Employer Solutions Blog – Sage HRMS

In response to the tens of millions of “unbanked” workers in the U.S., many employers have begun issuing payroll cards to their employees. These items work just like debit cards from banks but allow workers to dip directly into their company payrolls, as opposed to the more resource-intensive process of cutting checks.

Most payroll debit cards allow all employees within an organization to be enrolled in direct deposit, regardless of existing banking relationships. There are a number of benefits for both employers and workers. For example, companies are able to reduce the cost of issuing paper paychecks. Such devices are also more secure, as they minimize the risk of check fraud, offering an additional employee benefit as a result.

Workers benefit most directly from their convenience and security, as their wages are immediately available on payday. Furthermore, individuals without checking accounts or established bank relations do not need to establish one, and families can even receive multiple payroll cards for use.

Businesses of all sizes are looking for ways to improve payroll efficiency and employee satisfaction while also maintaining adequate security standards. Complete electronic payroll systems allow employers to meet these goals.

With the growing popularity of payroll cards, especially amid rising discontent with banks, a number of HR management and payroll associations – including the Association for Financial Professionals, Electronic Payroll Coalition, Electronic Payments Association and the American Payroll Association – have collaborated to develop a series of core principles for payroll debit cards. Employers and payroll managers considering electronic payroll systems should consider some of these standards:

• Employee should have access to full wages at least once each pay period without cost.
• Terms and conditions should be disclosed in a clear manner before the employee is enrolled in the payroll card program.
• Employees should be allowed to check account balances via telephone or electronic platforms, such as online networks, and these services should be offered without cost to the employee.
• The funds in a payroll card account shall not expire.
• If the card has an expiration date, the employee should be provided with a free replacement card prior to that deadline.

Have you considered offering your employees access to a payroll card?  You can learn more by registering for our weekly live webcast, Paperless Payroll with the Sage Payroll Paycard.

Fully integrated software management solutions offer a variety of benefits to the average business or professional organization. They can help reduce inefficiencies and improve productivity across all departments and business processes, among a number of other perks.

In a nutshell, these services involve the standardization of one application in managing an entire organization. When implemented effectively, this leads to the elimination of narrow solutions that usually strain IT resources and stall overall business performance.

Here are some additional ways that comprehensive business management software can help an organization achieve growth.

1.) Generate the highest return on employee investment for your IT budget.
2.) Achieve greater insight into your customer base while ensuring that your expenditures are targeting the most loyal/valuable prospects.
3.) Drive quality improvement by reducing process inefficiencies through accurate and fully integrated payment processing solutions.
4.) Automate human resources and compliance processes while tracking payroll and providing improved care to employees.
5.) Gain control over your entire fixed asset lifecycle.

Cost reduction

In order to fully benefit from an integrated software management solution, companies need to take their accounting processes very seriously. If inadequate attention is given to payroll services, bookkeeping and financial processes, then the advantages are likely to be minimal. This underscores the importance of initial software integration as well.

Integration

Integration may be the greatest benefit of any software management solution. If a company establishes the elimination of redundant data as a chief goal for its software and IT solutions, then the process of implementation is likely to be successful. It’s important to note, however, that these solutions do not improve the relative efficiency and performance of individuals, so any integrated solution needs to be balanced with a comprehensive workforce management strategy.

Efficiency

As mentioned, software management solutions tend to focus on integration at the organizational level, so it’s important that companies weigh the benefits of their solutions against the individual habits and characteristics of employees. Ask yourself: How much will a solution reduce or address inefficiencies at the individual level?

Overall, more consistent data that offers a global view of an organization can help drive growth and process improvement efforts. As markets continue to grow more complex, the need to adopt such quality improvement measures is seen as imperative, and software management solutions can be the foundation for these objectives.

If you’d like more information about comprehensive business management software register to view the recorded webcast 5 Tips to Extend the Value of ERP and Meet the Needs of Your Business.

Why are some companies thriving while others struggle to stay in business? What is the distinctive difference between a good company and a truly great company? The answers to these questions can only be found when looking at what defines the company: its people. The people that make up a company are that organization’s unique and biggest asset. For most businesses, the workforce is also its largest expense, or better put, its largest investment.

At Sage HRMS, we believe that employees are the most important component in the quest to improve business results. It makes sense to treat employee related expenses, like HR technology, as an investment in the workforce. Like any other investment, this critical company investment must yield a healthy return. We call that the Return on Employee Investment™ or ROEI™.

This year’s annual Sage Summit will be held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee, from August 12 to 17. Sage Summit will provide a unique networking setting while offering a variety of fun events, informative seminars, and hands-on training.

The event focuses on bringing together Sage users from the top down, from business owners and managers to analysts, consultants, and network members. Registration began on April 19 and is open to partners and customers alike. You can register for the entire week or just a portion. Partner days are designated for August 12-14 and customer days are August 14-17.

The annual meet-and-greet on Sunday afternoon will kick off the conference by introducing members with the same performance interests and goals. These first three days will be geared toward helping partners connect with colleagues to gather ideas on strategy, implementation, and problem-solving. You can learn more about how Sage products work and what you can do to use them more effectively at deep-dive workshops, or you can attend “super sessions” to help understand how to increase the scope of your management resources. 

Customers will be welcomed on August 14 in a special networking day aimed at bringing them together with partners in the new Sage City. Composed of nine smaller “villages” focused on particular interests important to the Sage community, these tents bring together partners and customers looking to meet the same kinds of challenges and help them connect on a face-to-face level for brainstorming and networking. Sage City will also have access to chat walls where people can write notes and ideas for other attendees, or they can use Facewall to interact online with others during the event.

A variety of entertainment will be available throughout the week, and meals will be provided, as well. Partners will be invited for drinks and appetizers at the kickoff of the trade show on Sunday, and Monday night will feature a block party with bands composed entirely of their colleagues. On Wednesday morning everyone will be invited to take part in the 5K Run for Youth walk/run to benefit the Student Youth Travel Association’s Youth Foundation. Wednesday night will be a special concert event at the Grand Ole Opry featuring Trace Adkins, Montgomery Gentry, and Diamond Rio.

If you want to master a certain training aspect, Sage Summit features different learning tracks that will help carry you through the basics and give you in-depth knowledge of product integration, IT systems environments, leadership, or customer service techniques. If you’re interested in learning about a specific program within the Sage family, there will be business- or customer-only workshops to attend. Customers can get up to 17 CPE credits and partners a max of 32 for attending this one-week event. Workshops will allow you to log hours right when you attend them, and you can even print out certification of time earned before you leave.

This year’s trade show will host nearly 200 software and technology companies such as Edisoft, Citrix, Fujitsu, and JobOps. Attendees can try out new applications or talk with other companies about software that might work for them. Developers can meet directly with their clients to brainstorm new solutions for specific problems. There will also be opportunities to win gifts and prizes throughout the week, and both partners and customers are encouraged to stop by the various booths and speak with vendors.

Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity for Sage customers and partners; register for Sage Summit today!

Let’s face it – HR is different. 

Our “stock” is people; our “transactions” don’t require shipping; and our analyses rarely get mentioned  when someone starts talking about “business intelligence”.

And it’s the third of these that we should take issue with. Business intelligence is just as important in HR as it is in the rest of an organization. Employees – like stock – have value; they represent an investment which should be monitored and evaluated. But unlike stock that sits on a shelf, an employee’s value changes; it changes as employees move up within your organization, and it changes based on such simple things as staff attendance, certification, and salary.

Which brings us to the subject of “trend analysis”.

Trend analysis has typically been reserved for use by an organization’s sales department. A sales manager needs trend analysis in order to identify which items, customers, salesreps, et cetera are seeing an increase or decrease in volume. “And . . . “ (so the reasoning goes) “ . . . since an HR department doesn’t deal with this kind of volume, they have no need of a trend analysis solution.”

That’s where the trend analysis folks are just plain wrong.

HR needs to identify trends; just different kinds of trends that most people think of. Whereas a sales department is concerned about sales figures going up or down, an HR department is concerned with employee productivity and employee cost per hire going up or down. An employee who is suddenly (or even gradually) recording more and more sick time over the last few months is a concern. A departmental manager whose expenses for the last month are exponentially higher than their average month is cause for alarm. And a quarter in which your employees have to renew over half of their certifications is unquestionably something that has to be planned for.

So a pretty darn good case can be made on behalf of the need for trend analysis within HR; but now comes perhaps the more challenging two related questions:

• Can HR afford the price of an “analytics application” to perform trend analysis?
• Does HR have the staff time required to use such an analytics tool?

Typically the answers to these two questions are “I sincerely doubt it” and “No way . . . “

And although these answers might make it seem that an HR trend analysis product is just another of those “nice-to-have if-we-could” solutions, these answers do, in fact, point us towards a very specific type of HR analytics solution. A solution that costs little (less than $2,000) and makes no demands upon an HR staffer’s everyday workload.

Such trend analysis solutions do exist; but you may not find them where you expect. Instead of looking under “Business Intelligence”, “Analytics”, or even “Trend Analysis”, this relatively new breed of software is most typically found under headings such as “Alerts” or “Business Activity Monitoring”. After all – isn’t the process of monitoring your HRMS system for trends, and then communicating those trends to the appropriate people – really nothing more than a rather sophisticated alert?

(Or, to use a sports analogy, an “alert on steroids”?)

Alerting systems have grown up; no longer are they limited to the role of “alarm clock” for your HR data, doing nothing more than alerting you to new hires, changes in benefits, and certifications about to expire. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those uses; it’s just wrong to assume that those basic uses of an alerts system are all it has to offer you.)

The new generation of alerts technologies for HR include the ability to perform trend analysis. Just as importantly, these new technologies provide this ability at a reasonable cost, and they operate automatically – meaning that they discover and deliver trend information without making any demands on an HR staffer’s available time.

So don’t let those folks in sales tell you that there’s no need for trend analysis in HR. Your employees are your organization’s single-most important commodity; trend analysis can help you get receive a higher return on that employee  investment.

In this first installment of a five part series, we interview Mollie Lombardi, a research director for Aberdeen Group’s human capital management practice. She has surveyed and interviewed thousands of end-users to gain a better grasp of the key challenges facing human resources and talent management leaders. Mollie has an extensive background in writing and speaking about topics such as strategic talent management and employee engagement. 

Joey Baird: You have a very impressive background in HR. What notable changes have you seen in the industry throughout the years?

Mollie Lombardi: It’s been interesting. Even in just the past 10 or 15 years, we’ve seen periods of extreme growth followed by severe economic downturn. And in the midst of that turmoil, organizations always have struggled with the same key questions:

• Where do I find talent?
• How do I grow talent?
• How do I hang on to my best people?

But I would say that the way we answer those questions has changed. Technology has caught up with our desire to have greater transparency, and it has allowed us to reach employees wherever they are through mobile and social tools. The questions remain, but our arsenal to go after them continues to evolve.

How do you see social media playing a factor in the HR industry? Do you think the importance of social media is positive or negative?

I think that in the end, it is a positive. But a lot of organizations still struggle to “control” social media. They’re missing the point. You can’t control social media, so you simply have to live the way you want to be perceived. Social media can be an amazing window into your organization’s culture, your brand, your mission, and your goals. It can be a powerful tool to help connect you to potential employees, as well as retain and engage your existing employees.

But you can’t fake it. If you want to be perceived as a great employer and corporate citizen, or a great consumer brand on social media, you have to be one. The level of transparency brought by social media leaves organizations with no place to hide—which will be the best thing for employees and employers.

Do you see social media alleviating or creating more problems in the workplace?

At first, social media might be seen to be causing more problems—but a lot of that is growing pains. It’s something new, and organizations have struggled to understand what it really means. But it’s not going to go away, and social media and whatever comes next will be a part of our lives. And at the end of the day, these tools are about communication. Open and honest communication within organizations will, in the end, alleviate more issues than it causes.

You’re a Boston University alumna with a degree in theater. What made you transition to the HR industry?

My job and field of study within theater was as a stage manager, and what a stage manager really does on a day-to-day basis is make sure everyone knows what they need to know, shows up where they are supposed to, and delivers for the audience. The stage manager also keeps extensive records for all the various stakeholders, such as producers, backers, and even the various unions that represent stagehands, actors, and musicians. So, in a lot of ways, it’s an excellent training ground for HR. And it was excellent training for the project-based nature of my consulting work.

I noticed you did some work with Harley-Davidson. How was that experience? Did Harley-Davidson set you up with a motorcycle—or at least a ride on one—in exchange for your services?

I’m afraid not. But I will say that touring its corporate headquarters and one of its factories is one of the more interesting client experiences I’ve had. It was pretty awesome to see the amazing collection of machines in the motorcycle section of the corporate headquarters parking lot on a sunny spring day.

What are some of your favorite Twitter accounts to follow? Do you have any bloggers you’d recommend to our readers?

I follow all the folks over at Fistful of Talent pretty closely: the FOT blog, the Twitter accounts of most of their contributors, and the personal blogs of folks such as Kris Dunn, Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee, and Andy Porter. I also closely follow Naomi Bloom for her insights on HR technology, and I like to keep up with Laurie Ruettimann for her irreverent commentary on topical issues and the latest updates on her cats.

What are the most important points organizations should understand when looking to recruit and retain talent?

I think the biggest one is to pay attention. If you’re trying to recruit people with certain skills or attributes, look at where the people you know have those skills and attributes spend their time outside work. Pay attention to how they interact, and model your hiring communications around things they already respond to. For retention, paying attention is even more important. A manager’s job should be to know what’s going on with the team. People convey their unhappiness long before they turn in their resignations. Getting tuned into the signals of disengagement is critical, both in terms of data, such as a drop-off in productivity or a slowing down in their contributions to internal and external social networking, as well as in terms of interpersonal cues.

The other important point is transparency. Whether someone works for you now or might work for you in the future, painting a clear picture of what it means to work with your organization and what the opportunities are for them as individuals is key to the decision to join or stay with the company.

Do you see a difference in what members of Generation X and Generation Y seek in job fulfillment compared with what those in previous generations consider to be important?

One of the biggest things I’m seeing about Gen Y is the need for advancement. I think to keep these employees happy, organizations are going to have to find ways to offer them mobility and new challenges. It’s not about everybody rocketing up the ladder to a vice presidency by the time they’re 28, but it is about helping younger employees see the types of career paths and opportunities they may have. I think we’re also going to see a more networked approach to work. People might come and go from jobs, but they will build relationships that cause them to continue to seek out work with certain groups of people or individuals. It is more of a loyalty to a team than to a particular corporate brand. People want work that interests them and to do it in an environment and with colleagues that they enjoy, and they are placing a premium on that versus a promise of a 30-year career with one employer.

We are also seeing that no matter the generation, there is a high demand for personalization. The continued consumerization of technology has made people come to expect on-demand access to all the information they need. If I can go to my bank’s website and see the entire history of my relationship with that bank, I want to be able to go to my HR system and see all my benefits transactions or schedule history. People have come to expect the ability to get the information they want, in the format they want, when and where they need it.

All of us at the Employer Solutions Blog thank Mollie for allowing us to interview her and we look forward to providing more thoughts from her next week!

In the meantime, you can follow Mollie on Twitter, @mollielombardi, connect with her on LinkedIn, and read more about her work with the Aberdeen Group.

In this acronym-rich industry of ours there’s still one acronym that I hold above all others because its truth is undeniable: GIGO. For those of you who might not remember this one, it stands for “garbage in,  garbage out” – and it describes what we all know too-well: the poorer the quality of the data in our HR application, the less value we’re going to get out of that application.

GIGO has been with us practically since the dawn of the computer software age; and yet, in our excitement over new products, new gadgets, and (most of all) new catch-phrases, GIGO has to a great degree been pushed off to the side. Organizations have been too-accustomed (and too forgiving) in accepting “bad data” in their software applications, and when the economy falters and organizations downsize their staff, the incremental increase in bad data is simply accepted as the cost of doing business with fewer people to do it.

Don’t you believe it.

Chalking up the increase in bad data to a reduction in staffing is an all-too convenient excuse, and – if anything – staff downsizing should bring the subject of bad data to the forefront of a business and make addressing it a corporate imperative.

But here’s the thing – most HR organizations think of data quality in terms of data entry; making sure that required fields aren’t left blank, making sure that validated fields have valid responses, and seeing to it that date fields contain date values, numeric fields contain numeric values, and so on. Now all of these things do help to improve the quality of data, but they far from all you can do to improve data quality.

Consider the following: 

• Making sure that phone numbers have the correct number of digits
• Making sure that email addresses include the ‘@’ symbol
• Making sure that “follow-up” or “service” dates are no more than ‘x’ days out
• Making sure an employee’s vacation time does not go negative
• Making sure that pay raises do not exceed ‘x’ percent (and that a person’s salary is commensurate with their position)
• Making sure that the personnel data in your HR application is in agreement with the personnel data in your other business applications, such as accounting or sales systems

The above is just a small example of the types of “data integrity” conditions that you can watch for in your HR system; generally speaking, these conditions resolve themselves into the following:

• Checking for missing data (e.g., no cell phone number)
• Checking for incorrectly-formatted data (phone numbers, SSNs, email addresses, etc.)
• Checking for conditionally-missing data (e.g., if field ‘a’ = ‘x’, then field ‘b’ must have a value)
• Checking for conditionally-invalid data (e.g., if field ‘a’ = ‘x’, field ‘b’ cannot have values ‘y’ or ‘z’)
• Confirming that date, time, & numeric values fall within acceptable ranges (e.g., a “next scheduled maintenance” date cannot be more than ‘x’ days in the future, or “vacation available” cannot go negative)
• Performing cross-application data validation (e.g., an employee in the HR system should have the same email address as in that employee in your ERP system)

As mentioned earlier, most HR organizations’ attempts at improving data quality usually begin and end with only the first item above – making sure that HR required fields are not left blank.

So – do yourself, your HR staff, and your employees a favor; the next time you go into your HR application and you see something that makes you want to say “How did that happen?” – don’t just chalk it up as the price of doing business. Implement an HR data-quality system that automatically checks for (and responds to) that “bad data” the moment it appears.

After all, everyone makes mistakes; it’s having to live with them that we can do without.

Social media marketing is more complex than many dabblers may assume. While the field is still fledgling, forward-thinking companies have developed social policies that involve and encourage participation from all members of the organization. This strategy ensures consistent delivery of content with a diverse voice and perspective.

However, any policy needs to outline the types of activities that are permitted, and include a clear description of appropriate behavior. There really are no second chances when it comes to social marketing, so there is a certain degree of trust involved in an open policy. It can help build loyalty among staff and, ultimately, drive employee engagement.

Managers need to set the tone for conversations on Facebook, Twitter and other networks. A respectful and ethical exchange should be the cornerstone of any policy.

Here are a few ways that employees’ social media activites can enhance marketing and also increase engagement levels.

Engage in Facebook and Twitter conversations - Every employee has a different perspective, and each individual has a host of experiences and interests they can bring to the table when developing content. Employees should be free to share valuable insights, company news and industry information to help spread buzz through the web. Of course, you need to make sure your workers know where to turn for guidance in the case of questionable posts.

Participate in LinkedIn groups - As a professional network, LinkedIn can be an important opportunity to share expertise and glean valuable insight. Coupled with its affiliated apps and services, LinkedIn can also help employees stay informed of market trends and seek out industry talent.

Leverage social aggregators - Digg and StumbleUpon are important social platforms for employee engagement and participation. Workers can use these free services to share content and comment on relevant articles, videos and other media. These sites are also critical for content marketing and search engine optimization.

Empowering employees to speak on behalf of your brand is a surefire way to drive satisfaction and loyalty without investing in direct monetary incentives.

Do you know of any other ways social media can drive employee engagement? Let us know via Twitter by tweeting to @SageHRMS or @JoeyBaird with suggestions.

For almost a year now I have been talking about Return on Employee Investment because I believe every organization should look at their decisions with this idea in mind. Employees are the single most important asset of a company and numerous studies have shown that customer satisfaction is directly related to employee satisfaction. 

For small businesses, hiring and retaining the best employees are some of the most difficult tasks because of competition for the best talent. Larger organizations have an advantage because they can use their size to offer employees a plethora of benefits and access to technology at a reduced cost.

Today, I am extremely excited because a new idea is being introduced into the market to help solve this problem and aid in the competition for the best talent. I’m proud to announce that we’re launching a forward-thinking new cloud services platform named Sage Source. 

Sage Source is an easy to use employer and employee portal that allows employers to offer services to their employees that they only dreamed of and all with minimal administration.  It also provides value in savings to small and mid-sized companies by giving them access to business related services at enterprise savings levels. The initial release provides immediate value to companies in several areas and the savings and value will continue to grow as we continue to add more business and employee services to the platform. 

I can honestly say that this is the most exciting thing I have seen to help small businesses engage their employees in a long time. Sage HRMS customers on a current Sage Business Care plan will have immediate access to the new offering and I invite you to learn more now by visiting the Sage Source website.

Is perfectionism a bad thing? It depends who you ask. On the one hand, the unrelenting devotion to mastering a craft translates into quality goods and services. But there also comes a point at which quality can no longer significantly improve, and time begins to be wasted.

The Harvard Business Review points out that perfectionists tend to get a bad rap for being time-wasters who aggravate those around them. However, being a stickler can have some valuable attributes.

Every organization has these people, and they can be both a blessing and a curse – the trick is in drawing out their strengths and stemming their weaknesses. Executives should channel their immeasurable focus and attention to detail toward specific tasks, while holding off their involvement in project management positions.

Isolate healthy perfectionist behaviors from the damaging ones, such as feeling that every mistake is the end of the world. Focus on the benefits of perfectionism while keeping your thumb on its harmful tendencies.

Perfectionism cannot be suppressed, nor should it be.

What are some other ways managers can uproot the perks of their nit-picking employees?