Software Futures has unveiled its Employee Productivity Suite, a packaged set of software and services that provides small and medium businesses with the tools they need to streamline their HR administration processes and give staff better access to organisational knowledge.
The suite enhances productivity by providing employees with a single, unified Web-based interface into the applications they use, as well as employee self-service (ESS) tools such as online forms, collaborative tools and company information.
It provides the organisation with more accurate and timely information about its employees, and increases employee satisfaction by cutting down on red tape and facilitating their communication with the business. In its standard form, the suite can be rolled out in a few weeks and provide a return on investment in under a year.
Ziaan Hattingh, marketing manager responsible for custom business solutions at Software Futures, says: "Many mid-tier South African organisations need to boost the productivity of their people and increase the efficiency of their HR administration processes.
"Their need is apparent through a number of symptoms such as loss of productivity thanks to time staff spend travelling, problems keeping track of staff leave, the need to make heavy provision for leave pay, poor staff retention and high costs for training new or existing staff. Our suite is designed to address all of these problems."
The suite bundles:
* A range of HR administration and collaboration applications developed by Software Futures;
* Web page customisation and content management tools; and
* The implementation services customers need to get the suite up and running.
Because the suite is component-based, Software Futures can tailor it to the specific needs of individual customers.
Companies can integrate their line of business and existing ERP infrastructures to create one point of entry to all applications, providing users with single sign-on access to all resources.
The suite streamlines communications between employees and the organisation by providing online forms for leave applications, claims for commission, overtime and expenses, as well as for approvals by a manager or the HR department.
It also enables companies to cut travel costs by providing employees with rich tools for online collaboration and communication, such as instant messaging applications, online meeting places and virtual team environments for project management and resource sharing.
The suite incorporates some knowledge management tools such as an employee data matrix that documents the organisation's skills, mentoring processes and procedures, as well as operational areas of responsibility. The solution facilitates communication between organisation and employee through tools such as staff surveys and polls that allow the business to track staff morale and opinions. A dashboard gives employees constant feedback about their performance in the form of 360-degree peer reviews, performance assessments and key performance indicators.
Other features include point-based loyalty and reward programmes to improve staff satisfaction and retention, as well as customisable online employee induction and training modules.
"The Employee Productivity Suite will pay for itself in most organisations within a year just from the cost savings they can achieve by automating the processing of employee forms such as leave forms, and commission and expense claims," says Hattingh.
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