of this from a HR perspective, it feels like employee experiences matter more than ever too.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
Living systems where everything’s linked
“Learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.”
Leonardo da Vinci
The words of a truly great, artist and polymath who pushed countless boundaries in his time. Having drawn inspiration from the time of the Renaissance, let’s move our focus to a revolution: the significance of hyper-connectivity, here and now, in our fast-changing world. What does ‘hyper-connected’ mean? A dictionary might say something about the ‘widespread or habitual use of devices that have internet connectivity’.
We’re going to look at it from an HR perspective, however, and for me the starting point is to view organisations as living, biological systems with many intricate nuances. It’s about treating your company as a complex, conscious system and making use of data and technology to ensure a personalised experience for every individual within it. Why is this concept important? Companies that want to thrive no matter what happens need to bounce back quickly as the economy recovers, which means welcoming back employees and considering all their experiences - for the good of everyone.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
Are you one of the many HR leaders who is still waiting for the internal investment to upgrade to a modern HR software package? If so, you’re not alone. In this article, we offer a potential solution to turbo-charge your business case and finally get the commitment you need to move forwards.
- Topic:
- Human Resources
