Qinthara Fasya | 11 November 2021
Nigel Lim shares how companies can turn crisis into a HR opportunity
Co-Founder of Payboy
It takes a lot of effort to run a Human Resources department. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, the way we work is continually shifting, and most businesses can’t forecast what will happen in a few weeks or days, so they must learn to manage their employees swiftly.
Companies must invest in new technologies to both improve the employee experience and raise the bottom line in order to satisfy the requirements of a contemporary workplace and to recruit the finest grade people. DigitalCFO Asia spoke with Nigel Lim, Co-Founder of Payboy, on how automation helped alleviate HR stresses throughout the pandemic.
Harnessing Technology to Improve Employee Experience
Many businesses rely heavily on their workforce. When firms utilize technology to collect data from their employees in order to monitor and nurture their staff, they may create a tight feedback loop. Companies may successfully evaluate and improve indicators such as staff turnover, employee happiness, and new recruit onboarding time by implementing these technologies. We would be able to continue to empower our staff and maintain a great working environment if we were given concrete statistics on how they are doing and how pleased they are.
Due to the increased awareness and limitations, several industries have seen a drop in sales income. The supply chain has also been interrupted as a result of the epidemic.
As firms’ bottom lines suffer, they may be forced to make pay reductions in order to stay afloat. We’re seeing more of these instances, and we’re doing everything we can to help companies keep their employees motivated and engaged during these trying times.
The biggest problem for firms right now in terms of HR is knowing the COVID-19 requirements and ensuring that all workers are aware of the safe distance measures that must be implemented. This is a problem that labor-intensive companies like hospitality, retail, and food and beverage must deal with.
Employers must ensure that employees are engaged at the same time. Prior to the outbreak, everyone was at work. As a result, communication became simpler. However, at this point, everyone works from home, and contact isn’t as regular as it once was.
Transiting from Offline to Online
Payboy takes care of the entire employee lifecycle starting early on from the recruitment process. They also support employers in tracking candidate applications to a certain job posting. Once companies find the right hire, we then ensure that onboarding is seamlessly done via our system.
New hires will have easy access to all the other modules of the system such as applying for leave and making claims. If they have to track attendance at work, they can easily record and access data via Payboy’s mobile app as well. The system is designed to be user-friendly and deployable in modules, making it ideal for start-ups and small businesses.
Using a variety of digital tools such as Slack, Jira and Google Suite to automate initiatives across all business functions, Payboy makes use of available APIs on the digital tools to make sure data is synchronised, and different functions get the data they need on demand. With the Xero integration, finance functions can easily synchronise payroll data to the different general ledgers for reporting needs.
Nigel understands the challenges that companies may face when transiting from offline to online. Based on his experience working with various clients, companies usually start with digitising their payroll, followed by exploring an attendance tracking module and express claims processing as well.
Companies struggled with the transition to remote working because they depended on old technology or on-premises equipment. People didn’t get paid, and firms ground to a standstill without this crucial business function and the trained payroll specialists who delivered it. With the help of competent HR technology, Payboy was able to lead businesses in the correct way.
