Manish Speaks, May 2021-LEVERAGING YOUR HR TO DO MORE WITH LESS

Managing costs is extremely crucial while making sure your business stays buoyant in current times. For many companies, this would mean a freeze in recruitment, trimming of non-essentials and making the best with whatever they’ve got. Alongside optimising supply chains and weeding out discretionary spending, companies need to also make sure they don’t compromise on Human Capital Management needs in the midst of crisis-restructuring.

Past experiences have always pointed to HR as one of the first departments to bear the brunt of the cost-cutting blow. Lower budgetary allocation has always come at the expense of poor HR services, often leading to dissatisfaction and mismanagement in the long run. Sometimes, to achieve greater pace, we may need to invest in better shoes.

Every business goes through a belt-tightening phase and all teams have had to do with fewer people on board at some point in time. That’s not uncommon. However, leaders failing to take strategic decisions with respect to departments that matter most can lead to oversight of ‘actual needs’ versus ‘excesses’. 

If you are planning to restructure your HR department both teamwise and technical resources-wise, here’s what you need to know. HR represents your human capital needs. And no matter how much you trim them, those needs cannot be overlooked. Nor will those needs ever come down. Your workforce will still have the same needs pertaining to their salaries, leaves, taxes, claims, insurance, reimbursements and employment documents. 

Unlike procurement, logistics, vendor management and other business processes, HR performs personalised tasks. That’s why eliminating HR services affects your workforce as a whole. One of the main reasons for that is because it deals with employee data – both personal and financial. While cost-cutting on HR, it is extremely important to ensure that your choices are cost-efficient and adds value to your commitment to your people, even if your team is run by a single HR personnel. 

So how can you transform a single HR manager into a superhero sans the quintessential cape? How can they take up the entire HR toolkit without compromising on the evolving applications of People data? The answer lies in technology. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a cost-effective way to launch all your desired HR services on the Cloud without having to spend a colossal amount on on-premise tech infrastructure. 

SaaS-modelled subscriptions provide end-to-end managed solutions in payroll management, employment mobility, compliance and tax filings without missing a beat so that all employee needs are met automatically without human interference. With the help of data automation, manual input of data is totally reversed, saving time and minimising error.

Part of the ease of having data on the cloud is that employees can access it whenever they want it and wherever they want. Accessibility on smartphones also make it easier for employees to report leaves from their homes or the hospital, pay taxes on-the-go, clock-in or report overtimes with the manager’s approval in real time. Even while switching companies, technology aids employees to transfer their profiles – mainly payroll and tax data to the new employer almost instantaneously. 

Having HR leverage technology is one of the fastest ways Industry 4.0 is redefining HR capabilities to make insightful decisions. Employers can get a bird’s eye view of the number of personnel deployed per project, percentage of compensation drawn for long-term and contract jobs, employee wellness and attendance data through data analysis. It also helps the HR department track all kinds of invoicing performed outside the pay cycle. 

One of the key questions of the cost-cutting battle is how do we enable cost-cutting techniques to work for us? Or rather, how can companies adopt them? Do we build them on-premise or directly subscribe to a SaaS partner? How do we find our very own modus operandi for compact, 360-degree HR processes? One of the best and reliable ways to start is by outsourcing. 

The right outsourcing partner will guide you through the twists and turns of modern-day employee engagement. If you’re a novice, outsourcing firms can draw up a bespoke plan so that your HR can scale within the cost parameters that you choose to set. They work by re-routing your HR services by way of automation so that your HR manager can oversee all tasks via integrated dashboards without having to put in manual effort. 

Propay Partners is an HR outsourcing company specialising in payroll and employee mobility solutions through SaaS pay-per-use models. Propay Partners helps companies and their HR departments automate functions across payroll, compliance and time and attendance needs. Clients can get access to a plethora of cloud-based HR services by enabling apps on their smartphones or through their profile pages on desktops