In the post-pandemic era, digitizing personnel records can be a huge advantage for businesses to work smoothly. In a traditional organization, personnel records are maintained in physical file folders with endless streams of papers. There are many downsides to this method, including the inefficiency of manually maintaining and updating documents, the potential of records being misplaced or misfiled, consumption of valuable office space, and the increased vulnerability to errors.
There are many benefits to using a cloud-based personnel records system. The files can be accessed and modified remotely at any time, and companies can save precious office space and resources. Searching for records becomes easy, and employees can access and update records through a service portal without an HR intermediary, to name some. Cloud-based documents are more safe compared to physical ones, as they are not affected by disasters and theft.
Here are some tips to make the most out of your cloud-based personnel management system:
Design of the ecosystem
To design the best cloud-based personnel management environment, a holistic assessment of the processes is required. Essential information like who uses the system, how often they use it, and what they use it for are collected. This information is then used to design the services rendered by the personnel management systems. Appropriate interfaces for users, chains of command and permissions, forms required, user self-service portals, etc., can be created to optimize the system. Some time can be invested in strategizing the implementation and rollout of the system. The design should be easy to use with an easy learning curve and must have all the essential features, including search, modification, sorting, and report generation.
Employee Self-Service Portals
Having a robust employee self-service portal can make a lot of things smooth and hassle-free. By enabling the employees to access and modify their HR, payroll, and benefits data without involving the HR executives through an online portal, routine administrative hassles are minimized. Besides optimizing the company’s performance, good employee self-service portals can also keep the employees engaged with the organization and its goals, thereby improving their morale. An ideal portal should be user-friendly and feature-rich. Social media facilities and peer-to-peer messaging services can also be integrated into the portal to incentivize employees to use the portal and keep their files updated regularly.
Automation
One significant advantage of cloud-based HR systems is the extent to which administrative tasks can be automated. Generation of job offers and related documents, attachment of documents related to the employee like passport and bank accounts, alerts for expiry and renewals, etc., can be set up so that the involvement by the HR executive can be limited to verification, saving critical time and resources. The HR department can also generate salary certificates, identity cards, performance reports, and other related documents with ease using good cloud-based services.
By using a holistic cloud-based HR system and other managed services, costs can be cut, and the organization can stay focused on core business. The pandemic also brings with it physical diffusion of employees due to remote work and work-from-homes. This could make updating the documents a complex task that will pull down the company’s available resources. A comprehensive, well-designed, and cloud-based HR system can significantly improve the organizational efficiency of the company.
