3 Powerful HR Software Features to Help You Use Remote Workforce to the Fullest

There’s no mistaking the global shift taking place right now in the world of work. Organisations of all sizes, have taken steps to become remote workers in answer to the unprecedented impact that COVID-19 has made. 

It’s widely accepted that there are many good reasons to embrace remote working, the added flexibility for your employees is well renowned in its ability to improve employee engagement and employee retention. Remote working enables organisations to benefit from a wider reaching talent pool and yes, by leveraging technology to support your remote teams, you’re stepping into the future of work age, one where digital and tech will continue to answer increased demands for remote working. 

As the pandemic resets major work trends, HR leaders need to rethink workforce and employee planning, management, performance and experience strategies.

Yet organisations are currently facing some of the challenges remote working brings with it too. These challenges are far from unique for any one organisation during this time and can range employees and managers feeling the pressure from being physically disconnected. Teams being unable to communicate in person, a way in which most at work will have largely become used to. Through more practical administration challenges experienced by Human Resources, such as contract signing, policy updates being accessible by employees and ensuring good levels of communication, of the many changes taking place in real time. 

These challenges for employers, combined with striving to deliver a great workforce experience whilst at the same time juggling increased levels of workforce management issues can prove to be a challenge. And it’s these challenges that CakeHR by Sage had in mind, when designing and launching their latest features for remote workforce.

1️⃣ Introducing remote working

Remote working has been embraced by many organizations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally organisations have been galvanised to action by the need to both maintain operations, whilst ensuring the safety and health of their employees. Remote working has enabled this balance to be struck, trading off physical office presence for increased productivity as employees have worked from home. 

Yet the challenges of working remotely, both for those new to working in this way and those familiar with a remote working routine can include: 

• Employees not having a dedicated work space in their home
• Connectivity issues with internet connection speeds 
• Balancing conflicting priorities of work & home
• Collaboration challenges with employees feeling disconnected from their colleagues
• Impacts to employee mental health
• Employees and employers missing the camaraderie of the office environment 

As a HR professional or employer faced with these challenges, you will inevitably have recognised the importance of having regular communications and embracing any and all collaboration tools that can effectively replicate the office environment with its ‘water cooler’ moments, whilst at the same time working remotely from each other. 

The CakeHR team has been dedicated in its pursuit of supporting small businesses as the world of work and managing remote workforces have evolved throughout this pandemic. Our own team has also switched to fully remote working at this time and has encountered many of the challenges that your organisation may be experiencing. Our dedication throughout, has seen us designing products and features that will help to support your remote workforce to thrive as the continued uncertainty unfolds. 

Providing great workforce experiences is well known for having the ability to positively improve employees’ sense of well-being and connection with you as their employer and in turn their engagement with your organisation, leading to 11% greater profitability. Great workforce experiences are also well recognised for improving productivity, output, in addition to uplifting employee retention levels; engaged employees are 87% less likely to want to leave your organisation for pastures new. 

Organizations that have made a strategic investment in employee development report 11% greater profitability and are twice as likely to retain their employees.

Yet delivering a great workforce experience whilst juggling increased levels of workforce management issues and the administration that comes along with it, can prove to be a challenge. 

CakeHR in response to these challenges and the feedback of our customers, are launching three powerful software features to help you solve workforce management challenges. Freeing up more of your time which in turn can be focused on creating great employee workforce experiences.

2️⃣ Announcements feature

The Announcements feature in CakeHR has been designed to help you share important news, quickly with the entire company. The very act of communicating timely and effectively in the current age of COVID-19 related changes happening all the time, from local lockdowns to changes in health & safety measures will be a true value add.

Using this feature you can create and publish announcements in a built in newsfeed, so sharing everything from a new hire joining the team, updates & changes to HR policies, through to a virtual team pizza get together, can be shared quickly, whilst encouraging interaction and participation. 

You, your colleagues and team members from wherever they’re physically located can create company update posts that can include single or multiple images to bring the communication to life and there’s also the capability to add videos. The edit feature allows authors to write, edit and publish the post or simply save as a draft to come back to later. Great for those more complex announcements, which may benefit from multiple user input. 

The Announcements feature also has the capability to create a news update and share an email notification with employees individually to alert them to the announcement having been made. This feature is a great addition for news that is too important to risk your employees missing and will drive greater engagement across teams who are remotely dispersed from each other. 

A further feature of the Announcements feature is one where you can mention an employees name, which in turn will link to their profile. So if you need to update your team on a colleague being out of office due to quarantine, or sickness absence. Or you’re celebrating a new client win, the good news of a project being delivered or even a team members birthday then you can create the communication, whilst including the team members name to highlight the news that’s linked to them.

3️⃣ Surveys feature

The CakeHR surveys feature has been designed to give your employees a voice, which in turn, for you as HR or an employer will empower you to better understand the needs, opinions, views and feelings of your people on topics that matter. 

It’s always good practice to engage with your employees, gathering vital intelligence on how they’re feeling about planned changes that may be about to take place, how engaged they’re feeling in their work or as part of their team and on business critical decisions that may be impacting the wider organisation. 

However it’s clear that during this time of uncertainty, with rapid developments as a result of the pandemic happening quickly, engaging your employees to collect feedback is all the more vital, with much more powerful outcomes as a result. 

The surveys you create not only allow you to better understand your people, but you can also do so in ways that give your employee’s an anonymous and safe space to share their views on topics freely. This feature of anonymity ensures that a comment is kept unassociated to the respondent and is also not accessible by someone with insufficient level of access.

Moreover your employees can have further comfort in knowing that their survey responses remain anonymous to all levels of CakeHR users, including other colleagues and  administrators. Which is great news when you consider that 89% of HR leaders agree that ongoing peer feedback and check-ins are key for successful outcomes

Highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability

By introducing and using the survey feature regularly in your organisation, you’re supporting a culture of inclusion and participation. In addition to gauging the happiness and engagement levels of your workforce as they adapt to the changes happening in real time. 

This easy collection of your employees’ views will improve your ability as an employer to respond to feedback, benchmark views, gain inspiration, plan more effectively and take the actions needed.

4️⃣ eSignature feature

The eSignature feature responds to increasing demands to leverage the power of digital processes that can support remote working, by replacing the need to be physically located in the same place. In short, this feature enables you and your team to sign documents electronically. 

You will find eSignature easily located within CakeHR’s documents tab, which allows you to create a signable document in minutes. You have options to upload a new document or choose an existing document saved within CakeHR. Once uploaded, you are given options to easily select team members or colleagues who will become the recipients of the document to sign. 

Should you need to share the document with multiple signatories, then you can easily add additional names by selecting an add recipient option. And by using the flexible drag and drop field capability, it’s easy to take control of the document layout by positioning signature fields where you need them to go on the document.

Creating your electronic document is straightforward and once this has been created, this feature also enables you to create an email to send the document out directly to recipients for signing. In turn, they’ll have access to the document electronically to read though, and sign with a flexible signer flow. 

Administrators can also receive updates in real time to confirm the document has been signed by all recipients.

5️⃣ Mobile HR

The CakeHR mobile app transfers the power of self service & simplicity from the web-based application to your handheld device. The functionality means that you and your team can access CakeHR’s features wherever you’re located, but also whilst you’re on the move.

 Employee self service empowers employees to see their CakeHR profile composed of their leave balance, performance goals, 1-2-1 records, whilst also allowing them to make leave requests or access any other important personal information. 

The mobile HR app also includes a company directory which provides powerful transparency so that employees can access colleague profiles, contact information and department information. Great for if your teams are cross-collaborating with other members from different teams or locations. 

Approval flows in the mobile app, ensure that managers & approvers of leave, receive notification prompts on the go. In turn approvers can accept or decline the request directly from their mobile device with no need to access the full web based application. Super convenient and efficient. 

The value add for managers and employees alike is that goals being worked towards for performance management, can be viewed, tracked and accomplished, no matter where they’re located or working from remotely. 

Why not explore this function further by taking out a free 14 day trial and let your team know about the CakeHR mobile app, which can be downloaded at the Apple App store or Google Play store.

6️⃣ The advantages of CakeHR

The world of work has evolved swiftly to respond to the challenges of this present moment. The result is your people now need more than ever to find comfort from being connected with you as their HR representative or employer; quickly, safely and easily from wherever it is they’re located. 

Working remotely in sometimes globally dispersed teams can result in engagement, efficiency and productivity challenges, yet the latest CakeHR features empower you to support those challenges effectively. 

Thanks to the accessibility and remote capability of the CakeHR mobile app, your people can access their personal information wherever they are to make any leave requests they need, in addition to having real time access to their individual performance goals. Helping them and your organisation to stay on track.  

With CakeHR’s features, you can be assured that engagement across your organisation will be emboldened by your having far greater visibility and accessibility through collaborative functionality. And thanks to greater ease of use and access, your organisatons compliance will be under control. 

Our commitment to providing you with excellent HR management tools at CakeHR results in our continual innovation of new features – We invite you to join us, jump in and get started.

Jade.

CakeHR is an award-winning HR software company that provides attendance, performance and recruitment management for customers worldwide. More information at www.cake.hr