Almost 20% of employee turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment. Business owners know an effective onboarding experience is a must. But many are unsure of how to improve the process to decrease turnover.

That’s where HR metrics come in. By measuring the success of onboarding, they will be able to identify areas of concern and opportunities in their process. Automated onboarding tools and HR dashboards make it easier than ever for companies to gain insight.

Does your company need a better onboarding process? Keep reading to find out how metrics can help.

How Do You Use HR Metrics to Improve Employee Onboarding?

HR metrics help companies understand what is working and what needs improvement. By using metrics, they can determine how to improve the employee experience. They can also measure the effectiveness of new onboarding initiatives.

HR metrics are one of the most important aspects of the onboarding process. A few areas they should measure are employee engagement, employee satisfaction, the number of new hires, and turnover rate.

Why Is a Good Employee Onboarding Experience Important? 

Employee onboarding is the process of making new employees feel welcomed and valued. It is important because it creates a sense of belonging and makes them more likely to stay with the company. Employee onboarding is important for several other reasons:

• It helps the new employee adjust to their new work environment, which in turn makes them more productive
• It helps establish a strong connection between the company and its employees
• It leads to higher retention rates and customer satisfaction
• It increases productivity by creating a sense of belonging in the workplace
• It eliminates the unnecessary time spent on learning how things work

Employees who have a good onboarding experience tend to be more engaged at work. They also stay with the company longer than those who don’t have a good onboarding experience.

7 Benefits of HR Metrics 

There are numerous benefits to using HR metrics in your organisation. The top seven include: 

1. Improve the Onboarding Process

HR metrics help companies understand how the onboarding process is going. Once they have this information, companies can improve their onboarding process.

There are many benefits to using metrics to improve the onboarding process. For instance, they help identify and eliminate bottlenecks in the process which leads to a better experience for new hires.

HR metrics also provide a detailed view of the entire onboarding process. This allows HR teams to make informed decisions about how they want to proceed with the onboarding process.

2. Understand Voluntary and Involuntary Turnover More Clearly 

Metrics show the voluntary and involuntary turnover during the onboarding process. They also help businesses determine how their employees are feeling during their first few months on the job. You can also use them to measure retention rates of new hires and whether or not they are happy with their work environment.

The benefits of using metrics to measure turnover include:

• Understanding the impact of onboarding on turnover and retention
• Identifying which jobs are more likely to cause a voluntary turnover and which ones cause an involuntary turnover
• Understanding how many employees are injured on the job
• understanding if there is a trend in employee satisfaction or turnover rate

3. Track Metrics for Each Leader 

HR metrics help businesses measure individual new hire success for each leader. They also provide a better understanding of the return on investment for each new hire.

They can determine whether the company is performing better than the industry average. Or to understand how well the individual leaders are doing. HR metrics help companies understand what their employees need to succeed and what makes them successful.

You can also use them as a tool for evaluating leadership performance. This helps companies make informed decisions about which leaders should stay or go. This helps to improve the profitability and efficiency of operations.

4. Automate Reporting 

Automated reporting provides a better understanding of the company’s culture. They can provide insights into how their employees are doing in a particular job. This helps them to make decisions on what to do next and whether or not they need to hire more people in the future.

HR professionals and business leaders alike use metrics for decisions. They can be a performance management tool to identify growth opportunities. They also make sure that the company’s goals are being met.

5. Increase Transparency

HR dashboards increase transparency for everyone in your company. They are a great way for businesses to become more transparent. They help in making the business more efficient and effective.

HR metrics also help in measuring the employee experience and providing feedback to employees. Businesses that use HR metrics have a competitive advantage over those that do not. Other benefits include:

• Easier recruitment process
• More opportunities for employee recognition and development
• Better retention rates

6. Enhance Communication Across the Organisation 

HR metrics help enhance communication across an organization. They provide a way of understanding the values and behaviors of employees.

With HR metrics, organizations gain a better understanding of employee engagement. They also understand morale and productivity better. Metrics also help in identifying employee needs for training and development.

They provide clear insights into how employees are feeling about their work environment and the company as a whole.

7. Identify Trends 

HR metrics are a part of the employee feedback system. They help companies to identify trends and change their strategies accordingly.

Workplace culture is an important factor in a company’s success. HR metrics help companies to understand what employees like and dislike about the company culture. Leaders can take that information and make changes accordingly.

HR metrics also help companies to identify employees who have the potential for growth and development. At the same time, they provide insights into how well-performing employees are doing in their roles.

How to Use HR Metrics 

Businesses use HR metrics to measure the success of their onboarding process. They also use it to assess the performance of new hires. As a result, HR metrics are now a key factor in the onboarding process.

They can be a tool for individual assessment and group assessment as well. The key is to make sure that the metrics are relevant and useful for the business goals and objectives. A few targeted ways to use metrics include: 

Measure New-Hire Satisfaction

New hires are the most valuable asset for any business. They bring new ideas, fresh perspectives, and new skillsets to the table. What makes them successful is their satisfaction with their position and company culture.

But what are the metrics that can help measure new-hire satisfaction? HR metrics can help measure how satisfied their employees are in their position. These include: 

• Employee engagement 
• Turnover rate
• Job satisfaction 

There are a few reasons why companies should use HR metrics to measure new-hire satisfaction. First, it will help companies ensure that they are hiring people who are going to be happy once they start working at the company. Second, it will help them identify areas of improvement so that their company can become more efficient and productive. Lastly, it will help them understand how well their employees are doing in comparison to other companies in the same industry.

Determine Training Completion Rate

Businesses need to understand their training completion rates. This is to make sure they are getting the most out of their training investment.

HR metrics can help them do this by letting them know how many employees are completing the required training. They also showcase what percentage of those employees are staying with the company after completing the training.

It can determine the effectiveness of their training program and whether it is efficient. Employers should use metrics such as time spent on tasks and quality of work to gain deeper insight into training. 

Assess Engagement Rates 

Employee engagement is an important metric for businesses. It helps them understand how engaged and motivated their employees are and what they can do to improve their engagement levels.

Engagement rates are measured by a variety of factors. These include the number of complaints filed by employees and the number of hours worked per week. They can help businesses make better decisions about their employees and improve performance.

Get Started With New Onboarding Tools Today 

In this article, we discussed the benefits of using HR metrics to improve your company’s onboarding process. We hope you have a clearer understanding of how impactful HR metrics can be for an organisation. 

At Jigsaw Cloud, we have years of experience in helping companies just like you in utilising HR dashboards to improve operations. Our team of experts is available to answer questions or help you get started today. 

Interested in learning more? Check out our SAP SuccessFactors solution that will improve your onboarding experience. 

The Great Resignation has left many organisations struggling to find new talent, and 91% of HR leaders are at least somewhat concerned about rising turnover.

Greater turnover is increasing the competition for new potential hires, meaning it’s more difficult to secure the talent you need. And when you factor in new remote working expectations, the challenges only grow.

To help your organisation attract, onboard, and retain remote talent, here are Jigsaw Cloud’s five steps to successful remote recruitment.

1. Connect with potential candidates

According to the CIPD, professional networking sites are one of the most effective attraction methods. By working with recruiters and talent managers, you can create bespoke messaging and email campaigns to connect with potential talent.

This proactive approach will help to nurture and engage the right kind of candidates, without waiting for them to apply.

2. Use a recruitment management platform

Nearly a third of organisations are reporting an excessive number of applicants – and it’s leading to hours of manual work.

By adopting a recruitment management platform, you can use algorithms to get greater visibility into your applicant pool – finding the best candidate in minutes and giving you the time to engage with them.

Nearly two-thirds of HR professionals report technology speeds up the recruitment process, and 37% say it also helps to reduce unconscious bias.

3. Preboard new hires

Preboarding new hires can help to accelerate their time to productivity. To support your new hires so they’re ready for work as soon as they log in, you can:

Organise paperwork

• Consolidate the information your new hires will need into a central location where they’ll be able to digitally sign and read crucial documentation

Provide equipment

• Supply new hires with technology and other equipment and schedule an IT session to help them access essential systems

Set up training sessions

• It’s vital you’re offering introductory training sessions to help new hires get to grips with your organisation, processes and new technology

Have a get-together

• Preboarding social activities will help ensure your new hires are more comfortable and will help establish a foundation for building rapport

4. Regularly communicate

Gartner reported 46% of employees interact with colleagues less when working remotely. And 53% of employees said that their interactions with colleagues were more transactional rather than meaningful – so it’s important to encourage genuine communication, especially during onboarding.

5. Ask for feedback

Without asking, you can’t know how valuable your efforts are. Employee onboarding surveys can be useful for gauging whether you’re meeting employee expectations, and how likely new hires are to stay.

This will be especially important during onboarding, as Deloitte reports that employees with less than two years on the job expressed the strongest intentions to leave.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can improve your remote recruitment, we have HR consultants with decades of experience across a wide range of sectors – just get in touch to see how we can help.

Here at Jigsaw Cloud, we’ve been helping small to medium businesses achieve their HR goals since 2004. With an experienced team of SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Litmos consultants and HR practitioners, we understand how to combine people management, technology, and process together to achieve maximum business impact.

To determine how valuable HR dashboards are, and how you can make the most out of them, we spoke to Jane Corbett, Jigsaw Cloud’s Head of Professional Services. 

In recent years, many HR leaders have been adopting dashboard solutions to gain a better view of their organisations. Dashboards can be a valuable tool for providing visibility into companywide KPIs, diversity quotas, demographics, and more.

However, they’re much more than just tracking tools; they have the capabilities to transform HR into a true strategic partner for the business.

We spoke to our Head of Professional Services, Jane Corbett, to find out how today’s HR leaders can succeed with dashboards, and what they should be looking for in the right solution. Here’s what she had to say:

What challenges drive HR leaders to build or adopt dashboard solutions?

“To help deal with challenges such as The Great Resignation, employment needs from new generations of employees, and COVID-19, it’s crucial HR leaders gain an understanding of their organisation.

Many HR and management information systems (MIS) analysts will be familiar with the increased data and report requests into headcounts, competencies, and how their business is performing against its KPIs. It’s these needs for insights that are fuelling the need for faster and more efficient reporting systems.

Unfortunately, many organisations still use offline solutions like spreadsheets to manage their data – which is often a slow and strenuous process. Using spreadsheets can involve days of manual effort collecting data from siloed sources and inputting the data into cells. It’s a lot of work before you can produce any meaningful insights, and it involves risks of errors and miscalculations.

Even if you do produce accurate insights, they’ll often be hard to visualise and difficult to understand – which is especially challenging if you want to share them with senior management teams.”

How can the right dashboard solutions address these challenges?

“Many HR systems are often big, complicated databases – and with some dashboards, that data won’t be any easier to consume. They can have the complexity of an aircraft flight deck: lots of numbers and dials but too many to view all at once.

The right dashboard should be simple. It should have high-level data in one view, and the ability to show more of what else is available in different – but just as simple – pages. It should allow data to be easily visualised and managed, without all the manual effort that’s associated with data analysis.

Effective dashboard solutions can also automate the collection of data from siloed sources and its analysis. This can give HR leaders instant access to powerful insights and reporting capabilities – helping them stay focused on their output, rather than data management.

The ability to generate and visualise consumable, real-time insights can even help HR leaders better inform senior decision makers and outside stakeholders. This leads to great conversations about what’s happening in the business and helps the entire organisation see how it’s performing against KPIs.

Finally, dashboards can equip HR leaders with the ability to evaluate their own processes, spot inefficiencies, and help them determine whether to intervene in certain scenarios – transforming HR teams into a more strategic partner throughout their businesses.”

How do dashboards work in SAP SuccessFactors?

“Dashboards within SAP SuccessFactors are created with the People Analytics solution, a single tool for reporting, insights and workforce analytics and planning. It allows for more complicated calculations than canvas reporting, and the best part is that the solution exists as part of the core HR product and comes at no extra cost.

The People Analytics solution directly connects to SAP SuccessFactors modules like Payroll, Onboarding, Compensation, Performance Management, and more, giving HR leaders easy access to the data using only one solution.

HR leaders have multiple pre-built reporting templates to choose from to analyse their central HR processes, which means the People Analytics solution is easy to get started with. And that’s one of the biggest benefits of dashboard solutions like this – they bring huge value in a straightforward, visual way.

Despite People Analytics’ ease of use, there’s still a lot of depth to its capabilities, and the potential to create highly customised dashboards and reports that meet your unique needs. And as your organisation grows, so will your data demands – whether that means tracking new KPIs or meeting new quotas – so it’s crucial you have a solution that can scale with you.”

Why is it better to partner with Jigsaw Cloud for custom HR dashboards?

“Building and maintaining custom dashboards involves a significant amount of data manipulation skills that many organisations don’t have available in house. Without these skills, it can be easy to end up with solutions that aren’t properly integrated or don’t fully meet the organisation’s needs.

The easiest way to get the most out of a dashboard solution like People Analytics is to find the right partner. Here at Jigsaw Cloud, we offer a consultancy approach to creating bespoke dashboards for our clients.

We look at what they really need from their workforce analytics, and help them build and implement customised dashboards that integrate with their existing systems and meet HR requirements from a compliance perspective. What we’re really trying to do is help our clients become self-sufficient, so they can easily build customised solutions themselves as their analytics requirements change.

That’s why training is such a big part of our process. Before a dashboard goes live, our clients build core competencies and comfort levels among their teams so that they can create any customisations they might need on top of their bespoke dashboards and reports.

Our partnership continues after the dashboards go live, too. We have a support portal and ticketing system available for any ongoing support our clients need – plus, we’re only a phone call away.”

Make the most of your HR dashboards with SAP SuccessFactors

If you’d like to find out what you could achieve with your own custom HR dashboards, or you’d like to learn more about what’s possible in SAP SuccessFactors, we have consultants like Jane with decades of HR experience across a wide range of sectors. Just get in touch to see how we can help.

A trained and motivated workforce is a source of competitive advantage. This makes human resources the most important asset in any business, with engaged employees always on the lookout for your best interests which explains why the most successful organisations recognise the important role that human capital management plays.  

Executives use several human resources terms for the different kinds of HR strategies, programs, and software that they use. Three of the most common terms that get used interchangeably are HCM, HxM, and talent management. But do they all mean the same thing and are we using the terms correctly?

Keep reading to learn the meanings of HCM, HxM and talent management and the key differences between them.

What is Human Capital Management?

HCM stands for human capital management and ‘human capital’ refers to an organisation’s people or staff. The term Human Capital includes the knowledge and skills of your employees and other related factors such as motivation/enthusiasm, loyalty, and commitment. 

Human Capital Management (HCM) refers to the strategic management of people using all available resources to draw the best out of your team. When done well, HCM helps your organisation to hire and keep the right talent.

HCM involves the use of sophisticated software and business intelligence throughout an employee’s life cycle. So, it provides tools and strategies that help your organisation navigate the complete process of recruiting, hiring, managing, and offboarding employees. Your organisation’s success almost totally depends on how well-honed your human capital is to meet its strategic objectives.

Nowadays, human capital management is a broad area of expertise that must be handled delicately to ensure that organisational goals are achieved as efficiently as possible. HCM in large organisations must be detailed yet accurate. This is why many companies fully rely on enterprise software like SAP to manage their human capital.

Human Capital Management Tools

The right HCM tools create a work environment that encourages employees to go above and beyond for your company. They help you achieve goals such as developing new products, hitting sales goals, growing market share, and reducing costs. Many organisations have found that investing in HCM software pays back in increased productivity, better business processes, and higher profitability.

SAP HCM has a strong emphasis on collecting business intelligence and the use of analytical and performance management tools. The technology accommodates automated time and attendance reporting as well as an applicant tracking system. The software also helps your HR department with payroll and benefits administration.

People analytics also becomes much easier as your HR team can use the software to collect and analyse employee data. This allows your organisation to make data-driven decisions about the right people to hire, promote and retain. The software can also help you predict your recruitment needs to run a leaner organisation.  

The administrative and strategic practices that fall under HCM include the following:

• Workforce planning
• Compensation planning
• Recruitment
• Onboarding
• Training
• Time and attendance
• Payroll
• Performance management
• Offboarding
• Workflow management
• Reporting and analytics
• Compliance
• Employee self-service functions

This may also include benefits administration and retirement services.

Human Experience Management

Most modern organisations and HR leaders use workforce management software for their people management functions. 

As we’ve already discussed, Human Capital Management (HCM) deals broadly with the efficient and effective management of the workforce, encompassing all the processes and strategies your HR department can use to ensure that your human capital performs at its best. HCM enables your organisation to follow fact-based, data-driven and measurable HR strategies and processes.

Human Experience Management (HxM) on the other hand leans towards tailoring employee expectations and workplace experiences to synergize with your organisation’s goals. This creates a win-win engagement for your employees as well as your company.

Finally, Talent Management in HCM narrows down to the daily activities an organization undertakes to maximize employee abilities to achieve the organization’s vision. HCM, HxM and Talent Management all focus on the entire employee life cycle, from recruitment to offboarding. More on talent management further down.

How Human Experience Management Works

As highlighted earlier, proper human capital management ensures that your human capital is performing at optimal levels. But how exactly can you improve the performance of your team? This is where Human Experience Management (HxM) comes in. 

To assess and optimise your workforce performance, you must first understand the needs and motivations of your human capital. Your organisation must also see to it that human capital needs and expectations are realised within the work environment. All this can be done using HxM software. HxM is about the experiences of your employees and for some a more modern take on HCM. 

Through direct engagement and feedback systems, SAP HxM software tracks your employees’ experience in the workplace. The software aims to respond to their concerns urgently and appropriately. The end goal of HxM is a wonderful experience for your employees and maximum productivity for your organisation.

One of the ways HxM does this is through various surveys that are conducted at different stages of an employee’s life cycle. From recruitment to exit, any feedback gained from such surveys is detailed. Actions are taken based on understanding the employee’s needs.

A key factor in Human Experience Management is employee benefits and compensation. Well-rewarded employees are more likely to be motivated and driven. 

Talent Management

Now that we have defined HCM vs HxM you may be wondering where Talent Management comes in. Talent management is the people-focused aspect of HCM. It’s the tactical level of day-to-day HR activities that must be followed to ensure that human capital is optimised. 

Talent management software helps your organisation to audit your talents and improve your human capital. The best software also helps you identify and develop the right talent that matches your organisation’s strategic interests. HR managers are always concerned with how to recruit, retain, promote and develop their most talented employees. 

Practically, talent management involves actions such as recruiting the right candidate and ensuring that they are seamlessly onboarded into the organisation. Once in, the organisation’s talent management system will take the form of performance management and compensation or reward planning. Employees also need to grow their skills and knowledge, so you need a training platform to manage this.

Talent Management System

A great talent management system helps your company to identify skills gaps and come up with ways to fill them. Because of their people management element, talent management activities can be extremely complicated. For instance, many companies fail at recruiting the right people because of a biased hiring team.

To succeed at this function, HR managers require fact-based, data-driven, and unbiased solutions. The right software can help your HR team improve their recruitment and performance management. This way, your company will find and keep the best talent in the industry. 

SAP has software called SuccessFactors that deals primarily with talent management functions. It helps the HR department to keep tabs on succession planning, ongoing talent reviews, talent development, and offboarding/cross boarding.

HCM vs HxM and Talent Management

So, what are the differences and similarities between HCM, HxM, and Talent Management? HCM broadly deals with all matters relating to the organisation and its workforce management strategies and processes. Meanwhile, HxM focuses on employee experiences to ensure they are feeling fulfilled in their workplace and are in a state of high motivation for ultimate productivity. 

So HCM could be said to be organisationally focused whereas HxM is the “employee-side” of the bargain in the HCM strategy. Within HCM is a talent management function that focuses on recruiting, developing and keeping the right talent for your organisation. Both HCM and HxM work together to create an HR function that meets all regulatory and organisational goals while creating an engaged workforce with a win-win mindset. 

Learning the difference between human capital management, HxM and talent management

Every organisation heavily relies on its employees to achieve its goals and visions. For this reason, HR managers are tasked with finding ways to keep employees engaged and committed to company goals.

We recommend that HR leaders use an HR management system that encompasses the use of HCM, HxM and Talent management. Integrated HR systems provide managers with the information they need to make sound, fact-based decisions.

These analytics can also provide the foundation for developing and implementing HR strategies that secure a competitive advantage for your organisation. If you’re looking for assistance with transforming your HR practices, book a demo of SAP SuccessFactors with us today. 

Find out how change has contributed to employee fatigue, how it’s affecting your business, and how you manage it effectively to minimise further disruption.

Over the past two years, employees across every industry have been through significant changes as their businesses adapted to the challenges of the pandemic.

From transitioning to hybrid working, to embracing new working processes, employees have had to manage a lot of additional pressure on top of their everyday roles – and in many cases, it’s led to fatigued workforces.

It’s a challenge that’s increasingly present on HR leaders’ minds, too. Gartner reports that 54% of HR leaders recognise their employees are fatigued from recent organisational changes. And they’re trying to solve it – Gartner’s report also revealed that change management is HR leaders’ second-biggest priority in 2022.

In this blog, we’ll explore what’s created this build-up of employee fatigue, how it’s affecting organisations, and how you can strategically manage change to minimise its disruption moving forward.

A closer look at what’s causing employee fatigue

One of the biggest changes that contributed to fatigue during the pandemic was the shift to remote and flexible working, which significantly affected how people work, and how they collaborate and socialise with their colleagues.

Remote and flexible working requires employees to manage their own schedules, often giving them more responsibility and less support. Also, it means being physically isolated from team members and other departments, which can quickly have a negative impact on team cohesion.

Managing these pressures during the onset of the pandemic undoubtedly contributed to a lot of additional stress on top of employees’ daily responsibilities and workloads. And this was only worsened by the pressure to adopt new technologies.

According to Deloitte, 75% of office workers started using at least two new types of technology for work since the start of lockdown, and a quarter of workers felt overwhelmed by all the different technologies they needed to use. Combined with the additional pandemic-related concerns around the economy, job security, and health, employees had some big burdens to carry – and they’ve had lasting effects.

Gartner’s report revealed that today’s average employee can only absorb half as much change before becoming fatigued, compared to how much they could handle in 2019. And without support, this fatigue can quickly snowball into wider business problems.

The real impact of employee fatigue

Employee fatigue often transforms into burnout, frustration, and apathy, impacting engagement and affecting organisations’ ability to remain productive.

In fact, the Gartner report identified that when employees experience high levels of fatigue, employee performance and their discretionary effort both decrease by up to 33%. Plus, fatigue has an even bigger impact on wider team working, with as much as a 39% decrease in effective team collaboration, and up to a 44% decrease in employee inclusion.

Crucially, employee fatigue has the biggest impact on employees’ intent to stay – with employees up to 54% less likely to remain with their employer if they’re highly fatigued. These pressures mean that HR leaders will need to focus on how they make organisational changes moving forward, to ensure they don’t contribute to further employee fatigue or disrupt the business.

A strategic approach to change management

Managing change and increasing your employees’ ability to cope with change will involve refocusing your organisational design strategy to consider the overall health and wellbeing of your workforce.

Helpfully, Gartner splits this new approach to organisational design into three key focus points: healthy employees, healthy relationships, and healthy environments.

As part of supporting the health of your employees, it’ll be important to organise regular check-up meetings to gauge individuals’ stress levels. And if you haven’t already, it’d be beneficial to introduce wider team welfare meetings that consider the needs of the workforce.

These are also considerations many employees want to see, with almost half of workers (46%) willing to share their personal health data with their employers to improve their wellbeing at work.

It’s not just about managing health on an individual level, either – you’ll need to consider the relationships between colleagues, and between line reports and managers. You’ll need to find opportunities for collaborative projects that help build team cohesion, and create spaces where employees can openly communicate and share their thoughts and experiences around company changes, no matter where they’re based.

These efforts will ultimately pay off, as HRDrive reported that businesses with strong team cohesion have 1.8x greater capacity for change than those with low team cohesion.

Gartner’s third focus point, creating a healthy environment, will mean changing how you lead everyday change. The most successful organisations adopt an open-source approach, actively engaging all employees at every step of change, rather than leading it from the top down. As well as increasing inclusion and trust, adopting an open-source approach can increase the probability of change success by as much as 24%.

Of course, making changes across these three focus areas doesn’t just involve one-time efforts. It’ll involve monitoring the health of your employees, teams, and working environment over time to identify the effects of your changes – and ensure you’re moving in the right direction.

Need help managing the change?

If you’d like to discuss how you can minimise disruption and mitigate employee fatigue, we have dedicated HR consultants with decades of experience across a wide range of sectors – just get in touch to see how we can help

Discover how you’re responsible for driving sustainable changes in your business – and get some best practice advice to help your organisation be greener.

Following the pandemic, almost every industry looks a little different – and in a lot of cases, they’re more sustainable. The pandemic forced organisations to adopt hybrid working, digitalise their processes, and implement virtual communications technology – all practices that reduced companies’ carbon footprints and created new opportunities for companies to drive sustainable changes.

Now, many organisations are looking to cement those sustainable practices in place and commit to their sustainability goals. And since people play such a big part in actioning sustainable change, HR leaders will be expected to step up and manage this movement.

In this blog, we’ll look at the importance of going green and the responsibilities that sit with HR, and offer best practice advice on how you can drive sustainable changes in your business.

Why sustainability matters

Climate change is already having an impact on working environments, as well as employee health and productivity – through extreme weather, natural disasters, and changing demographics.

In fact, according to a 2019 report by the International Labour Organization, an increase in heat stress resulting from global warming is projected to lead to global productivity losses equivalent to 80 million full-time jobs by the year 2030. To mitigate these effects, every organisation will be responsible for adopting and maintaining sustainable practices – sooner rather than later.

But cutting carbon emissions isn’t the only benefit to gain from adopting sustainable practices – there’s also the chance to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and create a more compelling place to work for potential employees.

According to an IBM survey, 71% of employees and employment seekers say that environmentally sustainable organisations are more attractive employers – giving them an edge to gaining and retaining the best talent. And, a report by PwC suggested the interest in working for a sustainable employer is already leading to wider changes, with 36% of HR professionals building their hiring strategies around their organisations’ social and environmental stance.

It pays to be sustainable, too – customers also want to see greener organisations. According to Deloitte’s 2021 study, 34% of the UK’s consumers have previously chosen brands that have environmentally sustainable practices, and 32% would be willing to pay more for goods and services from brands that commit to reducing their carbon footprint.

These factors mean it’s more important than ever to adopt sustainable practices, and like many organisation-wide initiatives, HR will need to play a key role in driving the change.

Keeping your employees safe should be one of your first priorities, which can be more difficult when they’re working remotely. You’ll need to understand your responsibilities as an employer, and ensure remote work environments are compliant and meet the necessary safety regulations, all without being too intrusive in your employees’ personal spaces.

These safety precautions need to extend to your office environment too. During the remote working period of the pandemic, your teams may have expanded, and that means you need to provide a suitable office environment that can comfortably support the full capacity of your workforce.

In addition to safety, you’ll likely face reluctance from some employees to return to the workplace at all. It’ll be crucial you host honest and constructive negotiations with these employees, to understand their demands and challenges, and clearly communicate their contracted obligations.   

It can also be harder to keep track of tasks when employees are working from home; how you manage remote workers is likely to be different than if they were in the office. The same goes for keeping people engaged and responsive.

This is where having the right communication tools will become essential. Everybody needs to be using the same platforms, and be easily contactable at any time – no matter the working environment they’re in.

How you can lead sustainable change

As a first step, you’ll need to identify how sustainable your organisation currently is. The Department for Environmental, Food, and Rural Affairs has a helpful guide for how you can estimate your carbon footprint – or you can use an online carbon footprint calculator, or get support from an external professional.

Using your carbon footprint measurements, you’ll be able to set more specific sustainability goals. To ensure these goals are relevant and realistic, you can align them with international agreements like the UN’s Sustainable Development goals – or the European Green Deal, which aims to make Europe’s climate neutral by 2050. These will offer a helpful guideline as to what you should be aiming for, and what other businesses are working towards.

Once you’ve outlined your goals, you’ll need to look in granular detail at your HR processes and identify how they could be adapted to be more sustainable. Chances are, you’ll have already adopted virtual communication software, and the majority of your documentation will be digital.

However, lots of organisations are still printing, particularly during the onboarding process – think contracts, handbooks and other documentation that needs to be signed. Instead, with the right HR technology, your employees can access new start paperwork in an easy-to-use employee portal and digitally sign anything they need to, saving printing costs and reducing emissions.

Offering hybrid working is another way to reduce your organisation’s carbon footprint. According to the ONS, a reduction in personal travel, including commuting to work, drove household greenhouse gas emissions down by 25 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2020. And by avoiding the commute just one day per week, across a year with 46 working weeks, you’ll save the equivalent of 337kg in CO₂ per employee. Having set out your goals to begin with, you can easily track and monitor your energy efficiency, waste reduction, total emissions, and progress to carbon neutrality – and see the difference organisation-wide changes can make.

Engaging employees

It’s also important to engage your workforce. Many organisations are working to create sustainably conscious workforces, with 82% of business leaders believing organisations should support employees in making sustainable decisions.

You can start engaging employees by running environmental surveys to identify the varying levels of knowledge across your teams, and figure out what’s most important to your existing workforce. Not only will this help support your future sustainability goals, but it’ll also help to engage employees in the overall sustainability conversation.

Once you’ve identified your employees’ sustainability knowledge, you can offer short, regular training sessions on your new sustainability goals, carbon neutrality, reducing resource use, and printing – to make sustainability part of the company-wide conscience, and help employees operate more efficiently. You’ll also be able to use these sessions as an opportunity to share how your goals will impact them and their day-to-day work on a granular level, as well as organisation wide.

One way you could deliver effective training is by using modern eLearning solutions. Using these solutions, you can manage, develop, and deploy both instructor-led learning and self-serve online training – providing personalised modules, automating compliance training, and giving your employees the freedom to access training resources whenever it suits them most.

Plus, offering a rewards scheme for most completed modules or biggest improvement is likely to get your workforce invested and incentivised to learn more about sustainable practices, and action them across their daily responsibilities.

Get in touch and go green

If you’d like to delve further into your role in creating a more sustainable organisation, we have consultants with decades of HR experience across a wide range of sectors – just get in touch to see how we can help

Identify the critical skills and competencies your organisation needs to become resilient in 2022 — and find out how to start building them.

Staying resilient and reducing risk across your organisation demands completely new skillsets that either weren’t needed or didn’t exist before the pandemic. To future-proof your organisation and stay ahead of the competition, you’ll need to assess the skills your employees have today and spot where your gaps are. 

Below, we’ll explore how you can evaluate your organisation’s current skillsets, source and grow any additional skills your teams need, and use valuable tools to track skills development across your employees.  

Evaluating your current skills

Stepping back and taking stock of your current skills is a crucial first step to future-proofing your organisation, but there’s no doubt it’s a tricky challenge. 

If you’re a business that spans multiple locations with dozens of people, it might be difficult to gain a clear oversight of your teams and their skillsets. And equally, if you’re a smaller business, it can be hard to identify skills gaps among your teams if you don’t know the skillsets you need.

In either case, using a central HR platform with the right succession planning tools can help you identify and track the existing skills among your employees, spot top performers, and ensure everybody is in the right roles within your organisation. 

It’s also a good idea to speak to the line managers, as they’ll have their finger on the pulse as to who’s ready to progress and expand their skillset, who could do with additional support, and where there are specific skills missing among your teams.

Closing your skills gaps

Once you’ve identified which missing skills you need to become more resilient, you can start to develop them across your organisation. But you’ll need to make sure you have the right tools and development structures in place to grow these skills effectively. 

A great place to start is by focusing on the skills your employees actually want to develop. They’ll benefit by gaining a chance to progress their careers, and you’ll benefit by raising employee morale and broadening skillsets among your teams. Plus, PwC reports that 74% of employees are ready to learn new skills or completely retrain in order to remain employable in the future – so there’s a clear appetite for opportunities to learn.

Supporting skills development doesn’t need to take up a lot of your senior employees’ time, either. With an easy-to-use modern eLearning platform, you can offer your employees access to training resources wherever they’re based, giving them a chance to take control of their development journeys.

Modern eLearning platforms can also be useful for developing softer skills such as communication, empathy, and emotional intelligence among your employees and managers. Skills like these have become even more important since the pandemic – with many teams working remotely, soft skills are crucial to keeping employees engaged and motivated, and feeling like they’re supported. 

How technology can help

Succession and eLearning platforms aren’t the only technologies that can help you fill your skills gaps and become more resilient. With the right performance management tools, you can continuously assess the growing skillsets across your business and keep track of where you’re missing any essential skills. 

Many of these tools will offer automated insights on what’s working within your business and what isn’t, and help you manage goals across the teams and structure performance reviews.

For the skills you can’t develop within your business, you’ll need to recruit – but the recruitment process doesn’t need to take up all your time and resources. Many HR leaders are already using dedicated recruitment management tools to simplify the recruitment process for candidates, and automate a lot of the administration tasks involved with application management.

There are other automation opportunities across your business, too. A lot of today’s HR leaders are using AI-powered tools such as chatbots to automate data management processes, and help employees book holidays and record absences. With these repetitive tasks covered, it leaves you and your employees free to use your skills in more valuable parts of your business.

Ready to get the skills you need in 2022?

If you’d like to explore how you can build critical skills and competencies in your organisation, we have consultants with decades of HR experience across a wide range of sectors – just get in touch to see how we can help. 

Discover how the pandemic has impacted productivity, see what’s behind the statistics, and explore how you can manage performance effectively.

The pandemic triggered a huge shift in working structures, with government guidance sending many employees to work from home – and with it, came a big shift in productivity.

With new working environments filled with different distractions, employees had to adapt quickly. For some, the freedom and lack of structure made them more productive, but for others, it had some serious consequences.

In this blog, we’ll look at productivity statistics from the pandemic to explore the true impact the disruption had on employees, what the results mean, and how you can manage productivity among your employees going forward.

A boost in productivity

Productivity statistics throughout the pandemic varied drastically across individuals, organisations, and industries. But surprisingly, for a time of such disruption, there were a lot of results that suggested remote working boosted productivity.

According to Deloitte, 55% of workers believe that their colleagues are just as, if not more, productive now than before the national lockdown measures. And according to a study by the University of Southampton, 54% of people thought their productivity had gotten higher for every hour they worked compared to before the pandemic.

For many organisations that saw remote workers’ productivity rise, technology has been at the forefront of that success.

In a lot of cases, the pandemic has sped up the adoption of technology – with 75% of office workers using at least two new types of technology for work. From teleconferencing platforms that support online video calls to workflow automation tools, the pandemic forced organisations to digitally transform to survive.

And for the most part, those that were quick to adopt these technologies saw the benefits in their productivity. Automation has helped employees focus on more valuable and important tasks, and remote working has seen 12.9% more meetings, keeping employees engaged, connected, and motivated.

Reports suggest employer support increased productivity

It isn’t just technology that’s had an important impact on employee productivity – employer support played a big role too.

Many employers recognised that happier workers are more productive, and introduced measures to support their employees’ wellbeing during the pandemic. These covered everything from being lenient towards childcare responsibilities and pandemic-related anxiety, to setting up virtual coffee mornings and social events. Ultimately, many of these efforts had a positive effect – 53% of UK workers think that wellbeing has become more of a priority for their employer since lockdown.

However, these positive effects in productivity might not necessarily all be down to helpful efforts from employers. Greater productivity could also be attributed to longer workdays and a blurring of workplace boundaries. The average workday increased by 48.5 minutes through the pandemic, and 8.3% more emails were sent after business hours – giving people more time and flexibility to complete tasks.

Where was productivity negatively affected?

While working longer hours increased productivity for some organisations, they haven’t triggered a rise in productivity for every team. In fact, 69% of employees experienced symptoms of burnout during the pandemic, and 56% said they found it harder to switch off.

Another main cause for a dip in productivity was employees working separately from their colleagues. Sitting at a screen all day is a very different experience from being in the office, collaborating, and spending lunch with colleagues, with 67% of people feeling less connected to their colleagues when working remotely.

This disconnected feeling was even worse for employees working from either a sofa or bedroom. Of those without a suitable desk or work environment, 59% said they felt more isolated from their colleagues.

Pandemic-related anxiety led to a negative effect on productivity

On top of unstable working conditions, the pandemic itself was also a key factor in why productivity was negatively affected for some organisations.

It comes as no surprise that anxiety was high in the pandemic, and government-imposed lockdowns and working from home guidance had big impacts on productivity. A recent report from Deloitte revealed that 38% of workers said lockdown measures had a negative impact on their wellbeing, leading to low morale and difficulty concentrating.

Plus, these effects were worse for people who were poorly productive before the pandemic. One study found the lack of productivity was rooted in the individual, and only exacerbated by remote working.

With a greater level of trust involved in remote working, it’s easier for employees to be less productive because they’re out of sight and isolated from their immediate colleagues or senior management. And this isn’t just a problem for those who already struggled with productivity – 85% of UK workers admitted to slacking off when working from home, and instead concentrating on household responsibilities and browsing online content.

How you can manage productivity

Managing remote workforces, many employers struggled to measure how their productivity was affected during the pandemic – but now, a lot of organisations are starting to find new solutions through technology.

A recent Gartner report revealed that 16% of employers have started monitoring their employees through virtual clocking in and out, tracking computer usage and checking email and internal communications.

Using automated solutions, employers can also track their employee’s productivity in granular detail, without being distracted themselves. For example, many employers are using performance management tools to track employee output, monitor their time and attendance, and manage their development goals.

It shouldn’t just stop at productivity, either. It’s also crucial to monitor employee engagement as wellbeing, as these factors are tightly linked to fluctuations in productivity.

Employees thrive in safe, clean, and strategically designed work environments, and can’t be expected to be productive all the time. It’s important to recognise productive limits and build these into KPI and performance targets, to protect from burnout and stress, and increase overall efficiency.

Enhance your productivity

If you’d like to discuss further how you can better track and improve productivity, we have consultants with decades of HR experience across a wide range of sectors – just get in touch to see how we can help.

Award Presented at Customer Success Summit 2022 

London, 14th February 2022 – Jigsaw Cloud today announced it received an SAP® EMEA N Award for Partner Excellence 2022 for Cloud Delivery. 

Awards were presented by SAP to the top-performing SAP partners in northern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa that have made outstanding contributions to driving digital transformation for businesses that use SAP solutions. Recipients – in partnership with SAP – help customers adopt innovation, gain results rapidly, grow sustainably, and run more simply with SAP solutions.   

“We are absolutely thrilled to receive this SAP Partner Excellence Award for Cloud Delivery for the second year running. To be a winner amongst so many partners across the whole of Northern Europe, and across all cloud software categories, is testament to the quality of work and dedication of our team to deliver to very best SAP^® SuccessFactors^® solutions and services to our clients. A great start to the year!”

Paul Rae, CEO, Jigsaw Cloud

Commenting further, Jane Corbett, Head of Professional Services at Jigsaw Cloud said: 

“We have worked in partnership with SAP for nearly 20 years and are incredibly proud to be an SAP gold partner. It is this partnership, and our shared passions, that enable us to deliver outstanding customer experiences throughout the customer journey.”

Jane Corbett, Head of Professional Services, Jigsaw Cloud

Selected from SAP’s wide-ranging partner base, nominations for the SAP Partner Excellence Awards were based on internal SAP sales data. A steering committee composed of regional and global SAP representatives determined winning partners in each category according to numerous criteria such as sales achievement and performance. Awards were presented in a variety of categories, including overall sales, innovation, technology, services and solution-specific areas.  

“Yet again, our SAP Partner Excellence Award winners demonstrate how they go over and above to deliver outstanding experiences for customers. Huge congratulations to Jigsaw Cloud for winning this award in the cloud delivery category.” 

Veronique Hangard, Head of Channel, EMEA North

Jigsaw Cloud received its award during the Customer Success Summit 2022, a gathering of SAP executives, SAP field employees, and partners. This is SAP’s largest yearly sales meeting, focused on exchanging information on SAP’s strategy, sales methodology, growth opportunities, and product innovations, as well as ways to drive success during the year. 

At too many organisations, employees’ learning and development (L&D) needs get permanently put on the back burner – or consigned to an annual, team-based training day, that’s forgotten the moment staff return to their posts. But research shows there’s every reason for employers to take a smarter, more robust approach.

You only need to look at employee attitudes to get a sense of the value of L&D: LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning report revealed 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. Similarly, the absence of structured L&D can have damaging effects – a survey by go2HR showed that 40% of employees who receive poor job training leave their positions in the first year.

While the benefits of investing in your workforce are hard to ignore, putting an effective strategy in place that generates positive results can be challenging. If you’re looking for practical advice, SAP Litmos has published an excellent guide for building your strategy and developing a culture of learning across your teams. 

It’s available to read now – but before you jump in, read on, and we’ll unpack the three key pillars of modern learning discussed in the guide.

#1 Learning and development needs to be continuous

One of the most important considerations of L&D is that it needs to be ongoing, not a process you complete at the start of your role or just on dedicated team development days. Employees need to be able to challenge themselves to learn new skills and knowledge throughout their careers.

The benefits of continuous learning are twofold: employees feel like their employers are invested in their development, and it’s more cost-effective for organisations to train and upskill their existing employees than rehire. It can have a significant impact on employee morale, too – a LinkedIn Pulse survey revealed that having opportunities for development is the second most important factor in workplace happiness, after the work itself.

Successful, continuous learning needs to involve personalised and actionable development plans mapped to company objectives and individual career paths.

These action plans can include multiple forms of learning, from formal options such as university courses and online workshops to less formal options like research-based and on-the-job training. Critically, whatever employees’ development plans include, managers need to be involved and onboard – otherwise, employees might be hesitant to give up their working time.

#2 Learning and development needs to be content-rich

Content-rich learning means delivering intuitive, engaging content as part of your L&D strategy that makes it simpler for employees to learn. And with such a wide variety of digital courses available, it’s easy to offer employees valuable L&D plans without creating your own materials. 

For common topics like customer service, leadership, and compliance, it’s often more cost-effective to purchase professionally developed, video-based content for your teams – giving managers more time for high-level strategic planning. 

It’s an L&D trend that’s been especially useful as more industries have embraced remote working. Since the pandemic, 73% of L&D professionals expect to spend less on instructor-led training, while 79% expect to spend more on online learning.

According to the LinkedIn 2021 Workplace Learning Report

Ideally, you’ll want to find a unified learning management platform that offers pre-packaged courses and resources in a single environment – one that makes it easy for managers to curate personalised learning plans and simplifies the learning experience for employees.

#3 Learning and development needs to be immediate

With more employees taking control of their learning and development, it’s important employers offer immediate access to the resources they need, whenever they need them. 

“Employees use social media in their spare time to satisfy their curiosity right when they need it. It should be exactly the same with work. We must create corporate learning experiences that match consumer-grade experiences.”

Banco Santander’s Global Head of Knowledge, Elizabeth Galli

And creating these fast, consumer-grade experiences is easier with the right technology behind you. Global consultant McKinsey suggests that technology platforms – like next-generation learning-management systems, embedded performance-support systems, and learning assessment systems – are the most significant enablers of “just-in-time” learning. They’ll help you deliver L&D content in convenient formats that are accessible from wherever your employees are working.  

McKinsey also suggests that for such technologies to have the greatest impact, they should be fitted into your overall system architecture, supporting the entire talent cycle from recruitment and onboarding to career management and succession planning.

Embrace modern learning across your organisation – read the guide

Understanding these key pillars will set you in good stead as you launch your new L&D strategy. But there’s still a lot more to consider.

The SAP Litmos guide breaks the path to modern learning into three straightforward steps that’ll help you identify what L&D should look like in your organisation, and the actions you’ll need to take to put your plan into action. 

Download your copy of 3 steps to modern eLearning here.