6 New Reports PayrollHero Offers | HR People Analytics

Our loyalty department has been working on some people analytics reports as a way to provide more value to our clients. Our team curates client’s data into a personal, hand crafted experience for the CEO or owner of the company. So far the feedback from our clients have been fantastic. We started with the Employee Happiness Report but have expanded the offering to include five other reports.

Employee Happiness Report – Semantic Analysis of clocking photos to determine the happiness of your workforce and answer questions around how happiness leads to productivity.

Clocking Infraction Report – Analyzes late/early clockings to determine behaviour trends and calculate the cost of infractions.

Resolution Analysis Report – Analyzes automatically resolved clocking infractions vs. manually resolved clocking infractions to determine how to optimize your automated thresholds.

Chronic Non-Clocking Report – Analyzes the hidden costs of employees who do not clock in or out. (resolution time, man hours spent, etc.)

Photo Mismatch Report – Examines clocking selfies to look for signs of buddy punching & other suspicious activity.

GPS vs. Worksite Mismatch Report – Collects all GPS data around clockings to determine who may be clocking in or out of their assigned worksite.7abde1b9-a98c-4858-a8e7-2ef75072fb65

Want to learn more? Reach out to our team to chat anything. Just click on the chat bubble on any of our websites, including this blog. →

 

The New Employee PayrollHero Happiness Report

Optimizing Work Productivity with HappinessWe recently announced that PayrollHero can generate employee happiness reports for our clients. What does that really mean?

PayrollHero takes in data in the form of selfies that employees have clicked on the app. The selfies are used to evaluate employee happiness by looking for certain metrics and correlating them to other selfies. For example, smiling for photos results in a different set of facial expressions than a serious face.

We know what you’re thinking. What if an employee smiles but isn’t really happy. Faking a smile is not hard and the metrics used to evaluate a real smile are the same as those used to evaluate a fake one. An employee could easily fool the app into thinking that the employee is happy when she really isn’t. Well, faking a smile has its own merits.

A Harvard study showed that a smile – whether fake or real – can be uplifting for one’s emotional well being. Granted, a momentary smile for a selfie certainly does not equate to happiness in life because a smile can be fake; but the act of smiling itself is a positive way to cope with sadness. Our preconceived notion that happiness causes us to smile is not always true. In fact, the reverse of that can work as well. A fake smile may be a better path towards happiness than others. It signals a willingness to stay positive in difficult times instead of suppressing ill feelings.

How does this relate to happiness reports? Well, from a high level, the happiness reports suggest a correlation between smiling and happiness and therefore suggest which employee or work site is the happiest. But with deeper inspection, the reports find a correlation between smiling and employees’ positive attitude. As a manager, you should consider the happiness report as a way of measuring positive sentiments in your workforce.

Finally, PayrollHero can use this data against employee records to find a trend in employee behavior. We can provide insight into whether happier employees are generally more punctual; whether unhappy employees experience a longer commute to work everyday; whether the happiest worksite equals highest earnings. This information is unique to PayrollHero’s data. Companies can leverage on it to make more informed decisions on what it takes to improve their bottom line.

Want to learn more? Contact us to chat further.

 

How Happy Are Your Employees? Want to Know?

How happy are your employees? Do you know? Do you think it matters?

employee happiness reportWhat if you could tell how happy your employees are. Would that change how you make decisions? Would you adjust your operating procedures?

Today we are pleased to announce the Employee Happiness Reports.

“Optimizing Work Productivity with Happiness!” ​is the core ideal that drives PayrollHero. We’re always looking for ways to measure, track and help clients improve productivity, performance and happiness across their organizations.

We have begun a deep analysis of thousands and thousands of clock photos to analyze the sentiment of the photos. We can then correlate the happiness ratings across other metrics like commute distance, wage, location, plus much more.Optimizing Work Productivity with Happiness

Some clients have begun receiving their beta Employee Happiness Reports and we will continue to work with them to understand what data is useful, how it can be actioned and what else should be included.

Some of the questions we are working to answer are;

  • Are my happiest employees the highest paid?
  • Which of my retail locations are happiest?
  • Do my employees commute times effect their happiness?
  • Are my happiest locations my top revenue generators?

Already a PayrollHero client? Want to know the answers as they pertain you your business? Contact us and we’ll get you your first report free.

employee happiness matters

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3 Reasons Why Employees Get Bored

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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

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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

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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

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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!

Celebrity Interview: Nikko Huelgas

Nikko Huelgas is the captain of the Philippine National Triathlon Team, chairman of POC Athletes Commission, and a columnist for Manila Bulletin’s Sports Digest. He recently won a gold medal for the Philippines during the 28th SEA Games which was held in Singapore. We interviewed this Filipino athletic superstar to find out where he loves to eat (SPOILER: he loves pizzas while also being a super fit athlete. How awesome is that?!)nikko-huelgas-sea-games-champion-cover

What do you love about living in the Philippines?

I love the people here. They are very optimistic, accommodating and family oriented.

What are your top 5 favourite restaurants and why?

  1. Omakase Japanese restaurant
  2. Sensei Sushi restaurant
  3. Yellowcab pizza
  4. S&R Pizza
  5. The Farm Organics

More than their service, they have unique and seriously delicious food. Not to mention value for money.

You seem to travel a lot, what restaurant/s do you miss and would like to see in the Philippines?

Some hole in the wall authentic street food from all cultures especially Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

What is your favourite Philippine restaurant brand that should expand overseas?

Victorinos Restaurant

Describe your most memorable dining experience

Omakase – Everything we ordered was really good. Started from their famous Spicy Tuna Salad. Healthy and delicious. Then, my favorite, the Mt. Fuji roll. It just melts in your mouth.

If you were to open a restaurant, what kind would it be and why?

Italian. I’m in love with pizza.

For whatever reason, some days would require a little extra comfort – what is your favourite comfort food?

Pizza, burgers and cheesecake. Always.

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Get Your New Employee Off To A Good Start

In our recent blog posts on millennials, we’ve talked about how to get the right young star talents into your company and how to stop them from leaving once you’ve got them working for you.

PayrollHero Team is expanding, and as we speak a new batch of interns are flying in to come work with us here at our Singapore office. And it just had me thinking-  it is so important to have these young rock stars feel welcome into our working culture. Why? I can understand first hand how daunting it can be for a 20 something year old to travel thousands of miles be apart of something you don’t have a first clue about and figuring all of that out in a new country.

What most employers think when onboarding new employees, they typically check tasks off a to-do list which may include- a quick introduction, an office tour, getting to learn the company vision and other tasks. But what is most often left to last, (and usually ignored) is having a plan that is focused on making new employees feel welcome, appreciated and feel part of the company culture as soon as possible.

And these efforts will have it rewards– high employee retention and loyalty to the company will reflect favorably to the bottomline. Paying close attention to the company culture and adding to it is really important. I would like to quote Jonathan Mildenhall, CMO with Airbnb, where he says “the culture becomes an incubator for creativity
and innovation, and ultimately for business performance.”

Here’s a few things companies can do to welcome a new hire:

Have A Welcome Strategy Put In Place
Before the hiring process starts, have a meeting where everybody (from the management down) who will be involved in the new hire to brainstorm and come up with a detailed plan for bringing a new person to the team. It is important for the company to create a good first impression as well. One of the most important things a new hire at Airbnb goes through is a full week of cultural immersion, so the person will come out of that week feeling like he can be a true ambassador for the company and brand.

Have A Mentor/ Buddy System
It’s good to assign somebody or even better, the whole team to spend some time with the new employee to take him out for lunch or happy hour after work, show how stuff works and provide support when needed. Helping the new guy feel part of the team quickly would be good to help him get rolling on the job and assimilate easier.

Express Genuine Interest in the New Employee As A Person.
Getting to know your new hire as an individual is great for building rapport with the person. Knowing more information about him would come in handy, like for instance if you know he’s visual or auditory will tell you how he prefers to be appreciated. For an auditory person, being complimented verbally is better than receiving it in an email and the opposite is true for a visual person.

It is always good to keep in mind these little information which creates a more personalized welcome and heightens his experience with the company.


Stay tuned to find out who are our new interns and how they are doing with PayrollHero.

The PayrollHero Team is fast expanding and we’re on the look out for rock star talents to join us. Drop us an email and tell us more about you.

 

How We Keep Young Star Talents from Leaving

Every employee is valuable. Repeating this old tired phrase really doesn’t mean much anymore. Sure, we know we are of value, but how valuable? Can we measure that? How do we know if our bosses are with us as much as we are with them in this company? Studies have revealed that the millennial generation is the population in the workforce that really values these questions, and use it to determine if they have join the right company to work for.

The PayrollHero Team has millennials as the majority. Just to be honest, our young talents in our team are being headhunted daily because they are doing such a stellar job and other companies are starting to take notice. However, the thought of leaving never occurred. Here’s how we keep our young rock stars with us!

We communicate all the time
There are no walls between management and the employees. We function as a team, always working towards the bigger picture. Our team is constantly on the move, functioning from different offices in Singapore, Canada and the Philippines, which is made easy using productivity apps like Slack. (Read on how we use Slack)

Having great communication means we are clear on the tasks each team has to complete and eliminate any grey areas and speculation. There can never be enough clarity when working with Millennials. Each team gathers for a huddle every morning to discuss completed tasks, give feedback- good or bad, in the moment. This way also we keep accountability crystal clear within the team.

Morning Huddles

Suggested reading: 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

Being flexible enough to meet halfway
PayrollHero is incredibly blessed with many gifted and talented millennials like Vince, and Maita. And we are more than happy to participate in out of office events as often as possible. We are with each other 10 hours in a day, every weekday and some weekends too and happy to do so. We work hard and play hard together.

Smiles at breakfast

Recognizing each employee’s lifestyle needs is important too. Millennials appreciate when a company acknowledges life outside of work. PayrollHero knows that mixing life and work as harmoniously as possible is one of the secret to making millennials happy to be at work. Fundamentally, we believe in getting things done. So, you can feel free to do activities you love, so long as you complete tasks that is required of you during the week.

Empowering each employee with ownership 
For a millennial, ownership means a lot. At PayrollHero, many members of the company have a stake in the company which ensures that everyone commits. As a millennial myself, I can see that having that kind of ownership is empowering because I can be a part of something bigger. The days of working for a company just for the paycheck are gone. Owning a part of the company is a great incentive for an individual. But more importantly, it pulls the team together to focus towards a common goal: to see the company succeed.

To know exactly how we work, you’ll just need to join us. We are hiring for many positions across all offices and even for home based roles.

5 Sure Wins When You Come To PayrollHero Meetups

This meetup is all about HR and payroll management in the cloud for businesses of any size. Today, more companies are getting smarter and are transforming the way they manage their time, attendance, scheduling, payroll and HRIS to a systematized cloud based solution. To make sure your company does not fall behind on this trend, you need to discover why choosing a better management system helps increase your bottomline.

During the meetup, we will be focusing on tips and tools you can use to better optimize HR and payroll processes, while cutting costs on time and creating a happier work culture.

Let’s solve those problems! We want to share our expertise together with you at our next PayrollHero Meetup!

We will have Steve Jagger, co-founder of PayrollHero!

Steve Jagger, PayrollHero

Hello there!

Sure Wins! 

  1. Know the tools that can increase productivity in your business by eliminating buddy punching and ghost employees.
  2. Gain new tactics to effectively improve scheduling, time and attendance, HR and payroll management for your employees.
  3. Business Intelligence tools to use for your business to make informed decisions on human resource.
  4. Get to learn about new tools that can help you gain insights and better understand your customer segment.
  5. Our event is free of charge with FREE wine and snacks!

10th June, 2015, 4pm- 5.30pm
Ocean Financial Centre

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Scheduling Practices: Hallway Test!

Today marks two weeks of my internship at PayrollHero. To celebrate my two-week-erversary, I went out to do a little survey. The aim was to understand what systems businesses have set up to manage scheduling, measure attendance and calculate payrolls.

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The Costa Coffee crew.

I surveyed 10 cafés in the Central Business District in Singapore to find out how they schedule workers in their outlets. Some of the outlets I visited were Cedele, Starbucks, Joe & Dough and Costa Coffee. They all had similar systems set up to schedule workers, with a few interesting anomalies:

  • With the exception of one cafe, everyone uses the punch card system or a regular excel sheet for workers to clock in and clock out. The exception in question has software set up to monitor attendance.
  • Scheduling is done on a weekly basis. The worst case scenario is when a worker notifies the admin that he or she can’t show up just a few hours before the shift begins.
  • Usually, the outlet manager calls another outlet to find a substitute. In the case of one cafe, Whatsapp groups are used to coordinate and find substitutes. Most outlet managers believe that the best way to reach someone is to call them. Texting or emailing is not a common communication channel.
  • The HR admin in every outlet takes around 2 to 3 days to calculate payrolls.

With that simple survey, it was evident that cafés in Singapore use conventional ways to schedule shifts. While workers rarely drop shifts, outlet managers need to be on standby to call nearby outlets for substitutes immediately.

Using Data Analytics to Improve Productivity

When the weather is bad, or there is an MRT breakdown, the situation is worse because all outlets in the same region are affected equally. While an outlet manager is calling multiple outlets for substitutes, customers are walking in and waiting for service before walking out, disappointed and unhappy. That directly affects the bottom line. Managers should be able to access an online database and use data analytics to see which outlet is on top of things in real time in order to call that outlet directly and ask for a substitute.

The top priority for every outlet manager is to make sure the day runs smoothly. It becomes much harder when the manager is not equipped with the right data to plan ahead of time. In a country like Singapore that has high internet penetration rates and high cell phone penetration rates, installing an application that stores this data in the cloud is easy and inevitable. If managers had access to this data, it would also be a way to motivate workers to be regular in order to move higher up in the rankings among outlets.

Calculating Payrolls

The systems put in place for measuring hours worked per employee in order to calculate payrolls should also be revamped. It should not take a manager 2 or 3 days to calculate payrolls when she has a million other things to look after. What’s more, the hassle of buddy punching, human errors and shifts in multiple locations add to complications for the manager. More errors equal higher costs. Higher costs equal lower profits. The bottom line is affected by inefficiencies that can be wiped out by a one-time change in the basic infrastructure.

Finally, the idea behind having an app that does all of the above is predicaSingapore Payrollted on increasing productivity: be it that of your rank and file workers or your manager. Higher productivity leads to a better workplace environment and happier people, which further leads to higher productivity. That is a virtuous cycle, if ever I saw one. In effect: optimizing work productivity with happiness.

Now, where have I heard that before…