FT Article – 29th September 2011
Technology creates new roles for the HR department
Read the Original Article here Financial Times – New roles for the HR department
Nic Scott is chief executive of Fairsail, an HR software and cloud recruitment firm
How has software changed the role of the human resources team?
HR is where senior management and employees all come together for the good of the business and so it was one of the first areas to benefit from software. Today’s self-service HR software means employees can volunteer information, measure themselves against their objectives and their colleagues, as well as be mentored. This frees up HR professionals to help the business rather than administer processes.
So how does HR help the business?
One way is to assess what the organisation’s “human capital” is worth in a particular geography. Measuring its value looks at total salary costs and the competition for talent. But beyond that there is a new metric of “fully loaded cost per available work days”. This is how many days of availability does someone bring for a particular investment in that individual. For instance, does a US employee bring more value than a French one? The answer is not straightforward and needs to be weighed up against the company’s need for local staff, the local competition it faces and, of course, prior career performance and loyalty to the business. Software can do this
What about making people redundant?
It is important to have a plan before a crisis hits. We recommend continuous talent profiling to identify the best contributors and their likely career value to the business.
If needed, this can be weighed against forward employer costs – which are ongoing salary and their potential redundancy costs.
How important are employee benefits in attracting recruits?
In the US, benefits are often the main deciding factor. Employers provide a complex range of benefits and employees use them to discriminate between employers. Packages for mid and upper level executives in Asia and Europe are catching up. In future, the key will be to attract a range of talent, from young superstars who expect iPhones and weekend working, to senior employees looking for generous pension contributions and healthcare – but also to manage the cost according to what the business can afford.
What is HR’s role in mergers and acquisitions?
HR software is central to M&A activity. Ideally, the acquiring company needs to be able to upload employee data instantly and review it against the needs of the business. Only then can it identify the key contributors and ensure they do not leave.
Sadly, the technology needed might be in the control of a disenfranchised IT department, which often hinders, rather than helps. HR professionals should see these moments as a chance to review HR processes and reduce the number of management systems they inherit during an acquisition.
Where’s Wally? …and are we paying him?
Fairsail Payroll solutions were recently featured in an article on Payrollworld.com, the leading site for Payroll related news. This an extract of the article:
“So, phone-hacking suspect Neville Thurlbeck is still on News of the World’s payroll three months after his arrest. Why is this? Well it could be simply because News International, the newspaper’s owner, wants to keep paying him. However it’s more likely that either nobody realised he was actually still on the payroll, or that the way payroll is managed means someone in the chain of management didn’t do what they were supposed to (and there is often a convoluted chain with payroll processes).
Fairsail “You`re hired!” by Get Me The Right Job
Get Me the Right Job revolutionises recruitment with Fairsail Total Talent management
Fairsail, the leader in Total Talent Management, today announced online start-up Get Me The Right Job (GMTRJ) has adopted its cloud offering as it sets out to revolutionise recruitment.
Specializing in online recruitment, GMTRJ’s vision is to revolutionise the recruitment process. Using a bespoke system, based on Fairsail Recruit, GMTRJ has automated the entire recruitment process from specifying vacancy requirements, through to advertising, inbound application handling, selection and placement.
