By CloudB2B
Having been, for so long, the poor relations when it comes to departmental spend, the current pandemic, ethnic and diversity issues, have placed the HR function at the heart of all management decisions, resulting in a more sympathetic ‘ear’ to HR departmental needs.
Whether it’s addressing wellbeing issues for staff working from home, handling furlough and even redundancy, the HR team has probably never been so busy.
And the issues related to the ‘new’ way of working for staff will also likely increase that load.
A survey in the USA of some 3k employees found that 60% were working longer hours in a home environment and 49% said that their management did not understand the ongoing mental health needs, leading to increasing levels of employee ‘burn out’ of up to 90%*
And handling office or branch closures, resulting in having to make staff redundant, adds strain to everyone involved. Announcing such key information in multi- user Zoom sessions is certainly not the way to handle people on a personal level, adversely affecting those leaving as well as the morale of those remaining.
Communication and trust are the key elements, handled on as a personal level as possible, and not just one way. Staff need to feel that they are involved in decisions that affect them, with the ability to comment / react as part of a process, as well as getting practical help with the range of issues that can result, from financial advice to finding new employment. They may also provide their own ideas to help develop overall strategies.
Not being in the office makes this trickier, but a self-service HR platform will be a key element in supporting both the HR function and staff in this way.
This ideally needs to be a cloud based system for remote but secure access by all staff, allowing them to complete functions such as timesheet , holiday and change of details submission, all online.
Such systems should also allow the HR team to publish and update a whole range of advice and help documents and links as part of a Wellbeing section on the system.
And in line with a more personal approach, and to help build trust, a What’s App style communication function should allow individuals to communicate confidentially with HR, as a conversation, that can also be retained as part of the users HR file.
So, with increased strain on HR staff, the time is right to put in place such systems and controls that meet the new working environment and to make HR as effective as possible.
At CloudB2B we offer private UK cloud based HR self-service software (HRM) systems, that are both customisable and inexpensive.
https://cloudb2b.co.uk/hr-online
* source: TeamBlind Oct 2020
