Bob books a holiday - there has to be a better way!

It's Saturday of the May bank holiday weekend and Bob has decided to plan his summer holiday. He and his wife Helen think about dates and start to look on the Internet. They find a package holiday that sound like a good deal and set about agreeing a date. There's two weeks availability starting 6 August, the kids are on holiday and they all get excited. They read the reviews, look at the videos and dream about relaxing in the sun. The only problem is that Bob has to check to see if any of his colleagues are off and then get his holiday forms signed. They can't do anything until Tuesday and even then Bob's not sure if Simon, who manages holiday booking will be in. Helen gets angry and an argument kicks off.

On Tuesday Bob bumps into Simon at the coffee machine. They talk about their weekends and Simon promises to look at the holiday spreadsheet after he gets out of his next meeting. The day goes by and both get involved in their work. It's only that evening that Bob realises Simon didn't get back to him. Helen has another go at Bob - why is organising a holiday always so stressful!

On Wednesday Bob makes a special effort to remember. Simon is at his desk, checks the spreadsheet and no one else has booked that time yet. However he's not too sure if Bob has enough days left to take the two weeks. What a frustrating waste of time! Bob heads back to his desk to find his holiday form which will prove it. After about 5 minutes of searching he finds it and he is right - he has 10 days left. Completing the form, he heads off to see his manager who needs to sign the form. Jane is busy but tells him to leave the form on her desk. She gets it back to him right at the end of the day - quicker than normal. Eventually Bob goes back to Simon on Thursday, form in hand. Simon takes one look at it and snaps that he will need to reconcile the form back to the spreadsheet so he'll get back to Bob - probably early next week!! Bob heads home expecting another ear bashing from Helen.

Aghhhhhh .... There must be a better way! There is .....

Time to get an HR system that works for you ....

Institute of Directors article  '...... In January, a report by consultancy Mercer found that while 65 per cent of HR professionals across Europe, the Middle East and Africa perceived themselves as strategic partners to the business, just 15 per cent of the activities they carried out related directly to strategy. Despite claiming otherwise, HR professionals were spending most of their time on compliance and auditing, HR services and record-keeping-tasks just about as far from the centre of the organisation as it's possible to imagine. ....'

Read more - Does HR add strategic value?

By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets

In Jan 2010 Gartner predicted that '...by 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets..' http://www.gartner.com/.  By this they mean that businesses will adopt cloud computing but they didn't state business size.

One year in - are we are we getting there?  Our experience with breatheHR suggeests that many more SMEs see the advantages of joining the cloud revolution with maybe 1 in 5 prospects telling us that they intend to have no office based servers.  A long way off 20% of all businesses but a good step in the right direction..

10:10 - some ideas are so simple!

Centurion has just signed up to 10:10 (http://www.1010global.org/uk) and made a commitment to reduce our energy usage by 10% over the coming year. Our recent office move has given us a head start as we are now in a much more energy efficient building so we are looking at fine tuning.

We have always looked to minimise our impact and 10:10 will provide us with a great focal point. One area to get attention is our business mileage and as a starting point we needed to know the mileage for last year. This proved to be harder to do that I expected so we are about to improve our expense management system. Managing expenses online, using breatheHR, will give us the tools to monitor mileage and reduce admin.

As a business we are driven to create strong client relationships so it is important for us to meet with clients. However, we plan to use our IT systems to help reduce the need to travel. We have provided online support for a number of years are are adding online 1-1 bite sized training and even online installation services.

Snow stop play (2)

Back in February I wrote a post suggesting that work needn't stop because of a little bit of snow. Well here we are again - the broadcasters are advising people not to travel unless absolutely necessary. But what is 'absolutely necessary'? If you run your own business and have to make every moment count, then surely travel is absolutely necessary. One of my guys was due to see a client this morning and spent 1 1/2 hours trying to get there before turning around. A fantastic effort that meant a lot to me and the client. However, everybody needs to make individual decision based on their own circumstances.

What ever the weather, a good plan and capable systems really can help. We are by no means the best prepared but work goes on at Centurion. The office is not maned, but our phones are redirected so the few clients that are working can still be supported. We are working from home with access to email and CRM. Online training has happened this morning and client work continues all be it at a slightly slower pace. I can even go into our HR system, breatheHR, and prepare for next weeks performance reviews.

This sort of event is going to get more frequent so we, as responsible managers, need to constantly improve our processes. There are things that I have learnt over the last two days that I want to change for next time. We need to share the information about how to redirect the phones for instance.

Life goes on - and it does look very pretty outside!

Investing in IT

History shows that successful companies come out of recessions more productive than when they went in - productivity compared to the rest of their industry. Research suggests that no more that 3% of information available today is digitised, so investing in business systems to release corporate knowledge can give you real competitive advantage. Importantly, it is expected that the amount of information available digitally will double every 18months.

Companies that measure IT spend as a % of revenue are on the right track. But more than just spending on IT, it means focusing IT spend on growth projects rather than running IT. Growth projects can be though of as ways to use information to your competitive advantage - eg removing admin tasks from front line employees, driving targeted marketing campaigns using customer information, automation of management information.

Many commentators are starting to talk of 'post downturn' strategies and a companies IT infrastructure should be the most important. Companies need to be highly automated and quick take opportunities as they arise. In the same way, a companies IT systems must be nimble, cost effective and high quality.

Handling employee expenses

With all the furore over MPs expenses it seems that many small business owners are looking at what goes on in their organisations. We are getting more and more interest in the expense management tools provided by breatheHR.

In good times, small business owners might be prepared to turn a blind eye but that seems to have changed with the focus on cost saving. Business Link have released a really useful section of their website that covers expense management - tale a look at their website...

Managing HR in a small business

Most small businesses can not justify having a dedicated HR person. The admin heavy and / or complex HR processes can be a real drain on management time. Companies often hire in a part time person to help with HR but this can cause problems:

• Hire a highly skilled HR person and you run the risk of this expensive resource getting bogged down in HR admin (booking holidays, recording sickness etc..) or
• Take on extra admin resource to help with HR processes and you run the risk of non core processes running out of control.

If you are a manager in an SME the chances are you didn't sign up to do HR - nothing wrong with HR, its just not your thing. You should be focusing on selling, operations or delivery. The solution can be found in automating the repetitive HR tasks and outsourcing the complex HR activities.

Tasks that can be automated include:

• Holiday booking & authorisation
• Sickness reporting (including back to work interviews)
• Employee address and core data updating
• Frequent tasks - appraisal reminders, new starters, leavers etc
• Report production

Having a central system for HR data relieves management of a non core task, saves time, increases accuracy and satisfies data protection legislation. It is also an essential tool to maximise the efficiency of outsourced HR services.

Lastly, it provides management with reports and analysis on staff activity. Managers can easily combine data on various topics into one report on which to base decisions. Having access to pre-formatted reports on such topics as employee absence by reason, workers compensation statistics, and salary by department makes understanding the strategic "big picture" much easier.

One word of caution - not all HR systems have the ability to automate tasks. Some only act as an electronic filing cabinet. To get the maximum benefit from this approach you need a system that has employee self service functionality and has been designed for SMEs. Take a look at breatheHR.