It’s that time of year again when the holiday season is fast approaching. For many people, this means taking a much-needed break from work to spend time with family and friends. But for HR, the holiday season can be a hectic time, ensuring that the payroll is accurate, everyone gets their leave entitlement, and there are no gaps in rotas.
Without an all-in-one HR and payroll software, juggling annual leave, especially during the busy summer months, coupled with unplanned absences, can fill even the most organised person with absolute dread. Add on the complexities of part-time employees, seasonal staff or those working as and when – you have a recipe for errors that is likely to result in pay issues, duplication, or even not enough staff to cover those critical operational hours.
Getting Payroll Right!
Coming up to the build-up of the holiday season, your employees have been busy working overtime to save money for their summer holidays. They may have swapped shifts with their colleagues to get extra money, and may have even worked additional hours in a different location to bump up their pay. However, someone has forgotten to manually approve their overtime request resulting in no overtime payment. You also have seasonal staff on zero-hour contracts who have been working different hours or shifts each week, and someone has forgotten to manually update their times.
Now, you are faced with angry staff, and your payroll team is in a mad panic trying to rectify the issues before payday. If only there was a way to automate and approve those requests!
With an all-in-one HR software that works as both your workforce management software and payroll software, these types of issues can be a thing of the past as it will make sure your employees are paid correctly and on time, every time. The software will keep track of the hours your staff have worked and will automatically calculate and send notifications for managers to approve their overtime pay. No more do your HR team have to spend time manually inputting data or chasing managers for approvals.
The same goes for your seasonal staff. An all-in-one HR system will keep track of their hours worked each week and will automatically update their timesheets. With this modernized process, you can finally say goodbye to human error or duplication, as everything is updated in real-time.
Streamlining your absence management process
Another area where an all-in-one HR and payroll software can help you during the holiday season is with your absence management process. With employees booking their annual leave well in advance, it can be difficult to keep track of who is in and not, especially if you have a large workforce.
This is where an online absence and workforce management system that empowers your employees to book their own annual leave, and for you and team managers to see who is in and not, can be an absolute lifesaver. With everything in one place, you can easily see who is off work, when they are due back, and if there are any gaps in your rotas that need to be filled.
The best part is allowing your employees to log in and book their own annual leave – employees are not left waiting and chasing their manager for annual leave approvals. The online system can either reject or approve the employee’s leave request based on the amount of resource available on those days.
Not only does this prevent having those dreaded difficult conversations with employees who all want to take the same week off; but it makes it much easier for managers to keep track of who is working when, and helps to avoid overstaffing or understaffing during the busy holiday period.
What flexibility do you have from your HR system?
Many HR and payroll software systems do not provide the full functionality that flexible workforce planning requires. Different stakeholders want different things and all too often, HR systems are designed to suit organisations, rather than consider the needs of each area of the organisation.
Now, more than ever, employees are demanding the ability to be able to see who is off prior to booking leave and to book their holidays easily without having to fill out long-winded paperwork each time.
Managers want to be able to view immediate availability of staff teams, as well as ensure they can easily track sickness absence. They do not want to spend hours, and sometimes days, ensuring the rota is exactly right – only for it to change an hour after publication.
Payroll teams want to ensure recording of hours is accurate – they want payslips to be accurate and easily accessible for all, with minimum amendments required by them, or on payday a flood of calls querying why employee pay is wrong.
HR teams want to ensure compliance and be able to produce and report on HR and workforce analytics easily. They do not want to be burdened with having to answer the same annual leave related questions continually via email or over the telephone when a self-service option is available.
In an increasingly digital world, there is no longer room for manual, cumbersome processes. Updating employee details should not have to be completed with an email sent to HR, for the HR team to then update the system or any number of manual processes that organisations still have the burden of.
The Ultimate Annual Leave Management Solution
Fully integrating your HR system into one, complete with a HR, Workforce Management and payroll solution – time, attendance and annual leave functionality will ensure a much smoother running operation for you this holiday season. Not to mention making it easier for you to manage staff annual leave year-round.
So, if you are considering a new HR system for your organisation, or are looking for a way to streamline your current processes, then an all-in-one HR management solution is the way to go. Not only will it make managing annual leave much simpler, but you’ll also find a host of other benefits that will make your life easier too.
Not sure if you want an all-in-one HR system? We offer separate modules such as
Contact us today, for a demo of elementsuite – we would be happy to show you around.
