HR professionals often get bogged down with a heavy admin load. This makes it difficult to find time to work on the projects that really make a difference to a business’ bottom line. To be true business partners, HR needs breathing space to spend time with the business, building relationships and understanding the challenges their workforce faces. HR can’t do this if they’re distracted by spreadsheet after spreadsheet of leave requests, performance review forms, new starter documentation … the list goes on.
HR systems like Cezanne HR have been created to increase HR efficiency, drive employee engagement, and generate insights into the business.* Starting with a core HR module, and then choosing additional modules as needed, businesses with Cezanne HR improve their onboarding, performance management, absence management and more. Cezanne HR doesn’t just liberate HR from admin – it allows them to rethink how HR engages employees and supports the business.
1. It’s easier to find the information you need
Being able to find the right data and draw informed insights from it quickly is an asset to any organisation. The immediate cost saving on employee time looking for information, alongside the long-term savings from using accurate data to inform business decisions, make it imperative for businesses to have reliable data to hand.
Cezanne HR is a Cloud-based system, so not only is all your data stored in one place, it’s also accessible anywhere you can find a decent WiFi connection. HR and line managers can run searches and save reports, and those with full HR admin rights can even schedule reports to be sent to HR or the business as needed.
Intuitive self-service means HR doesn’t need to worry about keeping essential information up to date either. For example, the system is automatically updated each time an employee requests holiday, logs sick leave, updates their skills or submits a performance review.
2. Your onboarding will be more engaging and efficient
HR knows that it’s important to get onboarding right – but being able to do that can sometimes feel out of HR’s control. New starters turning up without having had any contact from their manager between offer and start date, laptop not being ready on their first day, teams having no idea someone new was starting – there are plenty of ways to disengage a new employee before they’ve even started!**
Using Cezanne HR’s core People module and Onboarding module allows HR to implement robust onboarding processes, ensuring hires start on the right note. Using the People module’s document generation tool, new-starter documentation is easily shared via links, e-signatures requested if needed, and all relevant documents stored in a central place. The Onboarding module makes it easy to share welcome messages for new hires, and information about the team they’re about to join, too. And using the checklists function in Cezanne HR allows HR to make sure a recruit’s onboarding experience is well organised, with a view of who’s responsible for all the necessary documents, training, equipment etc. being delivered on time.
All these efficiencies save time for HR, line managers and new starters, and help with engagement and retention, too. And with remote onboarding now a concern for many businesses, it’s even more important that steps in the process don’t slip between the cracks.
3. Productivity can be improved with a Time module
Businesses leaders are always being challenged to increase workforce productivity. It’s hard to uncover new efficiencies, though, without solid data on how people are working right now. If HR is asked to track workloads and working time, this is very difficult to deliver on without a good system in place to collect and then report on the data. Productivity problems can’t be fixed if they’re hidden.
Cezanne HR’s Time module includes both timesheets and clock in/clock out functionality. With timesheets, you can easily report on how your employees are spending their time, and make sure key areas of the business are being properly resourced. Knowing what your people are working on, when, and for how long, gives managers the insights they need to more effectively lead their teams. And clock in/clock out delivers real-time info on who is on site, allowing any unexplained absences to be quickly addressed.
4. Don’t waste time on managing time off
The last thing a business wants to do is lose time to managing time off – it just makes the absence that much more expensive. So, while it’s a given that it’s very important for people to have time off, the admin for this process should be quick and easy. And it’s exactly this sort of admin that HR and line managers often get tied up with, despite the fact that it’s not good use of time.
Managing different types of absence, no matter where you are in the world or what legislations you need to adhere to is easier with Cezanne HR. The Absence Management module in Cezanne HR allows businesses to define their own absence plans to suit their circumstances. Unlike a lot of other systems, Cezanne HR takes care of the maths, too, automatically calculating entitlements based on all the important factors. You won’t need to double check that bank holidays, carry over or time off in lieu has been accounted for properly and lawfully. If an employee changes their working time pattern, Cezanne HR even recalculates their entitlement for you.
Absences can be requested and approved from mobile devices, so admin time is kept to an absolute minimum. And using an HR system to manage absences means that managers and HR can easily view who is off and when, and make sure all areas of the business are adequately covered year round.
5. Stop performance problems before they impact your bottom line
One of the criticisms of yearly performance reviews is that they may leave it too long to address performance concerns. So, while annual and half yearly appraisals still have an important role to play in many businesses, continuous performance management, whereby employees have regular check ins with their managers, can be crucial for spotting and fixing problems to avoid impacting productivity.
Cezanne HR supports both formal appraisals and regular check ins. A combination of both works well. Managers can address problems before they escalate via regular catch ups with staff, and they can then look at long-term goals and development opportunities in more structured sessions at least once a year. The goals feature in Cezanne HR’s Performance module makes it easy to record and track goals, helping with employee motivation and achieving targets.
6. Discover a helping hand with compliance
Compliance will always be a central concern for HR. As things currently stand, HR professionals need to be mindful of ongoing data security responsibilities, right to work changes resulting from Brexit, new COVID-19 health and safety concerns, unfair dismissal claims following redundancies … and so on. The last thing HR wants is for their company to receive fines or to be taken to court for non-compliance.
An HR system can’t spirit away HR’s compliance concerns. But, Cezanne HR can help ensure the right processes are followed, a clear trail of evidence is maintained, data is held more securely, and that GDPR requirements to delete or anonymise data when no longer needed are easily managed.
Cezanne HR‘s purpose is to help HR professionals by easing the HR admin burden, make HR processes such as onboarding and performance management more organised and effective, and give business leaders access to the information they need to make their workforce more efficient. The flexibility offered by starting with the core Cezanne HR People module, and adding other modules as needed, allows you to meet your HR challenges, essentially creating a system just for you and your bottom line.
* Read about how one Cezanne HR customer achieved a time-saving of 80%
** Find out more about onboarding psychology
Shandel McAuliffe
Now based in sunny Australia, Shandel is prolific writer and editor - particularly in the world of HR. She's worked for some big names, including the CIPD and the Adecco Group. And more recently, she's been the Editor for new HR publication HR Leader.
