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What an HR system must contain

Whether your business has an HR or personnel solution or not, we have created a list of the features we believe you must have in your HR system. This list is based on our long experience in the industry and feedback from our customers on which features they believe are the business-critical features in their system.

Today's HR solutions are becoming increasingly complex, where we see business systems merging and overlapping to a greater extent than before. Computer technology and mobile technology are therefore important technologies in today's HR systems. A little tip is that you should always look for an HRM system that is easily accessible to you, so that you will have more time for your daily tasks at the workplace .

Guide: This is what an HR system must contain

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1. Sick leave follow-up in an HR system

Follow-up of employees on sick leave is a profession in itself. As an employer, you are obliged to facilitate the sick employee as far as possible. And there are several important activities that you as an employer must follow up.

Points you need to follow up:

  • Within 4 weeks, you must prepare a follow-up plan with the sick employee.
  • Within 7 weeks, you must invite the employee to the first dialog meeting.
  • Within 8 weeks, NAV and the person who reports the employee sick shall assess whether the employee can be in partial work with a specialized adaptation at the workplace.
  • Within 6 months, NAV must invite you and the employee to a follow-up meeting.

The above is a typical course of action in the event of long-term sick leave. Be aware, however, that with a large number of employees in the company, there may always be more people on long-term sick leave.

Sickness absence follow-up in an HR system helps managers follow up and look after sick employees more closely

Surprisingly, many companies in Norway still haven't implemented an HR system with automated processes. Many are unaware of alternative solutions to their trusty Excel solutions, but if one thing is certain, it's that HR systems are here to stay, especially sick leave follow-up.

There are clearly good opportunities to streamline manual processes related to sickness absence follow-up. It's important to build a good culture and presence, and that the employer meets deadlines in the sickness absence processes. That's why it's important to make sure that all managers in your company follow the same guidelines and meet all deadlines. Automatic alerts and digital processes are the key to good absence follow-up.

Look for a system that can help you structure your workday with notifications and predefined conversation templates for dialog and follow-up meetings in the sick leave process.

Note the following functionality in the absence follow-up

  • Electronic documents to NAV via Altinn
  • Digital and automatic processes in the follow-up process
  • Automatic notifications to the immediate manager in case of registered absence
  • Mobile application for employees ensures good structure in absence registration
  • HR systems that have direct follow-up plans to the sick employee's GP and to NAV
  • Digital sickness notifications are automatically sent to the HR system from Altinn and that the absence calendar in the HR system is updated with the correct absence codes

Sickness absence monitoring in an HR system helps managers follow up and look after sick employees more closely.

2. Onboarding

New employees start and old employees leave. These are two versions of the same process. It's important to have a good start and a good end to the employment relationship. The person joining your company will become your new ambassador, while the person leaving your company will become an important ambassador for your business. That's why it's important to take the right steps...

There is no one-size-fits-all onboarding program. Each company needs to develop programs and processes that work best for them. By ensuring that your HRM system has a good onboarding platform, you increase the chances that your new employees will thrive in their new workplace. Keep in mind that when a person starts a new job, they will be motivated to put their best foot forward and do their utmost to please their new employer.

By making sure your HR system has a good onboarding platform, you increase the chances that your new employees will thrive in their new workplace.

By inviting the new employee to learn about the company with drip learning and information in the application, the employee will know their immediate managers and coworkers even before the first day of work. By providing the new employee with e-learning of the most important tasks and how to solve them, the employee will become productive faster and will be prepared for their first day of work.

Note the following functionality in the onboarding application

  • Custom quizzes and courses
  • Available on mobile phones
  • Easy to use and easy to master
  • Designed for the busy employee
  • Drip learning and custom learning paths
  • E-learning functionality with the possibility of customization

Set up a learning path for new employees so that they learn their tasks step by step in a good and consistent way. Invite the new employee to create their own digital employee profile before their first day of work. This will ensure a good and efficient onboarding process.

Illustration: The three phases of a good onboarding process

3. Employee appraisals

For many, performance reviews are the function that drives the best results for management. Try to put yourself in the following situation: A company has several managers who in turn have several employees to follow up. Managers have been required to conduct annual performance reviews. Some of the managers take this as a challenge and give what they have, while others think this is an unnecessary use of time. That's why it's important to have a consistently good structure in the appraisal and follow-up interviews, where you set measures and goals to be followed up after each interview.

With performance appraisals, each conversation is logged and stored as a document for the employee, where the employee can read the minutes of the meeting afterwards. This ensures a higher implementation rate of defined measures after the conversation. Management creates and compiles an appraisal template that every manager must review. The right questions give good answers. The focus is not on the conduct of the appraisal, but on the measures taken to improve the employee's performance. The appraisal becomes a "non-issue", where it is easily conducted regardless of managerial expertise and, last but not least, the appraisal is conducted consistently well throughout the organization.

Conducting good appraisals is important in the work to reduce sick leave and increase well-being in the workplace

After the appraisal, the manager must be able to receive notifications about the time of appraisals. The appraisal template is prepared by the management team and changed in the same way as the appraisal template. It is important to be willing to make changes to the appraisal templates so that they are as good as possible. Conducting good appraisals is important in efforts to reduce sickness absence, increase well-being in the workplace and to facilitate individual employees so that the working environment becomes more competent and reliable.

Note the following functionality in the call module

  • Digital and automated processes
  • Minutes for approval after completed call
  • Activity plan and overview of measures that are created
  • Online call templates that are easily customized and adjusted
  • Predefined call templates that ensure good execution

 

Conducting good appraisals is important in the work to reduce sick leave and increase well-being in the workplace

4. Digital manuals

Having digital handbooks available, such as the HR and HSE handbook, will ensure that every employee can access important information about routines, objectives and legislation without always having to consult their employer or the company's HR department. Examples of such information could be: Mapping of the working environment in addition to questions such as: I want to report an unfortunate incident. Can I remain anonymous? or What is the biggest HSE risk at my workplace? It is important that the digital manuals are easily accessible to all employees, preferably in the employee portal.

Digital handbooks ensure that every employee can access important information about routines, objectives and legislation without always consulting their employer or the company's HR department

There are HR systems that have digital handbooks that are automatically updated in the event of changes to legislation, so you don't need to worry about changes to legislation regarding, for example, holiday entitlement. The information is updated automatically and if you get questions from employees about a topic in the Employee Handbook, you can refer to the interpretation of the legal text written in the handbook.

Also note that an HSE handbook may contain a detailed action plan.

Note the following functionality in the digital manuals

  • Automatic update when legislation changes
  • Manuals written by subject matter experts
  • Available on both phone and desktop
  • Easy to tailor and adapt to your business
  • The manual must be easy to update in case of changes

5. Integrations

An HR system is what it sounds like. A system designed to simplify and streamline tasks related to human resources. There are good systems that have all the HR topics covered, but on the other hand comes the cost associated with these large systems. When we think of such a module, we think of something ready-made "that works straight out of the box". Not a system that needs to be tailored to the smallest detail. All HR systems need some degree of customization. So look for a system that is as complete as possible.

It is important that 4human HRM is the master for all data related to people, so that we can ensure privacy at the individual level. It is also important that 4human is the master of the organizational structure. This means that if a person changes role and title, an organizational change is updated in the cloud and includes all data and rights. 4human HRM will also send salary information to Huldt&Lillevik. – Kjetil Haugland Johansen, IT Director at Espira Gruppen

The more functionality the system consists of, the less customization you need to think about. Look for companies that have been in the business for a long time with many competent consultants and a skilled development team within easy reach.

Choose the HR system you're most confident can integrate with your systems.

Look for an HRM system with good integration possibilities

  • APIs with data transfer
  • Integration with time and attendance registration
  • An HR system that can act as a master
  • Payroll systems: Visma, Huldt&Lillevik, SAP, Aditro and Xledger
  • Time systems: Wintid, Tempus, Tidsbanken, Quinyx and Worksoft

Feel free to ask the consultant you consult with whether they can actually implement integrations with your business systems. 

Conclusion

We see that there are some HR systems that stand out in terms of functionality and processes. On the other hand, it's not individual functions that provide return on investment (ROI), it's the whole system and then each individual functionality that matters. In this article, we've selected the features that we and our customers believe are the most important to build an HR system around. These features are clearly important to achieve the main goal of implementing a (new) system.

Every company has a different approach to these HR solutions. What works for one company doesn't necessarily work for another. For some, it's about streamlining digital processes that were previously manual in nature. For others, it may be a long-term goal to reduce sick leave, turnover or improve the working environment.

An HR solution can in many ways meet the needs you want, but we at 4human clearly see that a good HR system also provides a good return on investment (ROI). We find that it is difficult to measure the effect of a system in the initial stages, and often the decision to purchase is made by senior management. Unfortunately, it is difficult to see the benefits of the system as they do not work with the same processes themselves.

That's why it's important that you communicate the benefits you see in an HR system in a good way.

What can you expect to get out of an active HR system?

  • Increased competence
  • Reduced turnover
  • Reduced sick leave
  • Self-reliant employees
  • Better relationship with privacy
  • Improved work environment and culture
  • More efficient digital processes
  • Consistently good management routines
  • Automatic notifications and follow-up by email

Tired of Excel and administrative stress? Does your business need an HR system? Feel free to contact us for a non-binding and pleasant chat.

Guide: This is what an HR system must contain

Download this

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