As your business grows, you have to suddenly learn new ways of dealing with people, payroll, and problems. There’s a lot to running a business with multiple staff, especially if you’ve never done it before and been used to working alone. Often, managers fall into simple HR-related traps as they aren’t aware of just how easy they could make it for themselves.

In this article, you will find those simple hacks to help streamline and simplify your HR processes. From hiring to firing, paying to offering benefits, everything can be simplified and sorted with a combination of great tech and good people. Read on to find out more.

Use Payroll Software

For decades, HR and accounting were separate departments. The accounts team would manually – and often slowly – count hours provided by managers and then print payslips. Then, they would deposit the pay into each employee’s account. This meant there were multiple people in the chain and mistakes could be missed. Now, payroll software can be centralized and accessed by anyone in HR, from junior to senior management, meaning that everyone can check the right amount of pay is being transferred, requesting adjustments if not.

…And HR Software

If you’re going to use payroll software, you might as well incorporate a full HR software package that includes various HR-related software like Recruitment software, Holiday planner software, Absence management software, etc. With this solution, not only will you be able to access staff payslips at all times, but you’ll also have all their documents, ID, onboarding, disciplinary, and other records included in the same place. You may also be able to use this software to help you determine whether your employees are exempt or non-exempt when it comes to overtime pay (if you’re looking for a guide to learn what constitutes an exempt employee click here). This makes for super easy people management, helping business owners and HR departments work together to keep everything in check.

Integrate it With Benefits

If you want to go the whole hog, so to speak, then you can also integrate any benefits that you choose to offer your staff as well. This can be linked to your payroll and HR platforms so that the right employees can access the right benefits. The best part of this is that not only can you log on to make sure everything’s ok, but your employees can too. Recent surveys show that staff is far more interested in benefits than good pay at the moment, so offering decent ones can help you get and retain great staff.

Automate Everything

All of these systems can be linked together and automated. There is no need for manual paperwork, spreadsheets, and hours of accounting anymore. Let the computers do the work for you. Payslips can be auto-generated, invoices can be paid, and benefits assigned to the right staff at the right pay grade. Set it up once then let it automate along for the rest of your business’ life. Simple.

Collaborate Across Teams

Using all of these systems and basing them on cloud computing means that all of your HR team can access them at any time, either through encrypted smartphone apps or online. Remote working has become far more important since the Covid-19 pandemic began, so online collaborative working is now essential. If you have staff who are required to work from home, you can let them do so, knowing that all your teams can access the necessary HR paperwork from wherever they are.

Allow Staff to Check Online

Speaking of apps and online checks, surveys show that staff who have transparency within their pay and documentation are far happier than ones who don’t receive adequate communication about their pay. It’s not hard at all to allow staff the ability to log on, see what they have earned, what their benefits are, or what their upcoming shifts are. Doing this means fewer complaints, less sickness, and a lower staff turnover rate. All of which helps your HR department!

Ditch Regulated Reviews

Finally, a non-tech-related piece of advice. You may have grown through businesses that do yearly performance reviews. These seem necessary, but they aren’t necessarily the only way. You can track employee performance all year round and they will most certainly be keeping tabs on what they have or have not enjoyed throughout their work. So, there’s no need to put a set date or regulated format on reviews. Instead, a revolving door policy allowing managers or staff to reach out for “check-ins” or “catch-ups” is a far healthier way to run the HR review process. 

These seven simple hacks will help you change the way you run your HR and accounting systems. You will pay a small fee for most of these services, but the staff retention and lower HR costs will quickly balance out any software subscriptions. Plus, before you know it, you’ll be HR stress-free.