Asia HR Leaders Forum in Singapore with Roffey Park

Posted on May 6, 2015 by

Earlier today, PayrollHero co-founder Stephen Jagger spoke at the Asia HR Leader Forum organised by Roffey Park. If you don’t know Roffey Park – they are an internationally renowned leadership institute based in the UK and Singapore, focused on developing people who develop organisations. Find out more on what they do here – www.roffeypark.com

Roffey Park had a unique approach for the forum. The most interesting segment would be the facilitated table discussions – where the 30+ HR professionals in attendance were split into 5 smaller groups, and each group was given a specific topic to discuss concerning HR with a “subject-matter-expert” leading that discussion. Each discussion was deeply insightful as participants actively shared their thoughts and experiences on major HR issues: changing employee mindsets, emotional intelligence, developing strategic thinking capabilities, staff morale and understanding the human dimensions of productivity.

Facilitated HR Table Discussions

Participants in discussion

PayrollHero Xray Insights

Stephen closed the forum with a presentation on the importance of integrating a business intelligence component into HR systems. Steve shared the PayrollHero Xray Insights app, which provides businesses with useful analytics based on employee data, so managers can make better, intelligent decisions on human resources. He also ran through how our Adventure Engineer program works to attract and retain talent.

Read more about Xray Insights

“I found the session yesterday really inspiring with the passion you have to make a difference.”

Simon Lau
Leadership Effectiveness & Organisation Development
Group Talent, Learning and Culture Standard Chartered Bank

You can see Steve’s presentation deck below:

Asia HR Leaders Forum Presention by Stephen Jagger for Roffey Park from PayrollHero

Here is some of the material covered by Roffey Park:

Asia HR Leaders Forum – Roffey Park Institute – May 6th 2015 from PayrollHero

Want to learn more about PayrollHero? Register for our next event on May 14th 2015.

Singapore Payroll Software Show & Tell

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Singapore Payroll Event We are holding another event at our office in the Ocean Financial Centre at Raffles Place in Singapore on May 14th 2015. At this free event you will learn about the pitfalls of manual time and attendance systems, how PayrollHero can help and the amazing business intelligence that can be delivered to your iPhone in real time.

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, RedMart, BGC and many others are happy clients… come learn why they and many others subscribe to PayrollHero for their time, attendance, scheduling, HR and payroll needs.

3 Dissatisfactions With Traditional Retail Punch Clock Systems

Posted on May 4, 2015 by

Getting Ridiculously Client Focused!

As part of getting to know PayrollHero and our clients we decided that it was time for me get out of the office and do some “hallway testing” with Singapore retailers. At PayrollHero the team is constantly talking about “getting out of the office”, “hallway testing” and “being ridiculously client focused”. Today, it was my turn.

Getting to know our customer segment in Singapore is important as we continue to get our product out there. We want to know what these retail businesses do for time, attendance, scheduling and payroll. And we really want to get to the bottom of the pains store managers have with their current system.

I set out to speak to outlet or store managers of F&B businesses around the Ocean Financial Center @ Raffles Place.

A lot of Pain!

Indeed! My conversations revealed that out of 6 outlet managers I spoke with today, all of them mentioned dissatisfaction with their current time clock systems for time and attendance.

Here’s why:

The Biometric System (Thumbprint Scanners)

Using this system to clock in and out at the workplace seem to be the most common with majority (4 of 6) of the outlet managers I spoke with today. They revealed that they have been using the biometric systems for employees clocking in and out at work, and are not happy about it. A manager at a salad outlet says that it is an ‘imperfect system’ because the system itself is inaccurate. This comment is also shared with a manager of a bakery chain; who complained that the system sometimes don’t read the thumbprint accurately and records the time down for the wrong employee.Frustrating? Yes! The same outlet manager adds on saying that at times system reads as ‘absent’ as the employee clocks in.
The Punch Card Machine
The major problem one manager at a sushi outlet has with the attendance system is that the punch machine always broken down. In the days it takes for the machine to get fixed, he has to make time to manually clocking in and out his workers on an excel spreadsheet.Security is another concern with punch card machines. The time sheets are collected, then sent to the HR department for payroll processing via post or using a delivery person. What happens if the mail goes missing? All the data on the time sheets is not backed up on a system.
Point-of-Sale (POS) System
This POS system gives employees a 4-digit code to use over the register to clock in and out of work. So what’s the issue? Well, for an outlet manager of a smoothie chain store here at Raffles Place, she is unhappy that she has to do double work – where she will manually keys in the clock in and out data of each employee again on a different system at the end of each week for payroll.She hopes she has a system that connects the time and attendance with payroll to save time!

The Take- Away

This test has revealed to me that plenty of time can be saved if redundancies and “double-work” for the purpose of verification are eliminated. Managers are delighted to work more productively if they had a system that could shorten the process for time and attendance at the outlet and worry less about payroll.

Want to learn more about PayrollHero?

Check out our Singapore Payroll Software website or attend our next event on May 14th 2015.

Singapore Payroll Software | PayrollHero

Posted on May 4, 2015 by

If you have ever worked in human resources and admin, you would know what a pain payroll management can be!

Inflated time sheets, overtime and time-off.

How do you calculate the 43 odd minutes an employee has been showing up for work late for the past 2 weeks? Or the minutes they left work too early? How do you add up the tax on commissions earned for the past week? These are just the beginning of your troubles.

What about tracking down which employees have had their teammate clock in for them? And the hassle of going after those who do not submit their time sheets at all!

No More Timesheets!

The days where you would spend hours racking your brain computing payroll into an outdated software or excel spreadsheets are gone. This is where PayrollHero saves the day!

PayrollHero is a cloud-based HR and payroll management software that tracks time, attendance and scheduling for businesses of any size. #payrollhero_sg

And you would be so grateful: employees are happy to clock in and out of work in seconds. The Selfie TeamClock uses the employee’s face as the biometric for clocking in and out. Say goodbye to misaligned timestamps and impossible-to-read handwriting.

The system ensures that employees are really at their workstation or desks on time as the software computes, tracks and reports to optimise payroll management. Just enter all the information you need, like: employee records, roster schedule, hourly rate, per diems, benefits, CPF and other tax calculations. PayrollHero will assist you with set up from start to finish.

Eliminate Fraud!

PayrollHero takes care of annoying time-in problems with a nifty innovation: facial recognition technology.

To clock in and out at work, employees just need to take a picture of themselves at their workstation. They can use this on their laptop or desktop, iOS and Android devices.

PayrollHero system will match the photo to the employee records and track their time against the correct schedule and GPS location, to make sure that the person is at the right place and the right time.

Sure, you’re thinking that any thumbprint and other biometric systems can achieve the same results. But that requires additional employee information and thumb/ palm scanners. Here, all you need is a camera.

Share the Load!

Each employee is responsible for their own hours, and the app is designed to inform them if they are late, early, undertime or over. They can view their schedule and record using the WebApp or #MyClock app on iOS.

All the information is stored in the cloud and updated in real time, anywhere. So, the manager getting to an offsite meeting can still check-in to see what’s happening at the office at any time on the phone.

When it’s time to run the payroll, the system computes everything down to the last minute. All the payroll administrator needs to do is review and approve the payroll.

Runs On Any Device

PayrollHero does not require you to purchase any new hardware or expensive licenses. The system works great on your existing hardware: desktop, laptop, iOS and Android devices.

PayrollHero for Singapore Businesses

The PayrollHero Team has made the app awesome for Singapore businesses. The app is now localised and updated to fit Singapore payroll requirements including: Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) taxes on employee remuneration, CPF employer contributions and deductions, bonuses, contributions to community funds (MDMF, SINDA, CDAC), Foreign Worker Levy and others.

We Are Doing It Right!

We are excited to launch our amazing product in Singapore. Having enjoyed success in the Philippines, the market here poses as a friendly challenge.

“ We are much more than just payroll. We are what we like to call ‘ridiculously client focused,’ and that means working to ensure HR and payroll professionals have the tools they need to do their jobs better […] Our focus is on the much bigger picture of helping clients utilize our platform to run their businesses better.” -Steve Jagger, Co-Founder PayrollHero.com

Happy clients in Singapore!

We are off to a great start with a few big brand names already using PayrollHero.

singapore payroll clients

Check Us Out!

Click to Register!

Did you know PayrollHero can qualify for Singapore’s Spring Innovation & Capability Voucher (ICV) – Integrated Solutions (IS). (Read More)

Restaurant News Recap

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

A quick recap of restaurant news from around the world. See anything interesting that we missed? Let us know in the comments below.

Wendy’s fast food chain believed to have shut down all outlets in Singapore (source)

Chipotle is going to stop using GMOs in its food (Source)

The American chain Applebee’s is coming to the Philippines (Source)

McDonald’s is apparently planning to close hundreds of stores (Source)

And of course, if you are looking for restaurant recommendations from the PayrollHero team within walking distance of our offices… Here is where we suggest for Fort Bonifacio, Philippines, Singapore and Whistler, Canada.

Learn How to be a Retail Hero | Singapore

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

We are holding another free event in Singapore where you will learn about the costs and challenges involved with traditional time keeping methods as well as see how PayrollHero is designed to not only streamline your HR operations but add some fun into them as well.

In this session you will learn;

– How you can gather Customer Feedback using a time and attendance tool
– Gather Applicants using a time and attendance tool
– Built company culture
– Digitize your HR departments so that all employee records are online in a safe and secure manner
– Get access to real time business intelligence from your data so that you can make better decisions.

With PayrollHero, you can be a super hero of an HR/Payroll Manager!

Singapore Payroll Event Did you know PayrollHero can qualify for Singapore’s Spring Innovation & Capability Voucher (ICV) – Integrated Solutions (IS). (Read More)

5 Reasons Why Smiling Increases Productivity

Quote

Posted on April 30, 2015 by

At PayrollHero, we help cultivate a happy working culture by having employees start and end each day with a SMILE!

How?

Our selfie TeamClock captures your amazing smiley faces as you clock in and out of your office or work station. Gone are the mundane punch cards! We can uplift your mood by having you coming to and leaving work feeling much more invigorated, motivated and Happier!

Smile Every Mile…

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Did you know smiling from real emotions or even faking it has been scientifically proven to lower heart rate levels and decrease stress? (Source)

Here’s 5 reasons why smiling contributes to higher productivity:

Happy people work better with others. People who have happy energy are a lot more fun to be around and consequently have better working relationships with others. In fact, researchers have found that happiness is contagious. Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Harvard Medical School explains that “Everyday interactions we have with other people are definitely contagious, in terms of happiness”. He says that when one person is happy, the social network effect can increase up to 3 degrees- meaning friends of friends.
Happy people are more creative. Productivity means being able to come up with new ideas. If your job depends on developing new ideas, then you have to be happy at work. Check out this study by Teresa Amabile for proof. She says that:“If people are in a good mood on a given day, they’re more likely to have creative ideas that day, as well as the next day, even if we take into account their mood that next day.
There seems to be a cognitive process that gets set up when people are feeling good that leads to more flexible, fluent, and original thinking, and there’s actually a carryover, an incubation effect, to the next day.”At PayrollHero we keep customers on their toes as we keep coming up with fresh features to optimize time, attendance, scheduling and payroll for businesses.
Happy people fix problems better. No problem is a mountain too high for the engineering team at PayrollHero. We will gear up and fix any problems. A recent study has proved that “a way to improve software developers’ productivity and software quality is to focus on people and provide incentives to make developers satisfied and happy”. Happy programmers are better problem- solvers. Science says so!
Adventure Engineers in Danang, Vietnam
Happy people get sick less often. Getting sick is a productivity killer. If you don’t like your job, you’re more susceptible to have major diseases including ulcers, cancers and diabetes. This is especially so for women, where one study has assessed the impact of job strain on the health of 21,290 female nurses in US and found that those who are at health-risk are those who didn’t like their job (source). So, being happy with your job prevents you from being sick and burning out.
Happy people make better decisions. People who are happier make better, informed and consistent decisions. An article in the Journal of Consumer Research determined that mood influences the very basic element of decision making- whether we like something or not.

Curious about how PayrollHero can create happier work environment and improve productivity for your business. Come to our FREE in-house event!

PayrollHero In-House Event: Retail Hero, 14 May 2015

Click me! Get tickets on Eventbrite

Happy Labor Day | Singapore Holiday

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

singapore holiday

“In Singapore, May Day (or Labour Day) is celebrated on the 1st of May each year as a mark of solidarity amongst workers. The celebration of May Day as a public holiday began only in 1960 after the PAP came into power. Before then, only workers defined as such under the Labour Ordinance 1955 and those defined as industrial clerks under the Clerks Employment Ordinance 1957 were given paid holidays.” *wikipedia

Kiro Harada Workshop on Improving Scrum with Kaizen

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Editors Note: Introducing Adam Baechler, Product Manager at PayrollHero. He will be contributing to the PayrollHero blog from time to time.

(L – R) Michael Stephenson, Kiro Harada, Adam Baechler, Stephen Jagger, Piotr Banasik, Nico Suria and Vince Paca)

On April 14th I was fortunate enough to attend Kiro Harada workshop on Improving Scrum with Kaizen in Singapore. Kiro is an Agile coach and is super knowledgeable of agile principles and methodologies including Scrum, Kanban, Lean, and Kaizen. Kiro was also kind enough to stop by our office and give us a brief introduction into how he use Domain Driven Design (DDD) within his teams. You can find Kiro on Facebook or LinkedIn. (Kiro was gracious enough to visit the Singapore PayrollHero office the next day to do a private session with our team)

I been practicing scrum for about 3 years now so I found the discussions about Kaizen and Domain Driven Design from the last couple of days the most interesting. So I thought I would share quick summary.

Disclaimer: I’m new to this and I have yet to implement any of these teachings. So please do seek out the advice of experts like Kiro.

Kaizen

For those who have not heard of Kaizen, it is a methodology for continuous improvement. Surprisingly the Kaizen didn’t originate in Japan but in the United States during WW2.

The core principle is to make your work easier and safer.

When applying Kaizen to a process you can think of it in 3 phase; Fix the leaks, Make it flow and finally Create a new process.

Fix the leaks first. When you are working and you notice a process is not producing the desired results. Slow down or even stop so you can inspect the process. Focus on effectiveness not on efficiency. The goal here is to creating constant value from your process.

Make it flow. Now that your process is creating value constantly we want to make it flow by increasing efficiency without sacrificing the quality of your output. A great way to do this is through E.C.R.S. First try to Eliminate steps from your process. Next try to Combine some steps together. Next try to Rearrange steps in the process. Lastly, try to Simplify individual steps in your process. Never try to go faster in this process by following E.C.R.S you should accelerate naturally.

Once your process is flowing smoothly you should feel your work is easier and safer. Now is the time to dream up a new process that will deliver better quality and value.

As a scrum team we follow similar actions of inspect and improve through our retrospectives. however this is only done at the end of our sprints. I hope that our team can adopt the principles of Kaizen to apply continuous improvement throughout our sprints.

Domain Driven Design (DDD)

We only had a short introduction here but in that short time we saw the huge value of Domain Modeling. Domain Modeling is a great way to visualize your products domains, decide how they should interact and test out your logic before you build it out extensively.

At PayrollHero we are going to try to use the Domain Modeling technique to identify the Domains of our applications to create a better system architecture.

Thanks for reading. Drop any questions you have in the comments below.

(Some photos from the day with Kiro)

Kiro Harada payroll hero Kiro Harada payrollhero singapore

kiro kaizen singapore walking with Baechler kiro in singapore

Life At PayrollHero From Our Newest Team Member Maita Ocampo

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Editors Note: Introducing Maita Ocampo, Business Development at PayrollHero. She will be contributing to the PayrollHero blog from time to time.

Wait What?

Overwhelmed, confused, and highly emotional – these are not the end of day emotions that I’ve imagined my first day with PayrollHero to be like. Apparently, I found myself having dinner alone in a restaurant after my first day and my thought bubble said something like: WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED.

Looking back, I think it was just “info overload” on my end. Haha! Well, to be honest, technology is not really my area of expertise. However, one of the reasons why I took the job at PayrollHero is because I knew that I was ready and up for the challenge. Getting sent to visit the team in Singapore after a month and working directly with the co-founder is of course, a plus. Boom! The opportunities are endless.

(Myself with Steve Jagger, Michael Stephenson and Adam Baechler in Singapore checking out the view of the Marina Bay Sands.)

First Three Months

My first three months were more of getting accustomed to the tools, getting to know the product, and catching up with the company and our timelines. Now that three months have passed, I couldn’t be thankful enough for PayrollHero and its founders for giving me the opportunity to be part of a platform that aims to make the lives of employees and their respective companies better. This is something that really excites me!

Non-Stop Learning

Let me share with you 3 key learnings from my first three months with PayrollHero:

Ask, ask, ask – Never assume anything. If you’re not certain about something, it is better to ask. Asking questions will not make you look lame, ignorant, or unsure. In fact, asking questions is a sign of strength and intelligence. It can also give way to deeper insights and better answers.
Waking up early rocks – I wake up at 6AM every day and work usually ends at 4PM. Crazy, right? These past few months, I’ve learned that you actually get to do more work when you wake up early. At the same time, you get to spend quality time with people you love. According to Forbes and Harvard biologist Christoph Randler, “morning people” are more proactive and are more likely to agree with statements like “I feel in charge of making things happen.” His research also revealed that they are more likely to anticipate problems and minimize them efficiently.
Productivity tools – I remember telling Steve, our co-founder, on my first day that I haven’t downloaded so many apps in one day! Haha. Yes, PayrollHero embraces technology (a lot). It helps us in our open communication mandate. We love PipelineDeals, Asana, Google Docs (Google white paper on PayrollHero), LinkedIn, Slack, Sqwiggle, Appear and Zopim to name a few. It may seem hard to take it all in, but these apps are just a matter of getting used to. Not only does it make learning everyday more fun, it’s definitely helping us work efficiently as well.

Exciting Times Ahead

I guess, no matter what your job is, your first couple of days at work could really be a nerve-racking experience so it’s important for one to focus and have the proper mindset for it.

What I enjoy the most about working for PayrollHero is that everyone’s contributing and thinking of ways to achieve better results for our clients while enjoying the process. We get to learn a lot from each other too!

(Myself with Cristian Guerrero, Kieran Peppiatt, Stephen Jagger, Adam Baechler and Mike Stephenson at the Hyatt in the City of Dreams Manila)

As we’re expanding rapidly in the Philippines and have soft launched in Singapore, I am looking forward for the next countries that we’re targeting this year to become payroll live and the adventures that come along with it. Exciting times, indeed!

Want to read more about our Adventure Engineering lifestyle?

– You might like Nico’s story about his first few days in the Whistler office after leaving the Philippines.

– Adventure Engineers scatter

– Looking to join us? Check out our hiring page or how our work from home program works.