citrus HR: 5 Ways HR Software Can Improve The Employee-Employer Relationship

With New Year’s resolutions starting to slip, it’s important to make sure that you keep to the important ones. If one of your resolutions this year was to improve your relationship with your team, then we’ve got just the thing. Here are five ways HR software can improve your employee-employer relationship.

1) Holiday / Absence Management

Many managers will have experience managing employees’ annual leave and absences through calendars, spreadsheets, and even project management tools such as Asana. While this may work initially, it’s not a long-term solution. These tools are not likely to have all the relevant information needed to calculate your people’s remaining annual leave or even tell you what deductions are needed. They’ll also leave you unable to prevent clashes when it comes to your team’s annual leave.

Any good HR software will allow everyone to have full visibility over the whole calendar (with the right permission level). So, if you have a policy where two people from the same department cannot be off at the same time, your team will be able to see who in their team is off, meaning they can plan their own holiday with ease.

Your team can also submit their holiday request easily and from anywhere, and similarly, their line manager can approve it at the click of a button. This speeds up the approval process, meaning your employees can organise their time off (or book flights), and you can get their workload planned in their absence.

2) Staff engagement

Keeping staff engaged with your business is one of the biggest challenges small businesses face. Regularly monitoring staff satisfaction can be particularly tedious; with surveys in one location and responses in another, it can be hard to track.

With HR software, you can engage with your team as often as you’d like to. Creating a survey allows you to get all the important feedback that will keep your team happy. You can also track the historical data to spot downward or upward trends, which helps you understand what’s working for you. Regularly checking in with your team shows them that their wellbeing and satisfaction are important to you and your business.

3) Payroll and Expenses

For many small businesses like yours, payroll is likely to be a manual task, which can easily be the cause of a few problems. From storing the information required to run payroll, to correctly calculating the pay, we know how difficult it can be to get it all done on time. This runs the risk of leaving your team upset and frustrated. Missed pay and incorrect pay can cause huge friction in the workplace and create a lack of motivation due to lack of trust – not what you’re looking for!

Equally, one of the most frustrating elements of managing expenses is the time it takes to either submit or approve an expense. This leaves your staff frustrated as they wait ages to get money owed back or just because they have to chase manually to get it signed off.

With HR software, specifically those that run payroll, you’re able to store all the correct information so you can pay your employees the correct amount, on time. It can be done in minutes, with their payslip securely going directly to their inbox. Certain software, like citrus HR, also has the ability to flag when someone is being paid less than the national living wage, or if there are any significant changes compared to the previous month. As for expenses, your staff can submit them from anywhere, quickly and easily, and they can be approved in one click.

4) Training and Development

Training is perhaps the most important thing employers can do to support their team. It helps new starters understand your business and the industry they’re in, as well as how they can do their job both safely and effectively. Of course, it’s not just new starters; upskilling your people is equally important.

According to CIPD, the most common period a worker stays with an employer is between 2-5 years, with a third of UK employees changing organisations each year. It’s not known why employees are changing so frequently, but career development and training are likely to be part of that story.

Lack of training records could possibly be a cause of this. Many small businesses might be keeping records via spreadsheets or even in filing cabinets. This isn’t ideal, as these records might not be updated on a regular basis, specifically those in the filing cabinet category. Not only that, it can be easy to forget all of the training you’ve had, so giving your team the ability to review everything they’ve done themselves gives them a feeling of empowerment and a reminder of your investment in them.

With HR software, you can store important certificates, add training for multiple employees at the same time, and download training reports so you can manage your budgets and find gaps within your workers knowledge base.

5) Performance Management

Performance management is an integral responsibility when it comes to the success of both the employee and your business as a whole. If you don’t know how your team is performing, you’re putting your business at risk. An underperforming team member could be costing your business opportunities to grow further. On the other hand, someone could be performing exceptionally, and an oversight could cause them to feel undervalued and maybe even lead to them looking for work elsewhere.

HR software enables different types of appraisals, goal-setting, and performance reviews. This promotes a culture of continuous improvement and helps employees understand their strengths and areas for development. By recognising the positive work they are doing, you will help strengthen the relationship you have with your team.

Looking to introduce HR software to your business? Why not try citrus HR for free today? The system is specially designed to support small business growth. Get time back from HR admin and empower your employees to do their job in a way that helps your business grow and ultimately keeps your workers engaged.