Self Service HR Automation gives your organization much more than surprisingly quick Return On Investment (ROI)

Traditionally automation of HR and Payroll are seen by organizations as a necessarily evil, an investment that has to be done from a statutory compliance perspective, or to ensure that payroll occurs on time. This was true, primarily because HR & Payroll applications were used only by HR and Payroll personnel as a back office operation. This situation changes drastically when HR Automation is made self service. Employees directly accessing HR self service systems gives organizations oodles of benefits and with it surprisingly quick ROI. A back of the envelope calculation here shows ROI in two months!

Of all the benefits the most important one is time saved by employees. Detailed below are many functions that are present in good self service HR products like ours (KServeHRMS) which employees can access without having to meet the HR function, saving them considerable time

• Leave request, cancellation, modification
• View Payslips
• Update address and personal details
• View bulletins
• Make claims
• Request for infrastructure or other support
• Update performance appraisals
• Make a complaint
• Submit a HR request (any other HR form)
• Make declarations on Income Tax
• Check your tax liabilities to optimize tax

 It is not just the time for making the request, but also the time taken to meet supervisors, wait for appointments, and go back and forth to verify balances before the approval is obtained. Now, for each of the above, consider also of the time saved by the supervisor in approving, rejecting or clarifying these requests. In addition, include the time saved by HR, Admin and Payroll personnel is automatically getting reports for all these automated processes.

Let us make the following assumptions to calculate ROI for an Indian context.

               

• These ‘click of a mouse function’ saves  a conservative 5 minutes of time for every employee in a day which is about 1% of an employees time (it will be much more for employees on the move)
• Let us assume the cost of every employee to the company (salaries plus overheads) is on average Rs. 50,000/-
• The savings per employee therefore is around 500 Rs per month (1%) or Rs 6000 per year.
• For 500 employees the savings is 2.5 lakhs per month or 30 lakhs per year

If this company spends 500,000/- on employee self service software for its 500 employees, the ROI will be obtained in 2 months after the system is operational. In advanced countries where salaries are higher, ROI is even better, but this is offset by higher software costs. The time for ROI can still be the same in any country.

Consider also the intangible benefits to the company due to employee satisfaction and brand building.

• Transparency in obtaining standard services
• Not having to stand in a queue to meet supervisors for approvals
• Immediate access to information like payslips, leave balances, IT dues enabling better decision making

The next argument is in terms of risk of success. The risk of success can easily be mitigated by verifying the past track record of the provider,  and if required choosing a SaaS model where the investment can be paid installments. There should be no reason for any organization with more than 200 employees not to use self service HR systems, especially if your employees are highly paid.

It is good to see many organizations realizing this and investing in a system.

 

At Kallos Solutions and KServeHRMS (www.KServeHRMS.com) it is our honor, and pleasure to have made these benefits accrue to many organizations so far.

The next sensible transition in HRMS systems – SaaS & Cloud based Employee Portals plus Integrated HRMS

Having an integrated HR system with self service access to all employees is usually something only that big companies could afford to have. It was not just the question of having software in areas like Employee Life Cycle Management, Leave & Attendance, Payroll, Performance Appraisals, Training or Recruitment integrated into one integrated application – it also required data to be uptodate and online. Employees accessing the system would expect the system to be accurate, correct and usable for their operational needs.

The Cloud is changing that. Expensive software is now affordable and it can be bought on SaaS (Software as a Service) pay as you mode or you could buy the software for exclusive use. This enables smaller organizations to deploy Integrated Employee self service applications. This new generation of solutions are intrinsically designed for use on browsers and also for self learning and self implementation. Suitable implementation methodologies and upload data utilities will enable you to transition from older legacy applications to the latest very quickly. It is like moving from landlines directly to the latest smart phone or tablet without having to go through the intermediate stages. Employee and HR productivity go up significantly with the use of such systems.

At www.KServeHRMS.com we have made cloud based Employee Portals & Integrated HRMS a reality for many organizations. Being among the first to make available a web ready integrated HRMS product it allowed us to make the transition to the cloud and to employee portals fairly fast.

If you are evaluating such systems here are some overriding decision points you need to consider while looking for vendors

Is the solution ready for the web and the cloud? All other types of applications are going to be legacy soon
Are all the HRMS modules present and integrated. Without an integrated HRMS you will end up with duplicate work for each area, and also give a wrong picture to employees.
Is the software is easy to use and startup?. Employees and supervisors should intrinsically be able to use the application without much training.

For more information about our Employee Self Service products visit www.KServeHRMS.com or www.KServeOnline.com