WebHR – Modern HR For the Industrial Sector

Human resource management has unique sets of challenges when it comes to industrial sector. Workforce management can range in variety and functionality, for industrial sector HR must be a HERO in all departments, including recruiting, on-boarding, training, performance management, mediation, legal compliance, compensation management, training, rewards and appreciation. To top it, it must be engaging and inclusive of all tiers at an organization to build a hierarchy, that works like a well-oiled machine. The tools of automation can save number of precious hours and days that go into building appropriate reporting format. All industries have a potential to grow fast and to keep up with a fast influx of new recruits, it needs an HR mechanism that has the capacity to grow as the company grows, in fact play an integral role in this regard.

For industrial workers the main burden lies on the shoulders of the HR teams and specific HR Personnel, rather than the workers to regulate and update things regularly, hence a strong software makes the very basics of such mechanisms, that can deliver effective results. The workers in these scenarios rely on accurate shift planners, PTO modules and perfected time-tracking software, so that they can work without a glitch and responsible supervisors along with the higher-ups are notified about the lack of worker’s discipline about time management and tardiness as early as possible. The software that can tackle a large workforce, needs the best reporting and time-tracking capabilities, so that there are no jumble-ups that could be both costly and dangerous for certain industries.  Any un-notified absence adds of to loss of work and precious time, that can affect time sensitive daily production units, that work under deadlines and must deliver swiftly.

The extensive business intelligence and reporting formats can help industry with predicting their hiring trends, so that they can have advanced planning regarding such issues, as they arise. Due to periodic spike in productions, the hiring must be designed in accordance, so that the managers could take that burden off their shoulders and dedicate that time into managing the actual workforce, that requires immediate and constant attention at all costs. HR for the industrial sector is tricky and if appropriate measures are not taken from the very beginning, it can take a toll on company’s growth and finances. In a perfect scenario, the hiring for industrial sector is mostly related to search for skilled workers because there is widespread perception that, these jobs are mostly low salaried, dangerous, stressful and require a specific skill set and related certifications. The actual reason behind such a thought process is that, there are certain number of challenges that are mostly safety and compensation related. These companies need to have reserve employees even when they are not working and need to have them on file in case, they might need them.

The most important thing of all, is an abundantly efficient ATS with a job board that is integrated with social media sites so that the organization can reach out to the appropriate talent in time, which in turn would also reflect how attractive the business looks and what benefits would an employee get working at that company. It is not limited to that, to gain talented employees, the companies must go a step ahead and look more competitive, when it comes to offering attractive salary packages and benefits to their workers. Like most industrial sector companies, safety is of utmost importance. A safe and secure work environment can ensure that there are no elaborate medical bills, inflated worker’s compensation costs and lawsuits incase of injuries. These measures can be taken when a responsible and well-trained supervisor or a security specialist has been hired to monitor day to day activities and that dedicated person values your company enough to understand the critical nature of his/her job. This can be enhanced and improved by proper training of the concerned employees, to keep them updated with the set of rules and regulations, along with appropriate standard safety instruction manuals, that are always handy and available. The mangers and supervisors are well informed to have all emergency protocols in place through a guided mechanism to stay focused on events that can happen at the workplace and to act immediately in light of any injuries.

Industrial sectors rely heavily on cutting costs wherever they can, as the cost of manufacturing or building something already require strong financials with budgets, that have no space and elasticity for rising compensation costs and can hinder the growth at any organization. One of the most important steps in this regard is ensuring the quick return of injured employees, to avoid unnecessary costs that might burden an already disturbed schedule of any project at hand. It is also imperative to understand, that employee turnover can be a huge impending negative effect over the company’s finances and hence, employee engagement can bring a sense of belonging to the employees, that is much needed in the fast-paced work environments these days. The connected and well-informed teams perform well under pressure and get a chance to communicate with their higher-ups, reducing the gap between different levels in the organization. As the employees stay engaged, their chances of being happy with their current jobs increase and so the turnover is reduced, when they stick to their positions for long, avoiding precious time spent on training new staff and trying to get them to work on the same pace as the company. Small gestures of appreciation can go a long way and the mechanism of rewards and recognition also ensure they constantly advance and boost their skills to move to higher tiers, within the organization. Offering competitive wages and salary packages to your workers can ensure long term well being and loyalty, sidestepping any grievances that might lead to losing them to rival companies.

Having said that, manufacturing industry is labor concentrated and requires an HR focused approach. A robust and all-inclusive HR like WebHR can increase the globalization of any industry. The above-mentioned measures in the article are everything, that a modern paced company like WebHR handles very effectively and hence, it caters to the ever-growing economies and their industrial sector round the globe. WebHR’s global presence sets it apart from the rest as it is uniquely present in 197 countries and has a vast audience with universal approach. The industrial sector is ripe for the big change that is taking over the rest of the world, the modern age SaaS companies are replacing the ancient ways of handling human resources, with their more connected and employee focused strategies. The research teams at WebHR are building advanced tools using their AI capabilities to assist the industrial sector in tackling their most concerning problems, one of them being the physical wellness of their employees, in harsh weather conditions with outdoor tasks and temperature related issues at the manufacturing or refining plants. As we have seen in the middle east, the body temperatures of the workers may rise and at times cost them their lives in scathingly hot weather conditions. In this scenario, WebHR intends on building wearable devices that can easily talk to the WebHR app and notify the supervisors or people in charge for safety precautions to take immediate actions necessary to prevent any mishap. The instant rise in the body temperatures in these areas, is a matter of huge concern for these companies and ensuring the health of the workers is challenging. Other than that, the colder countries like Canada can have workers suffering because of the extremely low temperatures, causing hypothermia and frost bite. For manufacturing units and refining plants, where workers might have to be present in close proximity to the boilers, it can have the same effects and it is very important for the supervisors and people in charge of the safety of the workers to be notified timely, if any of them is having such symptoms that might need immediate medical attention. The research team at WebHR wants to innovate and maximize the use of the software, so that the industrial sector could benefit from it and automate their workflow. The advances in that direction are designed to make the work flows smooth and workable, so that the managers can handle large number of workers without glitches. The future of HR for the industrial workers, is moving at a fast pace and the new generation of software are making huge leaps to fill in the demand gaps. It is time for innovation to re-vamp this sector and upgrade it according modern technology.

The Fall of Legacy HR applications

In the midst of gigantic businesses that have been the bane of existence for the corporate world and have been relied upon heavily in the past, the winds have shifted, and the sails have been redirected in a newer direction. The past is witness to the glory of these humongous ERPs that have ruled and were the only and “costliest ventures” for the corporate world. Money flowed in, quality was assured but hefty processes were involved, and outcomes were regrettably late and sometimes over budgeted. HR world has been no different, they have always been laden with age old mechanisms and systems that no longer make sense in the modern day. From the time when a true corporate giant prepares to come on-board with such systems to the time when it really is implemented the procedures and steps, cost them an unfair amount of time, dedicated staff and financial burden, all for the sake of a “renown and old ERP” that no longer caters to the modern approach at any certain institution. By the time, a company is ready to implement such a system, a lot of time has been spent training and actually making things work in a flow that it is too late to realize that, the system is a no fit because by that time, an actual agreement and money allocated for such venture has been spent and getting out of such vicious circle is not only hard but is impossible.

Our research analysts have identified the core problem areas as to why there is still an affinity towards such archaic systems, that only sell because of their name and size of the company and it turns out, it is the thought process that goes behind it. The generation gap amongst these systems cannot be denied and like all technologies, there is always a resistance at first to convert to modernity and then it becomes a matter of survival. As for HR is concerned, it has seen tremendous re-modelling over the past five years, and we can’t deny the fact that legacy systems are dying out slowly and gradually. The cloud has taken over and SaaS versus the rest is on a constant rise, we could say that the market is ripe for a complete over haul and it is just a matter of time, all businesses, whether large or small are going to turn towards it. The strategy that the old companies that still want to stay in line with the trends use is, they acquire the ones innovating to upgrade and keep up with the pace, I would say, it works to a certain extent only. I have seen multibillion-dollar businesses that instead of building any technologies or trying to upgrade themselves, fish for companies that have done it all and have sometimes successfully incorporated that within the re-vamped versions of themselves but largely some newer more competitive minds beat them at their game by building and implementing things at a pace that they cannot even fathom.

Some of these have been wise enough to adapt the metamorphosis early on and IBM is notably the one that caught up the vibe when it began, hence their AI capabilities and modernistic approach sets them apart in todays competitive Machine Learning scenario. It is a well appreciated fact, that their advanced technology has been an inspiration for many, and “Watson” has made a remarkable stamp in the history of the pioneers of such technology. It has been proved that the hegemony of enterprise resource planning is over and so is the decades long hold on the market, with this the question arises, as to what should be the next in line to meet the needs of the market that is ready for change?

Companies with multimillion-dollar revenue rely heavily on such legacy systems, no matter what size and type the company is, it is breaking their backs. Whether it is retail, manufacturing, healthcare, finance, agriculture, education or exports, this is still the choice of many, as they believe that it produces ground breaking results and keeps their business going. Is it still true and applicable in this age and time? I believe the answer is “not really” Some of the applications in this regard have risen to the top, although they sometimes prefer not to be called an “ERP”, but the truth of the situation is that, it is what it is. No fancy name can replace the authenticity of the matter, that by the end of the day, these are those legacy system that are now on the decline due to their over budgeted and slow solutions, that no long cater to an audience that is more knowledgeable and aware of their requirements along with the dwindling support for such applications. The doubts to make these huge decisions are justified as the only time a SaaS company takes to adjust them is when they initially signup and rest of the implementation is a breeze as compared to legacy giants like SAP, Oracle etc. The reason, patience in the corporate world is running out and newer players in the market are taking huge chunks of the business because of their smart and fast software capabilities along with the incorporation of business intelligence tools, AI and Machine Learning techniques that make them more lucrative and tech savvy.

This competitive edge in the recent times have resulted in the constant decline of the license fee structures of such systems.  Over the years the license price has dropped significantly and yet $ 1,800 per user cannot be justified as compared to miniscule amount the SaaS business charges for the services that are times, surprisingly superior more advanced than the ancient ones. Oracle for instance has seen a decline in the license renewal and revenue as compared to their cloud revenues, that have increased more than 27% recently and yet the market tends to dive their nose towards the All-in-One robust and comprehensive SaaS software. Another huge concern when we talk about ERPs is cost overrun, which is if we would just put in here in simple words is, crossing the budgets that were originally allocated for that system, sometimes as much as 70%. According to some reports and analysis, majority of these implementations fall short of expectations and fail to provide the benefits that were theoretically stated at the time of the agreement and hence, this calls on the bluff! What goes wrong is, initially a lot is only on paper and agreement and none of it is seen or experienced before deploying it completely and most of the feasibility reports are essentially, only on paper. The ground reality is that as these documentations and processes move as far away from realism, they create a divide between the end users and the providers because the support mechanism is too little and too late to make any amends. All the love lost between this time of implementations and processing, sometimes stretches over a period of few months to even a year without any visible benefits, while the only monetary benefits go to the providers.

It is imperative for the sake of such monetary losses at the hands of ERPs, that the consumer be educated about the financial growth and evident benefits they can gain when they move to SaaS cloud providers, that did not acquire the technology but built it themselves, so that they do not have to rely on third party support mechanisms and yet be using the ten year old technology that they have been using to date. Floating a few updates to the mechanism cannot bring the agility and freshness of a SaaS software that is built on the lines of user friendly UX and UI to help companies leverage their best talent and use them effectively for the sake of exponential growth year over year. Most companies these days have executives that work towards identifying how to make the most of business intelligence tools provided to them, that is where companies like “WebHR” stand out. WebHR provides such HR related business intelligence tools, that go beyond the scope of other such software out there and are an asset to any organization that wants a better return on their investment. It has blossomed and matured over time into a system capable of moving in any directions it lays it eyes on and then excelling at that, it has also been called the “workday” of the modern age HCM suites.

According to Gartner, as noted in 2015, the rise of HCM is a major contributor to the destruction of ERP suites, fired by innovative cloud solutions with more frequent updates, faster deployment and better user experience. It is noted that any integrations, for e.g. slack would take a legacy system, a lengthy set of approvals alongside a longer wait time, till they have been incorporated into the system as compared to the modern SaaS solutions, where crazy developers stay up the nights and get things done. The backend teams work cohesively like a well-oiled machinery that can take up any task that has been provided to them, nothing is impossible when it comes to achieving these targets. With the decline in these age-old ,,systems, there was a fall in the reliance of the servers they used and devices they depended upon, bringing forth the sharp rise of hyperscale cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and IBM Softlayer.

At WebHR we are doingeverything a modern HR should be doing, bringing the social aspect into HR and connecting teams, bringing them closer at work along with seamlessly interfacing and talking to other software through APIs. Staying ahead of the curve, with their 24/7 customer support, we believe in dealing with customers as part of the family and every matter is resolved without delays and customizations are made according to the needs, whenever and wherever they are required. We do know that, this leaves the age-old systems, nowhere in the race, as the current competition is amongst the modern and innovative solutions, that are bringing some novel concepts and approaches to the market, are more tech savvy and affordable to their very roots.  It would not be unjustified to say that, legacy HR systems are losing this fast-declining battle against the current point solutions providers, that are ready to bring the much-needed change.