How tech can shift your HR function from tactical to strategic

A significant 41% of a typical HR professional’s time is spent on transactional activities.¹ The admin burden in the Aged Care sector is particularly heavy. Whether it’s tracking mandatory care minutes, ensuring qualifications are up-to-date, or producing reports for government authorities, these responsibilities add stress to already-stretched Aged Care operators.

HR technology can of course ease that admin burden, but it can also help with other, more strategic HR objectives.

What is strategic HR?

Put simply, strategic HR is a way of managing human capital and aligning it with business priorities. It sets the direction for all areas within HR’s mandate, from talent acquisition through to employee engagement, retention and development.

Today, a strategic approach to HR in Aged Care will be shaped and facilitated by two important elements:

1. Technology: Digitalisation of HR started with automating administrative tasks and has evolved to focus on gathering, analysing, and acting on workforce data to help leaders make more informed decisions. Looking ahead, AI-driven technology will focus on delivering a personalised, end-to-end employee experience (EX).
2. Data and analytics: Data will increasingly be used to help customise and track in real-time the needs of individuals. Data and the associated reporting functions of software also play an important role in compliance. AI and machine learning means that different datasets can be compared and insights generated. Historical data sourced from other business intelligence platforms can be combined with HR/people-related data to forecast ahead.

How can a human capital management (HCM) suite help?

Aged Care providers need appropriate workforce management and HR technology solutions to help HR teams evolve into strategic business units.

A HCM suite can help to:

• Ensure rosters and schedules are fair, equitable and meet compliance needs
• Communicate to what is often a dispersed, casual workforce
• Support workers with training, while also ensuring workers hold up-to-date qualifications
• Produce data and reports for compliance purposes and to identify threats and opportunities
• Improve visibility of and gain insights from staff (i.e. feedback channels)
• Enhance key components of the employee experience (EX) such as performance management, health and wellbeing, recognition & reward, etc.
   

When researching HR technology, you’ll find there are plenty of ‘all-in-one’, ‘does everything’ systems that offer everything from ATS to payroll in one platform. Then there are ‘point solution’ vendors that offer more specialised (or best-of-breed) functionality.

The most cost-effective solution, however, may be a best-in-one HCM suite like Humanforce. This represents the best of both worlds: the freedom to choose the in-depth functionality of specialised tools, and the power and convenience of an integrated all-in-one platform.

Humanforce offers solutions covering human resource management, workforce management, talent acquisition, payroll, and wellbeing benefits. Each solution has the extensive, in-depth features expected in a specialised tool, but can harness the power and convenience of an all-in-one suite.

Several features found within Humanforce’s HCM suite can help HR become a truly strategic function. These include:

Insights and trends

Humanforce Workforce Analytics helps HR leaders and site managers make better decisions with robust analytics and reporting that transforms your Humanforce data into actionable insights.

Key reports in Workforce Analytics can track absenteeism, tardiness, labour costs and many other performance metrics. However, aged care providers also benefit from Humanforce’s AN-ACC Real-Time Dashboard. This unique feature provides:

• Real-time visibility of adherence to care minute targets, based on time rostered and time worked
• The ability to nominate which roles contribute to care minutes, and nominate the extent to which each role contributes to care through percentage allocations
• The ability to view resident care minutes and Registered Nurse (RN) care minutes against schedule in a single report to maintain star rating for facilities
• The ability to identify excessive and insufficient resourcing to ensure cost-effective compliance

Compliance

The Humanforce Awards & Compliance solution is powered by a pay conditions engine. Complex calculations based on the relevant award are automated to ensure payment of employees is accurate. In addition, Humanforce displays the award interpretation directly in the roster, highlighting overtime and providing accurate expected labour costs so managers can stay in control.

Employee engagement

Happy employees are generally more productive — and that helps the bottom line. They also tend to go above and beyond for the people in their care. That’s why employee engagement is a strategic business imperative in Aged Care. Humanforce’s Employee Engagement solution allows you to customise survey forms, collect feedback, measure and improve engagement across your business.

The strength of any organisation — but especially those in Aged Care — lies in its people. A well-executed HR strategy supported by the right technology can give you the edge in a competitive, highly regulated industry.

Keen to know more? Download your guide to strategic HRM in Aged Care today and discover how a HCM suite like Humanforce can transform your business.

^{1. “The new disrupted world of work: Seven practices for high-impact HR”, The Josh Bersin Company, 2017}