Happy Bonifacio Day |Philippine Holiday

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

25761773562587.1fC3zArErhJSq7i6bJqR_height640

Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro (November 30, 1863 – May 10, 1897) was a Filipino nationalist and revolutionary leader. He is often called “the Father of the Philippine Revolution”. He was a founder and later Supremo (“supreme leader”) of the Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or simply and more popularly called Katipunan, a movement which sought the independence of the Philippines from Spanish colonial rule and started the Philippine Revolution.^[1]^[2] He is considered a de factonational hero of the Philippines,^[3] and is also considered by some Filipino historians to be the first President of the Philippines (through the revolutionary government he established), but officially he is not recognized as such.^[4]^{[5] *wikipedia}

Top Work Benefits Millennials Actually Want

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Nix Eniego

Millennials are taking over.

Sure, there are countless of articles about how millennials are “entitled”. A quick Google Search will yield a handful of results. But it’s not a secret that millennials are rapidly taking over the workforce.

By 2030, millennials will be making over 75% of the entire workforce. I’m not good at math, but I know that’s A LOT.

So if you’re a hiring manager, or a business owner, it’s important to take note of exactly what millennials value in terms of work benefits.

You will find more statistics at Statista

This shows that majority of millennials actually care more about two things over monetary bonuses.

Most managers assume that in order to keep millennials happy or attract them to join the company, money should be dangled like a big slab of steak. While cash bonuses are very much appreciated, training and development and flexible working hours are valued higher by millennials.

When you think about it, the top two work benefits that millennials value the most actually will cost you LESS than cash bonuses.

Flexible Working Hours

Flexible working hours are becoming more and more popular these days. 77% of millennials actually prefer flexible working hours. They feel that they are more productive and have more freedom in the workplace. This, as studies and millennials claim, boost their productivity.

Photo from http://www.bentley.edu/

Millennials hate the regular 9 to 5 cycle, so it’s understandable why they value a “flexi schedule” over cash bonuses.

But what’s more surprising is the top benefit millennials value the most…

Training and Development

And they said millennials were lazy?

This stat is the most alarming, yet also the most encouraging.

This means that millennials value being trained and learning more to become better at their craft. The best part about this is that training and development can actually cost less than giving a performance bonus (not saying you shouldn’t give your employees one though!).

The more you actually invest in training your employees, the more they’re likely to stay and produce better results.

Conclusion

You don’t need a gargantuan budget to give your millennial employees killer benefits. Invest on their training and development, or even consider implementing a flexible working schedule.

Millennial or not, all employees will surely enjoy these benefits. So if you consider some of these, you might just have hacked into boosting work productivity in your company.

Tweet us and let us know what you think!

How to Keep Your Employees Happy at Work

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Nix Eniego

One of the best kept secrets of the top companies in the world is also the most obvious.

Keeping employees happy is very important to the overall success of a company. The simple formula is “Happy Employees = Good Business”.

So what exactly makes employees happy?

Is it bigger pay? Unlimited vacation leaves? Big bonuses? Free lunch?

To get a better idea, take a look at this infographic from Manila Recruitment and find out what the best companies in the Philippines are doing to keep their employees happy.

Based on this infographic, money isn’t the only thing that motivates and makes employees happy. Employees value education, travel, fitness, and career growth just as much as they care about monetary bonuses.

You don’t need a HUGE budget to make employees happy. Sure, bonuses are great and will make employees happy, but if you don’t have the budget for it, don’t force the issue. Instead, you can focus on other low cost employee benefits such as additional vacation leaves or hosting sporting activities.

Are you doing some of the items mentioned above? Do share your company’s benefits and perks in the comments section below!

3 Reasons Why Employees Get Bored

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Nix Eniego

Happy, engaged, and hard-working employees are important for any business to succeed. That’s why business owners do their best to implement awesome employee benefits to make everybody happy.

But sometimes, despite the company’s efforts, employees are still disengaged and lackadaisical. Yes… employees do get bored.

In this post, we’ll drill down 3 reasons why employees get bored. So if you’re a business owner or CEO, you better take notes!

Repetitive Tasks

Sure, employees signed the contract completely aware of their job description and role… But doing the same thing over and over again will take a toll on ANYONE.

If an employee keeps doing tasks every single day, it’s expected that boredom will soon strike.

How to counter this? MIX IT UP.

As an employee:

If you’re an employee who’s starting to get bored, you should be upfront with your manager. Let him/her know that you feel like you can do more than what you’re currently doing.

Ask to be involved in other tasks. Have the initiative! Your manager won’t know you want to do more if you don’t say a thing.

As a manager:

Don’t be afraid to mix it up. Give your employees new tasks to do. You hired that person because you believe in him as an individual, so it wouldn’t hurt to try and entrust him with a new task.

By letting your employee do something new, you’ll likely give a jolt of excitement and a strong sense of responsibility to your employee – which is a good thing to boost productivity.

Lack of Compliments / Words of Encouragement

This may sound strange, but it’s a real issue. A recent study show that 65% of employees feel unappreciated at work.

When employees feel that they’re not appreciated in the office, they eventually get bored.

Employees VALUE their manager’s compliments and words of encouragement. An immediate boost in morale happens when an employee hears simple compliments like “Good job!” or “Nice work!”

As a manager, you can even take it up a notch and give your employee a reward or a token of your appreciation for a job well done.

These little things will go a long way.

Work-Life Imbalance

Working hard should always be top priority, but play time shouldn’t be neglected as well.

Employees who work too hard end up drained eventually. It’s not sustainable to render overtime every single night.

If you’re an employee who stays at work for 2-3 hours more than your required shift 90% of the time, you’ll eventually run out of gas and get bored at work.

The answer? Find a better work-life balance.

As an employee:

Your job provides for your family’s needs, but it is not your entire life. Don’t spend all of your time at the office. Leave some time for yourself and for your family.

Come home and have dinner with your family. Hang out with your friends on Friday nights. You have a life outside of work, so make the most out of it.

You can work hard without having to kill yourself with stress. Not only is it not good for your company, it’s also dangerous to your health.

As a manager:

Don’t put too much pressure on your employees. Giving unrealistic deadlines will leave your employee with no choice but to work overtime every day. That’s something that is proven to be unproductive in the long run.

If you notice that your employee is working too much or rendering too many OTs, talk to him and encourage him to take a vacation leave. Advise him that he doesn’t need to spend every working day on overtime. Not only will your employee become more productive, it will also be good for his health — which is something you should also prioritize.

Conclusion

Employees get bored because they don’t feel empowered. As a manager, it’s also your responsibility to make sure that your employees feel happy and valued at work.

As an employee… If you feel bored all the time, then you have to re-evaluate yourself. Discuss it with your manager and work on fixing the issue together.

Tweet us what you think!

The Future of Work Conference | Singapore

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

I was asked to speak at The Future of Work Conference in Singapore that Microsoft and Questex put on at the Marriott Hotel the other day. The conference was dedicated to the future of; HR, offices, scheduling, sales, and marketing.

I was asked to speak on the topic of HR and how technology can be an enabler to maximize productivity as well as attract and retain talent. So, I spoke from our experience.

Here is a quick recap:

1. Reasons for Employee Turnover – most reasons employees leave are related to something the company has direct control over.

Screen Shot 2015-11-21 at 6.04.04 PM

2. Adventure Engineering – We talked about PayrollHero’s #AdventureEngineering program and why it came about. Basically, we were looking for ways to compete for talent in a highly competitive worldwide market. Here is the video that we made that explains the program:

3. We chatted about how we work to get feedback from our teams, how we have made some products to help our clients do the same and how transparency helps us build our company culture. Some of the tools we talked about were PayrollHero’s DailyPulse, Xray Insights and tools like 7Geese.

4. Finally, we talked about how our jobs page is laid out on our website. How it is very specific about each role, how the company works, the rhythms we follow as well as a few easter eggs that some applicants find and mention in their cover letters.

After I was joined on stage with a few HR professionals for a panel discussion about HR and the future of work.

11204944_10156273943655243_5059367209308172994_n 11140227_10156273943645243_2861131463441778668_n 11248253_10156273943530243_8663731015921121590_n 11062002_10156273943560243_1475013398595700301_n

Improve Your Restaurant Performance with HR Analytics – FREE Webinar from PayrollHero

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Nix Eniego

webinar-screenshot-payrollhero

Whoever said that nothing in this world is free was lying!

Because on December 8, 2015. At exactly 11 AM (UTC +8), Singapore Standard Time, we’ll be hosting an epic webinar that talks about leveraging HR Analytics to improve restaurant performance.

In this webinar, restaurant owners will learn about the following:

Learn how to respond to business in advance using predictive analytics for HR
Improving organizational performance
Optimizing talent supply chain
Benefits of HR Analytics to your restaurant’s sales performance
Data-driven decision making

And many more!

We don’t want to spill too much info, but we’d really love it if you could join our webinar.

If you’re a restaurant owner, or an HR director / manager of a restaurant, this is a webinar that you definitely shouldn’t miss.

We’re going to provide content that you can implement and leverage right after the webinar.

The best part about this webinar is that you will have instant learning in just 27 minutes of content!

^ It’s really that simple. You’ll be able to implement your learnings immediately and make a direct impact to your restaurant’s positive performance.

So to all restaurant owners / HR personnel, do spread the word and save the date:

December 8, 2015 (Tuesday), 11:00 AM (UTC +8) Singapore Standard Time

This webinar will surely be worth your while. Save your seat below!

We’ll see you there!

Best Apps for Busy Entrepreneurs

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Nix Eniego

If you’re reading this article, I’m pretty sure you’re not hoping to find out what the next Candy Crush app is. If you are, we’ll have a different blog post for that soon!

For now though, I’m assuming that you are an entrepreneur on-the-go. Or a busy CEO juggling through multiple hats at work.

You can also be a high level executive who’s embracing tech and the convenience it brings.

The good news? PayrollHero rounds up a few of the best apps for busy CEOs this 2015. This is part 1, and we’ll feature more apps real soon.

Let’s dig in!

Best Apps for Busy Entrepreneurs

Evernote

We’re not saying classic notebooks are useless at this day and age, but leaving home without one is more and more common these days.

But you know what you never forget when you leave home? Your mobile phone.

And this is where Evernote shines.

An app that you can use in the comfort of your own phone, Evernote takes note-taking to a whole new level.

Whether you need to jot down quick notes during a meeting, or you’re attending a conference and you’re trying to take note of key points, Evernote gets the job done perfectly.

You can literally take note of anything you want. Even writing a new campaign strategy, or projections for the coming quarter can be done with this productivity app.

Not only does it sport a user-friendly interface, it also syncs smoothly with your other devices. You can access Evernote in your laptop, PC, or tablet as well. So whatever progress you’ve made on your mobile phone, you can see it updated and syncing in real-time with your laptop.

Pretty fun stuff, huh?

Evernote is FREE, but if you like it so much and you want all your employees using it as well, you can consider their premium or business plan.

Pocket

Now this is a personal favorite of mine (author). Imagine your browser’s bookmark tool… on STEROIDS.

That’s how Pocket functions! Any article or content you read from your favorite websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, or even YouTube can easily be saved to your pocket.

It’s a bookmarking tool that saves any form of content (webpages, articles, videos, tweets, etc.) so that you can read it later, OFFLINE.

Anything you save to your Pocket, you can read later on even without internet.

The best part is that Pocket integrates with so many other apps you use such as Twitter, and even via Email.

Now, how awesome is that?

I’ve been using Pocket for almost a year now, and it’s one of the apps I can’t live without. It’s free, and syncs with all your devices. You can “pocket’ an article using your mobile phone, then finish reading it later on your laptop – or vice versa.

I’m having a hard time convincing people that I’m not being paid by Pocket to promote them, because I find myself tweeting about how awesome they are every once in awhile.

@nixeniego Thanks for the major shoutout, Nico!

— Pocket Support (@pocketsupport) November 4, 2015

Try it out and see for yourself.

HINT: Pocket this blog post for future reference. 😀

Uber

Need to rush to a business meeting? Or are you just too tired to drive back home after a long day at work? Well, thank your lucky stars for Uber.

One of the top apps in 2014, Uber has disrupted the transportation scene in the Philippines. For a very affordable price, you get to enjoy a comfortable ride, with your own private driver, to literally anywhere you want.

If you’ve been living in Manila for a while, you’ll know how difficult it is to hail a cab or get around the metro through public transportation vehicles. But with Uber, all you need is a few clicks on your mobile phone and your vehicle will be arriving in just a few minutes.

Driving to your preferred destination isn’t always an ideal choice, so Uber proves to be a convenient way to go anywhere you prefer.

The PayrollHero team loves Uber, and I personally use Uber at least 2-4 times a week.

With courteous drivers, affordable rates, and very friendly customer support, Uber is definitely one of the top apps for ANYONE, entrepreneur or not.

If for some reason you haven’t tried Uber yet, now’s the time. Go for it, and tweet us how your first ride goes.

Google Docs

Transitioning from Microsoft Word to Google Docs isn’t always easy, but it’s a jump I’m more than happy I made a few years ago.

With Google Docs, you can write any document and it auto-saves instantly. You literally never have to press “Save” again.

As you’re usually always on the go, it’s inevitable that you do forget to save your document from time to time. This won’t be an issue anymore with Google Docs.

What makes it awesome though is that it syncs with your entire Google account (Google Drive). So all you really need is a Gmail account, and you can use Google Docs (as well as Google Sheets), anytime.

Google Docs is free, in the cloud, and very easy to use. Give it a go today!

Spotify

Of course you need to unwind somehow! Spotify is a great way to just relax and enjoy good music.

Spotify is FREE, although there’s a premium plan if you don’t want to be bothered with ads. You can also use the offline mode if you avail of the premium plan.

With Spotify, you get access to a boatload of music, from almost any genre you can think of. Unless you’re a Swifty, there’s no way for you not to enjoy Spotify.

Even busy entrepreneurs deserve some good music!

CONCLUSION

That rounds up our top apps for busy entrepreneurs list. I hope you make good use of some (if not all!) of the apps listed here. Become more productive, and more awesome with these must-download apps!

Keep checking our blog for more of these as we’ll come up with part two of the best apps for busy entrepreneurs in the coming weeks!

Singapore’s Ikeda Spa Chooses PayrollHero

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Ikeda Spa Singapore

Singapore’s first Japanese day spa, Ikeda Spa has moved their time, attendance and payroll needs to PayrollHero’s Singapore payroll platform. Co-founder Eric Tan said “I choose PayrollHero for my spa chain as I have stores across Singapore and I was in need of a complete, end to end solution that not only helped manage my time and attendance but my payroll. PayrollHero’s tool was exactly what I need. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to other business owners in Singapore”.

PayrollHero’s platform is built with specific tools for multi-location restaurant and retail chains like Ikeda Spa. Want to learn more? Reach out anytime.

All Saints Day | Philippine Holiday

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

25761773562585.kJctfMJIWw2j5QxWpesn_height640