Tilos`s InfoSlips electronic payslip a hit at personnel management conference

Tilos Business Solutions returned from the Institute for Personnel Management conference this year with more than 100 leads, and a number of companies have already bought its product, InfoSlips, which was demonstrated at the conference.

Many other organisations are in the process of being signed up for the package, built on Microsoft technology. Microsoft locally has become one of the first to implement InfoSlips.

Alan Burger, a director of Tilos, says: "HR is not renowned for innovative technology, so there was a lot of interest in this system, which uses the Microsoft Information Bridge add-in for Microsoft Office 2003 to deliver real value to clients."

Burger says InfoSlips embraces the paperless trend in IT, by delivering payslips via e-mail, which can be accompanied by much other employee- or HR-related information.

The paperless trend has been spurred by the promulgation of acts such as the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act, and the approval by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) of electronic payslips.

In addition, there is more awareness and acceptance among companies to move towards a paperless office in many ways.

Burger says the cost savings are numerous, making it logical to go the electronic route. The savings relate primarily to paper costs, printing and distribution, either via in-house labour or couriers.

InfoSlips consists of a variety of InfoParts relating to the personal information of the employee, such as pension, next of kin or marriage details.

Employers can tag EduSlips to their employees` payslips, the premise being that one piece of documentation an employee will pay attention to is his payslip. EduSlips are snippets of educational content that are packaged with the payslip, such as information on retirement, tax, savings, leave available or credit rating.

"Employers can target different employees with different EduSlips. For example, a new staff member may receive information on company policy and procedure or branding. Older employees could receive information on retirement and those who are pregnant details on the company`s maternity leave policy, or AIDS awareness.

"These targeted EduSlips can be driven from the employee database, where all the employees` personal information is stored.

"Because electronic payslips are up to 50% cheaper to deliver, the company can add a number of InfoParts which, while driving up the price of delivery, will add more value.

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He says most of Tilos`s competitors, in this space, only use password protection to keep employees` information secure. "The problem is, if the information is compromised, you can never change the password for a particular month`s electronic payslip.

"In addition, if the password is changed on a regular basis, the employee will end up with different payslips having different passwords, making it difficult to remember which password belongs to which month."

InfoSlips uses a personal user key (PUK), which operates on the same principle used with cellphones. The PUK is received by an employee with his welcome letter. This PUK is used to open the first InfoSlip, after which the user chooses a password. The system never prompts for the PUK after that, and when the employee changes his password, each payslip will use the new password. If the employee forgets his password he can reset it by using his PUK.

Additional security is ensured if someone tries to hack the password. After three tries the system locks them out and asks for the PUK code. Only the employee knows the PUK code. It is not known to the employer or Tilos. If the employee loses the PUK, the company can generate a new one and resend all the employee`s payslips, which can be accessed with the new PUK.

If the employee has a query about anything on the payslip, it automatically generates an e-mail, containing a message relating to the query, with a unique code that can be traced back to the original enquiry.

"We are busy extending the model to Microsoft Office 2003," says Burger. "Employees using Word, Excel and Outlook will enjoy instant access to their information."

"For example, if a line manager or the HR department is typing a Word document to an employee, the system will automatically retrieve all information on that person, by recognising his name or ID number or any other tag unique to that employee. This is made possible using Microsoft`s Information Bridge technology."

In the medium-term, the technology could be used to confirm an employee`s earnings when he wants to open an account on a Saturday morning, for example. Usually, the person wishing to open the account would have to wait until the Monday when the employer`s offices are open, for the retailer to check his details. By that time, the impulse buying opportunity could be gone.

Instead, the employee could carry a card containing a centralised telephone number the retailer could call to verify his details. The card would contain information about the employer and salary, so the person taking the call would not give out any information, but simply verify that the information the retailer furnished is correct.

"This would also prevent fraud, such as when people give a friend`s number to the store and the friend lies on the person`s behalf about salary and employment details," Burger says. "The verification tool would ensure the retailer is speaking to the right person."