SaaS in action during lockdown

Who could predict what would happen in 2020? The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching impacts, and for elementsuite, this impact has been focussed on how to ensure our clients are able to keep up with the surge of legislative changes that have been made by the UK government since March.

Being nimble and agile has its benefits, not least the unusually deep level of configurability for a SaaS platform which means the ability to add features fast. That means we’ve been able to implement a rapid-response style approach for clients – SaaS in action.

Accommodating the complexity of new absence types

From self-isolation to Corona sickness, new absence types have been needed to ensure employees are able to record their absences correctly. Employers have needed this from both a reporting requirement as well as for staff scheduling. The changes to the SSP rules have meant that it is critical to record these absences differently to normal sickness to ensure employees have been paid correctly.

Handling Furlough

Many people had never heard the word “furlough” before this year, let alone knew what it meant or the implications it had for their business! We started with Furlough, then moved to Flexible Furlough, and will be moving into the Job Support Scheme. We have worked with our clients to give them new employment type options, which have linked into new contracts or letters with updated terms and conditions. These have been used in calculating holiday accruals and payments, and used in reports for furlough reclaim. This has highlighted the agility of SaaS in action.

BAU (business as usual)

I’m sure you have heard the phrase “change is here to stay” – and “business as usual” has changed too! Many of the existing processes have had to change as a result of COVID-19, and we have had a rapid turnaround of these updates to accommodate different integration requirements to handle these changes.

New Employee Self Service

Being able to track who is fit for work, who needs additional support, who has been shielding is really important for companies. This continues now as offices need to be able to know who has been present in the case of a test-and-trace call. We have provided new functionality to allow employees to give their status and then provide updates if it changes.

Better outcomes from SaaS in action

In all of this, it has been so important to maintain good working relationships with our stakeholders, business partners and product owners. We have kept the communications channels open and have listened to their thoughts and concerns, provided advice and helped them realise more benefits of using elementsuite. I’m really proud of our team and all that we have been able to do, and continue to do. And all this has been done to support our clients and enable them to operate as effectively as possible.