If you’re in HR, you know how important your resources are. You know how important it is to make sure you have the budget for the right tools. People and culture depends on you, and the experience your employees have comes down to the time and the resources you have.
In the first Flare Vlog, our head of content Joan sits down with Cam from our sales team to talk about getting those HR resources and putting them in the right place.
My first day at Flare was amazing. I was a little bit nervous, as as you are when you’re at a new job, going down the elevator and kind of walking back and forth in front of the office half an hour early.
I didn’t want to be late, but I didn’t want to be too eager! And while I was trying to decide what to do, my team-mate Josh opened the front door and welcomed me into my new home and shook my hand.
I’ve been on Joshua’s team for the past two years and we work super close, so kicking off like that was perfect. A really nice way to be welcomed into the family. And following that introduction, I met with Steph, who’s our Director of financial well-being and got to know her, and I got invited out to lunch by my new co-worker Matt and by Dan Cohen who’s the co-founder and CEO of Flare. They took me out for a bite and we had a burrito which I’d mentioned was my favourite food, and it was a really, really nice touch.
When I got shown to my desk, I had everything there waiting for me. I had my phone, I had my laptop, I had my favourite coffee, my cappuccino, I even had my favourite brownie waiting on my desk. It was so warm, and just really different to what I’ve ever been exposed to at another job. I came back for day two, so itt was great.
I’ve been working at Flare for just about two years. Time has gone by really quickly. It’s been one of the most exciting roles I’ve ever had and one of the most exciting, businesses I’ve ever been part of. And I’m really looking forward to the next six months.
I’ve been working within the sales team, but the best part about the role is the fact that I get to be involved in many different discussions, including implementation and development, and I even get to be involved in product management. I love the chance to be in a room full of people who are way smarter than me.
“I believe the first day of any job is critical. It’s the first impression that the people in the organisation make on you and take from you. It’s where you first understand the culture and the values, and it sets you up to keep coming back for week two, month two and year two. The first day is the opportunity to really make people believe in what they’re doing. And the only way to do that is for people to practice what they preach. It starts on day one. That definitely had an effect on me, and it’s the reason I’m still at Flare.“
For any business in hospitality or retail, the summer onboarding sprint is going to be a major period of productivity. The HR staff have more to do than any other time of the year. When you’re responsible for bringing on new staff in the hundreds or even thousands, it’s crucial that you’re able to do it efficiently, quickly and with as little friction as possible!
We’ve found that our companies know exactly when they need to power up their hiring and bring on fresh talent, and it starts right about now. With the lead time you’ll need to advertise, interview, hire, onboard, train and deploy your new superstars, summer onboarding kicks off in July, every year.
We all remember when we started our first jobs, and how it set us up for our working lives!
It’s a breath of independence, the moment we could make our own choices. Make our own lives. Start our own journeys. That brief moment before we started hating iphone alarms.
We took a huge step into the world, on that day. And it opened so many doors.
For decades, generations of young people have faced that coming of age as a part of growing up. It’s shaped who they are. As adults. As coworkers.
For the rest of their lives, they’ll follow their dreams, and they’ll meet new challenges. They’ll go further, work smarter, and take on careers that reflect their values and where they want to be.
Through their work with you, they’ll pay their first rent and book their next trip overseas. It all starts on that first day.
At Flare, we think a lot about firsts. We think about how they set the stage for everything that comes next.
When you onboard new staff for the first time, you have the chance to give them the best first day of their careers. Their best first experience of a new job. It can do so much for the way they’ll work, how they’ll interact with customers, and what it’ll mean for your company culture.
From compliance to cohesion, you’re going to be thanking yourself if you have an oboarding process in place that gives every single person the headstart they need, in a way that’s efficient and streamlined.
We’re not going to lie – the single best way to do that is with an integrated onboarding tool and platform like Flare that can take your people through the onboarding in a few clicks, and reduce your own admin time.
For the Flare champions at Glue and JD Sports, having that onboarding tool in place has set the baseline for success:
Flare has helped centralize employee data and streamline the onboarding process. Now instead of the manual process, the HR department needs only click one button and everyone gets their welcome email and the accompanying documentation. Once the employee completes their details, an email is sent to the payroll department with all the details of the new hire. The payroll manager no longer needs to print out the documents as it’s all compact, simplified and well formatted.
Flare has a degree of flexibility that made it easier to customize features to align with the HR team’s objectives. In particular, the email alert sent to the payroll department after onboarding had to have all the requisite information since incomplete data would render the email useless. Flare’s development team working together with the HR and tech departments ensured the email that payroll received had all the information needed so they didn’t have to manually refer to the employee’s folder.
JODIE HEARNEHR MANAGER – GLUE STORE / JD SPORTS
“It really made a huge difference to the process, because a lot of the time the people weren’t returning their paperwork. It just eliminated the need for the back and forth and the chasing up.”
Stay tuned for everything coming next, and don’t forget to give us a shout out or an email if you’d like to share your own #BestFirstDay with us!
If your workforce is made up for contractors, how do you keep them engaged and keep them on board? They’re more flexible in how they work, and they’re hugely valuable, so it’s important that you don’t lose touch with them. When you’re able to keep contractors engaged, energised and interested, your key assets are ready for activation.
The lesson you learn from building a great contractor list is that you have to take care of contractors before they get too bored and go elsewhere. Your people are constantly talking to other contractors about what they’ll be working on next. They’re in demand, and they’re already on the look for the next big project.
We’ve been talking to companies that have used Flare in the past to get some insights into how they keep their contractors engaged in the long term – here are some of our key insights!
The most important engagement tool is your employee perks and benefits program. You have to make sure you’re offering something unique and valuable that can help you to build an extra bridge between you and your contractors.
You can also consider how your employee perks contribute to making sure that you’re not losing contractors to competition. Money isn’t always the answer to everything, and where you can provide better alternatives than just a pay check, you’re far more attractive as a hirer. If you’re losing contractors to competitors and you’re looking for a way to preserve your workforce, it might be better to consider taking advantage of these advantages and create “special deals” for employees.
What are the perks that employers pay their employees to make them happy? If you’re thinking about expanding your business, you should consider taking advantage of employee perks like gift cards, free gym membership, and free coffee.
One of the most popular companies that offers contractor perks is Amazon. In 2016, the company increased the amount of perks of its employees through a promotion for employees participating in a new employee-led initiative called “Prime.” Amazon says it aims to reduce attrition by creating a unique mix of memberships that focus on employee culture.
Amazon perks vary with location, but can range from free meals and gifts to free travel. It’s a game changer for their contractors. Many labour hire companies here in Australia do use Flare’s benefits platform to activate and engage their contractors – you can find out more here:
This can be one of the most difficult and most important mistakes you could make in building a great contractor workforce. You’re almost always talking to your customers about how you are a great company making something cool. They trust your word, they are confident in what you do, and they’re ready to back you.
But how often do you make that sell to your contractors in a way that makes them feel like they’re a part of the mission and a part of the journey? There’s something to be said for a shared purpose, and it can make a difference even when you’re collaborating with flexible staff. Contractors still want to be a part of something bigger, and contribute to work that they’re proud of, and you can make that happen.
Some organisations keep up a happy relationship with their contractors by having a regular, ongoing training program that helps the contractors stay qualified and allows the company to keep up a healthy relationship.
Having a training program like this online, onsite or at a location where you’re a good fit for your workforce can go a long way. You’ll be amazed at how much more effective your contractor engagement is when you’re offering value like that. Keep in mind that your entire workforce is a partner with you in your training program – you both get the rewards!
Your HR software platform can be a crucial component for your organisation to become successful in a changing work environment. It is honestly critical you have a comprehensive understanding of the software you choose to use to manage your employees and ensure you are appropriately addressing their needs.
Excelling at your role today means getting the right tech and using it properly in order to reach your full potential. We wanted to highlight several key issues to get you started, and show how important it is.
Rely on feedback
Feedback from your company’s customers and your staff is something companies know they’ve got to seek out and take seriously. But how many people really put that into practice?
For HR software, having a diverse pool of users means, not only can you try out and test new applications based on your unique needs and goals, but you can help the rest of your people (and all employees, if the product, service or service offerings are well executed).
It is important to note that your staff do not just use an HR product, service or service offering, they actually seek out those tools and use them on a daily basis because they want their working lives to be more efficient. When they’re not happy with software, or they want changes, they’ll give that feedback, and if you take it on board, it can only help you succeed!
Choose the software that actually meets your HR needs
If you are in the market for a piece of HR tech it is very important to consider what your business needs are right now and balance it with what you’re going to need tomorrow.
Do you need to find software that will solve one smaller problem, or do you need software and support for people across your business who simply might have a range of changing needs and roles and responsibilities? Is it more important to have specialised software, or to have an HR tool that’s easy to scale and grow with? Do you want more functionality now, or the ability to add it on later?
One of the key points to remember, when looking out for your users, is that if you use the same software for everyone on the staff, it’s got to be able to serve them up a good, supported, streamlined experience.
Make sure it’s impacting the real world
From the largest technology companies on the planet to the world’s biggest workforces, spanning spanning every single industry, from corporations to small businesses, one thing matters. If you’re buying tools that make you feel warm and fuzzy but don’t move the needle in a measurable way, you’re wasting your time and resources.
It’s important to make sure that the HR software that you choose works as it should, and will help you achieve better results with your employees. As such, you want to make sure you are planning for and leveraging a wide range of analytics and reporting on your HR platform and what you’re doing with it.
The following are some of the most important things you can do to ensure your HR software provides its maximum possible benefit to your employer, and that your IT departments and employees are properly empowered for the future benefits of HR and your organisation.
There are two aspects of creating and managing your HR software that should be very important to keep in mind. One of these, is ensuring that the software properly handles your HR needs and the second is making sure that you can track time saved, resources saved, how satisfied your people are, and how much actual contact you can have with employees through it.
By now you’ve probably realised that you have a few HR software projects ready to be started. The process of setting up an HR software platform never has to be difficult and sometimes even more difficult to avoid it.
If you can set aside some resources to navigate the HR tech landscape, make a decision that is based on who your company is and your particular software needs, you’ll have the chance to get the most out of your software, your people – and your own role!
Personalised workplace benefits and a workplace culture that is designed for your people can create an environment which encourages employees to succeed.
Every company strives to achieve higher retention rates, provide training, and encourage employees to develop new interests. Most companies are also looking for new ways of meeting their commitments to promote diversity across the organization, and to improve the company’s climate and culture.
One of the solutions is to use the best available technology to promote compliance and promote fairness across the environment. The company’s management has to establish and implemented a number of programs to ensure that their HR tools keep them in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations and work with staff to develop policies, guidelines, procedures, and training.
But a key part of that has to address personalisation. It’s just the truth that there is no one size fits all in the workplace! Every single person has different needs and requirements and ways of interacting, engaging and working. If you expect everyone to respond to the same stuff, every single time, you’re never going to serve anyone well.
You’ll see this most effectively in the benefits world…
Benefits are so important for employees to feel included and engaged but they aren’t going to meet that need if they feel exclusive or they’re not tailored to real people. Benefits can make people feel at home, they can make them feel valued and they can make them feel understood. None of that matters if they’re the wrong kind because they have nothing to do with where and who your employees are.
Not everyone can use a free a movie ticket.
Not everyone drives a car.
Some people need childcare subsidies.
Some people have debt and need support.
If you approach everyone in the same way, and try to give everyone these benefits and expect that they’ll appreciate or use them, best case scenario is that you don’t include everyone. Worst case scenario is that you actively exclude people, while still expecting that they’ll appreciate their new benefits. That won’t work.
But imagine a world in which you can ensure that every single employee gets the right benefits for them. That’s a world with a benefits offering that supports and understands people. And it’s one that we think is going to come around sooner rather than later.
The range of employee benefits people really need can cover financial benefits, perks, education, discounts and more, and when you know who needs what, you’ll be better able to provide for every single person. The flow on effects are going to raise your employees by so much, and can only turn your engagement into a massive positive force inside your company.
You can start by understanding who your people are and what they need!
One of the reasons we believe onboarding is so important is that it allows you to capture the right information about your staff as soon as they start their jobs. You can see who you’re hiring and you can ask them important questions that you can use to shape the way you work with and help them.
At Flare, we even go so far as to ask people their favourite pastry choice so we can have it waiting for them on day one. That’s a tiny, tiny benefit that costs almost nothing and takes a few extra minutes of work, but it changes how our staff feel because it is incredibly personalised.
There are so many more ways you can achieve this, and it does depend on who you are and who your people are.
After all, everyone wants to feel understood…right?
Working on HR software on a day to day basis has taught us how to communicate both to customers and employees. We are passionate about making every person who uses our software happy both personally and professionally, and we are committed to keeping a positive image and attitude for our team.
Our hope is to provide a great customer experience. We have a goal of increasing our annual sales, and that is a goal that we’re confident we can achieve. But we know that we can’t do that if we don’t boost the engagement of our own employees, so that you can boost the engagement of yours.
Here are the huge opportunities we see for employee engagement, across industries:
This is something people roll out every time they talk about HR. But what does it really mean? For us, it means giving people the chance to enjoy the lives they work to afford.
Employees often find themselves frustrated with work-life balance, which leads to higher stress and less productivity. As employers, we can help employees improve their work-life balance by setting and maintaining a clear, consistent, and fair work-Life Schedule that is compatible with their personal lives.
And yes. That does mean that we take it seriously when folks bring work home. We take it seriously when people are struggling in their personal lives and try to balance it out in the workplace.
The truth is, nobody wants to have burned out staff, but if you can’t provide some level of balance, that is exactly what you’re going to get.
Communicate constantly. Your work life is a highly social environment and you can’t get comfortable if you are not present and always ready for talk. Workplace-based, peer-to-peer, online, voice-guided, and team-based systems are going to help you keep up with the other people in your sphere.
But you have to encourage your colleagues to interact with one another more directly. In a social work setting, you will be able to connect directly with your teams by sharing information, sharing tools and discussing problems or challenges. You also can create a working environment where folks feel like they’re more of a part of the team, and can focus more freely on their health.
Learn to communicate and manage tasks in a more flexible, personal and professional manner. Learn to share and open up. It will help your engagement.
A good place to start if you are considering building a work environment in which people actually want to work (just imagine…). Pay may be limited, people can’t get a raise every single month, but employee perks should be commensurate with the potential and possibility of their role.
You may receive paid time off during your workweek. You can receive paid time off during any week of the year and on any day of the week. This is available to all full-time employees and employees who have already completed 10 or more years on the business. It doesn’t count as a benefit.
You have to go beyond that pay and get into the things that really make a difference to employee happiness and make them care. Some of the most popular examples of these are pay increases on short work weeks, paid leave without pay, vacation, retirement (superannuation) options and employee debt plans, perks and giveaways and discounts and so on.
With the exception of a few companies, it takes a lot of time and effort to make a real business case for buying HR software. We see it so often – there’s never a hesitation to spend on more marketing tools, there’s never a hesitation to buy a Salesforce licence, but people pause when there’s an HR line item. That’s why we want to start giving you all the tips here to help you sell your company’s HR needs to the leadership teams.
There are a few tools that can help managers evaluate the health and health of staff. In the case of the employees themselves, they can do more than just look at their salary. Many managers also have a more in-depth look into the physical health of their team members, the level of discipline in their organisations, and other measures of success.
Bridging the gap between human resources and finance by integrating technology and data and human capital management across all areas of human resources and finance, at the global level, this will help us to better connect human capital, finance, technology and management so that they can help to create the optimal level levels of employment in our sectors.
Do the managers or CEO understand the importance of their people?
It’s really crucial that the chief or chief operating officer in charge of HR in a company wants or needs their human resources professionals to be spending more time with the actual people they’re helping, resourcing and managing. If management can see how hugely important is for you to be hands-on with the staff, you’ll be able to prove an ROI.
That includes HR team leaders; VP; VP of Personnel; CFO; VP/CPO; and so on. You have to show them the value of your personal time, and the value of saving it.
The important thing to say here is that you’re interested in being more available to the staff. You should go in with an emphasis on solving and scaling individual human resource opportunities – including training and support of employees, managing employee resources, promoting employee learning and mentoring.
The biggest areas we see an impact from good, solid, scalable HR software? Employee retention and efficiency.
The employee attrition rate in a company, the percentage of employees who leave the business to take other positions, is not just a sign of the health of a company. It’s also a sign of their HR capabilities and efficiency. The more staff who are leaving, the worse we’re all doing at managing and supporting them.
When you’re stretched thin, you have less opportunities to have a positive impact, and that’s always going to flow on to your employee satisfaction. You can’t fix what you can’t see, and if you don’t have time to look up from your paperwork, there’ll b e a lot you can’t see.
In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a great deal of enthusiasm for building software to help businesses automate business processes. However, this enthusiasm isn’t enough. A human is required to perform tasks that require knowledge of the company’s business models and operations. If humans do not perform these tasks properly, it means that the software becomes ineffective.
There is a cost involved to adding a lot of technology to a system, and when the cost is greater than the technology, some of that technology could become a sunk cost.
There’s no danger in replacing yourself when you’re the human at the centre of this!
When looking at employee retention trends, it’s critical to recognise that your HR department might not have any data on your employees. If they do, you might see the average retention rate for your company in the 40-60% range and you want to figure out if it’s more in the 60% range or the 40% range.
Keep in mind that it takes many, many rounds of layoffs or transfers to realize that these employees will leave your company – and if you can’t retain them, what incentive or reward are you going to give the ones who remain?
For example, if you hire a new recruiter but you only have 2 people from your past employees who are still employed, how can you expect to have any kind of success with your new hires?
They came in super engaged. They came in with a million ideas. They came in with an absolute fire to achieve, and to play a part in your company’s future.
And now they’re tired. And they’re frustrated. They roll their eyes at new initiatives, and their defining quote is, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
They’re good at their jobs, but they don’t care enough to be great.
They’re worn down, they’re worn out and they’re wearing out their welcome.
It’s not their fault. It’s not your fault. But it’s the result of a disengaged workforce who either haven’t been given the opportunity to be directly and positively engaged and fulfilled, or they haven’t been given the means.
If the company can’t offer a decent package of benefits to its employees, then the staff aren’t going to be pleased. And if a company can’t find a way to give employees the right information and make interacting with their managers and with the organisation easy, people are going to feel like they aren’t and cannot be heard.
But that’s not necessarily the case. The staff who are the noisiest are sometimes the ones who are the most secure, and the most comfortable, and the most likely to stick around. That’s why they’re the ones making the noise in the first place!
The staff who you don’t hear from, the staff who are quietly becoming more and more unhappy, are the ones who are actually in danger of throwing in the towel. And you might not even realise it until they’re long, long gone.
It’s not about waiting for these people to be frustrated enough to bail, and then trying to move the needle on a bunch of initiatives to stop the churn. That’s not going to be proactive, and you’ll lose good people along the way. The right time to be thinking about ways to make these quietly unhappy staff more comfortable is right now, before any of them pull the plug.
So what can you do?
