This is where the current growth and rapid changes are happening!
There are still so many practices that are operating with manual HR and payroll processes such as paper-based timesheets, leave forms, contracts and so on and this is costing them thousands in wasted admin time, not to mention the lack of visibility on the single biggest cost in your practice, your people!
The HR system we recommend is (Employment Hero) and we recently implemented this for a client who had a full-time resource whose sole job was to manually input all of the paper-based timesheets, leave forms, change requests forms, and more into both the HR and payroll systems. When we said to them why can’t the employees enter their own timesheets and leave requests into the system they said well they might make a mistake. So I said but they can make a mistake writing it on a piece of paper too!
So many business owners can’t grasp the concept of decentralising data entry i.e. entering something once and once only.
For example, if a new employee has to fill in their details on a piece of paper, why not have a system where they can just as easily enter that information straight into the computer? And if an employee wants to change their bank account details or some other details why not just let them enter that straight into the system instead of on a piece of paper for the payroll officer to then waste time entering into the system? The same logic applies to timesheets and leave forms too.
Often the fear is that this will then go straight through the system without appropriate checks and we’ll end up overpaying our staff or some other great catastrophe will happen. But this is not the case, in fact, you can set up approval processes for everything and what we like to encourage our clients to do is to get their managers involved in approving their own staff’s timesheets and leave requests and so on, rather than this responsibility all falling on one person in the practice.
And it’s not just the time-saving benefit again its visibility, being able to see in real-time which staff are on leave or have left coming up, who has signed their contract and HR policies and who hasn’t, the demographics of the team, the rate of staff turnover, what skills and qualifications the team has when licenses and certifications need to be renewed and the list goes on. Imagine how much value you could add to your practice if you could have all of this information at your fingertips. Imagine how impressed your practice owners would be if you could send them an HR report each month summarising all the key information about their workforce in one report…show example report…
So just to summarise these are just a few of the ways automation has literally changed our practice for the better and this space is still evolving rapidly.
At last count we had about 9 different systems we are using to run our practice compared to 10 years ago when it was pretty much just MYOB and an excel spreadsheet! And it’s by no means a race to have as many systems as possible, however, each system has a niche it specialises in, much like the medical profession really, and that’s what’s added substantial value to our practice.
The future isn’t coming, it’s here and if you’re not adapting yourself and your practice to take advantage of this change now I’m pretty sure your practice will suffer for it and you may also find that you do as well. Alternatively, you embrace this change, find yourself a firm, like ours, that can help you implement and navigate this change and can lead your practice into the future and reap the rewards that will follow.
If you are ready to embrace better HR systems, Lucent Advisory can help you implement and navigate digital change. You can lead your business into the future and reap the rewards that will follow.
Get in touch today with Fraser Barry, our manager of Outsourced Services to see how we can help you.
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