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1 A Youmanage White Paper Introduction: When in tougher economic times, HR costs inevitably come under pressure in many businesses. To reduce costs without compromising on standards, business owners and HR Managers need to find ways of working smarter. Improving productivity and eliminating inefficiencies will be key drivers. Automating routine, manual activities and properly equipping line managers to be more selfsufficient are two quick wins for many businesses. This white paper highlights 10 ways that organisations can easily reduce costs AND improve HR standards. HR Budgets Under Pressure Sadly, the HR function in any business is still traditionally seen as an overhead cost for the business. And unfortunately for HR professionals, when the economy has been difficult and companies still look to tighten belts, batten down the hatches, or one of the other metaphors used to avoid mentioning cost cutting, the HR budget may come under the spotlight. In the current climate there will be many businesses and HR departments out looking at how they can do more (or at the very least the same) but with less.

2 Yet, cutting HR costs can be a false economy if that means cutting corners. It could expose the company and/or the Directors to prosecution if, for example, right-to-work checks are not done and recorded, or required Health & Safety training is not kept upto-date. When under pressure to cut costs, companies can also risk ending up at a tribunal, if in their haste to get someone out of the door they have not followed correct process. As all HR professionals know, if you haven t followed the correct procedure then you re probably doomed at a tribunal, whatever the merits of the underlying case. However, cutting HR costs often also means cutting back on programmes which can contribute considerable long-term value to an organisation, whether that s implementing a performance management system, investing in employee development or developing a talent management process. Failures to invest in these areas can lead to employee de-motivation, lower productivity and unwanted staff turnover. The costs of losing good people (both in terms of lost output and recruitment costs to replace) can dwarf the initial cost savings achieved. So how do we keep costs under control without compromising on good HR practices? The answer is to find ways to work smarter and an area that is ripe for smarter working is the working relationship between HR and line management. Responsibility For Managing Who should take on the fullest of responsibility for people management and why? A recent survey of UK heads of HR departments found that on average, HR still take on overall responsibility for an amazing 80% of day-to-day people management tasks. The consensus from the HR professionals surveyed was that this figure was far too high! One of the reasons for this centralisation of responsibility might be the increase in employment legislation and regulation over recent years, which has resulted in the perception that it s too risky to leave managers to manage without close supervision. This is certainly our experience when talking to potential clients each and every day - there is a fear amongst some to 'let go' and empower people managers to carry out the tasks that they should ultimately be responsible for. However, the consequences of HR taking accountability away from managers is that costs increase as additional heads are required to provide support and carry out administrative tasks. The increase in support costs isn t necessarily matched by a corresponding saving in managers time, as the manager typically still needs to provide the information to HR, be involved in the meetings etc.

3 Not only that but the relationships between people managers and their teams can also be diluted as a result of too much HR involvement. And once managers become used to HR taking accountability for key parts of their job the demand can be insatiable, leading to more and more support staff being required to keep pace. It s a bit like building extra lanes on the M25; it's wholly expensive and in the long-run demand increases to match increased supply and you end up with the same old trafficjams and delays! Business owners and HR departments should empower their people managers and support them to deliver robust, compliant and consistent HR and management processes. Managers Need Access To Information Work smarter with line managers and give them all the information they need to be naturally effective and to deliver HR and Management processes compliantly and consistently. Organisations, large or small, need to find a way to work smarter. Fortunately, the advent of a new generation of people management systems means that companies can now safely equip their managers to be more accountable, while at the same time automating many inefficient, manual processes. This can help to both reduce HR costs and improve management standards. There are a number of ways that all organisations can reduce HR costs, without compromising management standards. Let's start with something fairly basic, and let's give managers access to information on the people they are responsible for managing. Cloud-based HR technology make it easy to broaden access to information, and there is really no need for HR departments to be in the position where they are the gatekeeper to all employee data. This only creates a bottle-neck in the organisation, increases costs unnecessarily and means that managers aren t being given the information they need to do their jobs properly. Managers productivity can be significantly increased by allowing them access to their own employee data from wherever they happen to be working.

4 And at the same time HR can be freed from the role of glorified database administrators, spending endless hours responding to basic requests for information. Automate The Tracking Of Key Management Tasks Key HR processes and management activities should be fully automated to empower line managers, affording business owners some comfort of internal legal compliance and to alleviate pressure from HR. People managers need ready access to up to date information to be naturally effective and to deliver HR and Management processes, compliantly and consistently. There are a number of ways that all organisations can reduce HR costs, without compromising management standards. In many organisations a great deal of HR time is unnecessarily consumed by chasing people managers to find out whether tasks have been completed, or activities carried out, and then producing, and reproducing reports to advise Senior Managers of the status of these activities. There are a huge number of examples in any organisation where this is true. A classic example is the performance appraisal process; tracking the completion of appraisals and chasing up the return of paper forms can turn into a full-time job for an HR administrator for several weeks of the year. This is a colossal waste of time, adding minimal or even negative value to the organisation. It s very straightforward for any organisation to put in place an online performance appraisal system, which will manage the entire process, end to end. HR can determine how the review processes are to be carried out. Employees can review, update and complete their objectives online and the system generates a managers support pack with a complete overview of the employee's previous performance measures and outcomes, and can include details of sickness absence, disciplinary outcomes and ad-hoc file notes. The same system will automatically send out reminders of when activities are due to be completed and at the same time give senior managers easy self-service access to status reports. All of this proactive and timed process automation eliminates the chasing, at the same time as allowing business owners and HR professionals to have an overview of the progress of all activities undertaken, and alongside those that have not yet been started!

5 This saves considerable administration and frustration time, makes life far easier for managers, and improves the consistency, the clarity, and the transparency of all performance management processes. Creation of HR Letters by Line Managers This one really is a no brainer! Devolve the creation of standard letters and forms to line managers and free up HR resource time to become more strategic, although you do need the right tools. We understand that people managers need ready access to up to date information to be naturally effective and to deliver HR and Management processes, compliantly and consistently. There are a number of ways that all organisations can reduce HR costs, without compromising management standards. Remove some of the standard day to day administration from HR and empower managers to deliver due process at the front line. This may be controversial in some quarters but many HR letters and forms follow a standard, consistent format and do not require an expert to produce them. Managers can easily be given the tools to create standard letters for themselves, for example, an Invitation to a Disciplinary Hearing letter, but in a way that is controlled and governed by pre-formatted templates to ensure that the letters are consistent and comply with company standards, policies and current employment legislation. Letters are automatically stored against an individual employee's profile to provide an audit trail, if required. HR can play an oversight role instead e.g. checking the letter content prior to sending, and can focus more of their time on adding value in situations which are more nonstandard and genuinely require expert intervention, and in support of line manager needs. As a Result of People Doing Their Job Capturing all employee information, and in a re-usable format, should be as an automatic by-product of people doing their jobs. In many organisations a single piece of information (e.g. an employee name or address) is typed and re-typed many times during an employee s career.

6 Employee data is often held in different places, where departments or line managers have 'bits' of information, and where HR don't know about it, let alone see sight of it. Therefore, many organisations do not have proper and consistent data collection methods or a clear and concise policy to agree where employee data should always be stored. This leads to both confusion and frustration, especially if data is only held within a managers head; if they leave, that knowledge leaves with them! Additionally, people will spend considerable time trying to track down that same piece of information and then wonder whether it is correct and up to date and can it be trusted and relied upon. This all adds up to a substantial amount of time wasted, which could be saved if information was automatically captured to a central database and as a natural byproduct of users doing their management jobs and upholding their day to day HR responsibilities. To take the simple example of the employee s address - if the first time anyone in the company types an individual employee s address (e.g. for an Invitation to Interview letter or an Offer letter) it is entered on to a system which is used to create the letter, rather than being created as a stand-alone Word document, then the information can be automatically captured straight to a database without anyone having to re-key it. As the information is stored in a reusable form it can then be available to all users and automatically populate every other HR-related communication that is ever sent to that employee. The same is true of all employee data, which can be shared and valued by all and reused as necessary. By having a central repository for employee data a great deal of time is saved and the integrity of employee data can be better protected. Managers Need Helpful Guidance Give managers on-the-job access to helpful guidance information and everything they might need to be effective in carrying out their day to day management and HR responsibilities. It's a fact that many managers are promoted into roles without any formal management training.

7 They are not immediately or miraculously experts in HR processes, they are not experts in management techniques, and they are not experts in employment law; therefore it is not surprising that many feel ill-equipped to do their jobs and either do the wrong things on occasion or abdicate responsibility to HR. By providing managers with easy access to guidance information on policies, legislation and best practise, in a concise, easy-to-read format, organisations can enable managers to be more confident and more competent. This will reduce the strain on the central HR function and avoid the costly problems which occur because managers have ignored an issue or started with the wrong approach. The important thing is that access to the guidance needs to be quickly accessible and easy to digest. Experience has shown that if managers have to invest considerable time to research an issue then the chances are they won t bother, simply because their focus must be on their operational responsibilities. So, expecting them to hunt around for a document on an intranet or by ploughing through a 30 page policy document looking for the answer is not going to work. Appropriate HR software technology needs to be used to deliver highly-targeted information at the right point and at the right time in a manager s workflow, so that it s easy-to-access and easy-to-use, resulting in quicker decisions being made and processes being adhered to in a compliant and consistent way. One System to Support All HR Processes Having multiple systems to support different HR processes, or a mix of systems and paper-based processes, is one way to really push up the cost of HR administration and will frustrate people managers. It also makes it far more difficult to get a consolidated view of an organisation s employees. There are understandable reasons why an organisation might want to deploy individual systems. Often a fully-integrated system that supports multiple processes may not offer some of the specific functionality of a best-of-breed, single-process, single-solution system.

8 However, organisations should seek to offset the benefits against the additional costs as part of their selection process, especially if wanting to calculate a return on their investment. Having different systems supporting different processes creates inefficiencies and unnecessary complexity. There is also the issue of manager adoption to consider. If an organisation asks a manager to interface with 4 or 5 different systems to manage his or her HR processes, then it's significantly reducing the likelihood that the manager will bother to use any of them. Keeping everything in one place makes things much simpler for the user and delivers greater and wider benefits to an organisation. Maintaining Auditable HR Records Maintain auditable records that can be easily accessed when required and by everyone who needs it. We all know that the amount of legislation and regulations that organisations need to comply with has increased dramatically over the last years. One of the implications of this is that it s vital that organisations keep a track of key HR tasks (e.g. new employment checks), keep auditable records of those tasks and related documentation, and can produce those records if requested. Line managers play a critical role in many of these processes, whether it s checking drivers Certificates of Professional Competency in a transport company, carrying out employee supervisions for healthcare companies, or checking right-to-work entitlements for any new employee. Organisations need to ensure not only that their managers are doing the right things, but that they can show proof that they ve done the right things at the right time, if required. Without proper systems in place to manage all of these checks and documentation, it can create a significant administrative burden. And, if companies have to undergo an audit or inspection, whether by a licensing authority, the Home Office or the police, this can turn into a very costly and time-consuming exercise, if they do not have their records in good shape.

9 Putting in a system to track key tasks and store documentation could be a classic example of a stitch in time for many companies and a big tick in the box for quality systems and HR best practice. Reduce Management Training Costs Organisations can reduce classroom-based management training costs by publishing training content to managers on-the-job, delivering it to them as and when they require it. Classroom-based management training can be great for skills development but when it comes to transferring process and policy information, its effectiveness can be limited. This is because knowledge degrades quickly if not used and many HR processes (e.g. handling a disciplinary situation) are encountered infrequently by managers. The impact of management training can be significantly increased, and the need for refresher training reduced, by delivering training content (e.g. key learning points, hints and tips) to managers when they are actually in the middle of a live situation. Using systems to provide continuous on-the-job access to management guidance, training content and other materials can be highly effective as part of an integrated approach to management development. Summary In summary, the role of the line manager is probably more challenging than ever before and managers need to stay on top of an unprecedented quantity of information and knowledge in order to do their job successfully. Traditional methods of supporting managers are insufficient to meet these current challenges but emerging technologies offer the potential to significantly enhance the performance of managers. Organisations that take advantage of these opportunities are likely to gain a competitive advantage over competitors and significantly improve their business performance. How will you manage to improve the effectiveness of your people managers?

10 About Youmanage Youmanage is a unique and comprehensive online HR software service platform, designed to wholly focus on providing support for both people managers and HR professionals throughout the entire employee lifecycle, from recruitment through to exit. A web-based system, accessible from anywhere and from any device, Youmanage helps organisations to increase workforce productivity, reduce administration costs and control compliance risks. Devised to improve the efficiency and performance of both managers and HR professionals, Youmanage incorporates a suite of modules which cover every aspect of people management. All modules are underpinned by a single employee database, enabling clients to take a more joined-up and integrated approach to managing their employees. Designed around the role of the line manager, as well as the HR specialist, Youmanage is more intuitive and user-friendly than a system designed primarily for expert users. Adopted by organisations looking to manage employee data, reduce administration costs, ensure compliance, improve performance and empower line managers. HR software with all of the tools, information and legislative guidance that a manager or HR user needs to be effective, are all delivered via an easy-to-access, easy-to-use interface. A unique aspect of the service is the way it walks managers through step-by-step processes for common management tasks - from preparing for an interview, to handling a disciplinary situation in a way that complies with the law, to dealing with high absenteeism levels. Click here to take a free 30 day trial of Youmanage