PayrollHero Certification: Hands on Experience with the App

badge-payroll-certificationLast week, Kieran our Head of Client Success, conducted training sessions for the new PayrollHero team members in Singapore as well as a few clients. We got some hands on experience with the app, which helped us gain a deeper understanding of how the product works. As an intern who has been here for a few weeks, my knowledge about the product came from speaking with team members, listening to sales pitches and reading about the product online. So it was an interesting experience to use the product on a demo account and view it from the perspective of a payroll administrator. All new PayrollHero team members get certified on the platform so that they know exactly what the platform can do.

Kieran took us through every aspect of the product. My first thought when I was told about the training was, “Wow, a two and a half day training session? But I already know everything about it!” Which, as you may have guessed, turned out to be highly overstated. Within the first two hours of training, I came to the conclusion that the product was far more powerful than I had expected.

The first day was about Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS). The next day was spent on generating payroll and the final day was dedicated to understanding time, attendance and scheduling using the app.

The interesting part about the app is its customization capabilities. A human resources (HR) administrator can record the company’s organizational chart. The hierarchy allows you to identify employee types and positions. Thresholds allow you to set rules on what kinds of notifications you get based on the activities of employees under you in the hierarchy. The thresholds have multiple permutations and combinations that, once customized, help you prioritize information that you need instantly versus information that can wait till a more suitable time.

badge-tas-certificationIt didn’t stop there. Customization extended to how you segment payroll: employer contributions (CPF, SDL, FWL), bonuses, vacation payments, advance payments, claims that need to be redeemed. Any kind of payment outside of the basic calculation of an employee’s hourly wages can be segmented and customized so that all a payroll administrator has to do, is enter which segment the payment should go into. The app can take care of debiting/crediting the amount to the required account. It will notify you when the account is hitting a pre-recorded limit. The flexibility of the app went as far as allowing you to import data from a spreadsheet, allowing the app to automatically fill in employee details.

While all of this might seem like a rather dry topic to train on for nearly three days, Kieran managed to make the whole session more interesting by throwing in quizzes and having interactive sessions. Every demo account had characters from Kieran’s favourite fiction series. Homer Simpson got a bonus for his outstanding work (let’s pretend like that is EVER going to happen), Sherlock Holmes got promoted to the next level on the org chart, Buffy Summers asked for a change in her schedule for the next 3 weeks and Harry Potter recorded coming in early to work consistently. All these characters were a part of the certification exercises, which made the entire process not only informative but also engaging.

The time, attendance and scheduling part of the course was done through an online training portal on the PayrollHero website. Again, I was pleasantly surprised by how detailed the app was and how customizable the entire process of scheduling was. It was impressive that the app was user friendly and flexible with creating, adjusting or removing schedules based on timing, location and type of work: whether it was a routine desk job or a part time job that required changing schedules often. The app, as was intended, was perfectly designed for retailers and restaurant owners who deal with employees who have erratic schedules which require constant adjustments.

The exercises and quizzes were effective in understanding how much we grasped from the lessons. It was clear that working with app required you to be consistent and methodological with the processes for entering data, giving system permissions, organizing the company’s hierarchy and setting customized options especially since the data that the system works with is sensitive. Finally, the certification undoubtedly served its purpose: it gave us a complete picture of how the app works and how a payroll administrator can benefit by using all its features for time, attendance, scheduling and payroll.

Learn more about PayrollHero Certification in the Philippines and Singapore.

Restaurant News Recap

A quick round up of restaurant news that caught out attention this week.

Philippines

Jollibee plans to buy US brand
“The homegrown fastfood giant wants to become one of top 5 quick service restaurants globally”

How American Restaurants Are Courting Filipino Palates — and Vice Versa
“American restaurants are huge in the Philippines. Why not the other way around?”

Applebee’s to open first Philippine store in July
“Global Restaurant Concepts, Inc. (GRCI) has signed a new franchise deal to open three Applebee’s Grill and Bar restaurants in the Philippines, the company’s president said yesterday.”

Singapore

Celebrity chefs opening restaurants in Singapore
“Ian Kittichai (Thailand), Wolfgang Puck (United States) and Jamie Oliver (United Kingdom)

Singapore’s Restaurant Andre among top 50 in the world
“Helmed by chef Andre Chiang, the fine-dining establishment slipped nine places from its position on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants last year, but remains the only restaurant in Singapore to make it to the top 50.”

USA

Chipotle Becomes the First National Restaurant Chain to Go GMO-Free
“Chipotle has finally reached its goal of going GMO-free.”

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Carlos Celdran on the Philippine Business Environment

Editors Note: Maita Ocampo, Business Development at PayrollHero contributes to this blog on and off, this week, she had a call with one of the most famous Filipinos, Carlos Celdran.

Carlos CeldranOne-on-One with Manila’s Main Man

John Charles Edward “Carlos” Pamintuan Celdran is a man who wears many hats (at times, even bunny ears!), but in most days, he is an artist and a tour guide. He uses performing arts to educate people about Intramuros and of course…..Manila.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of scoring a phone interview with Manila’s main man. I asked Carlos some questions about his work and his thoughts on the Philippine business environment.

The Changing Manila Skyline

When asked about the changes in the restaurant/retail business in Manila, Carlos says that he’s seen everything and finds it terrible that the city is becoming more mall-driven. Not to mention, the “building boom” that’s currently happening – he pointed out the increasing number of condos and high-rise buildings that’s changing the Manila skyline in so many ways.

Let’s Talk Business

What can the Philippines (or in this case, Manila) do better to attract business investment?

Carlos mentioned 3 items:

  1. Streamlining the tax system
  2. Working on safety and security on roads
  3. Addressing the traffic and flooding issues

What are the challenges for foreigners setting up a business in the Philippines?

– “The biggest obstacle would be the 60-40 rule on ownership wherein foreigners can’t fully own a local company. For me, that’s the biggest hindrance more than anything else.” (more on that topic)

What advice can you give a foreigner setting up a business in the Philippines?

– “It is important to find a good Filipino business partner and it’s always about location, location, location.”

It’s always been a joy speaking with Carlos – whether in one of his tours, over beers, or this time, through the phone. I love the fact that he’s passionate and vocal for his love of country – trying to alleviate the not-so-good and embracing it for what it truly is.

You should definitely attend one of his walking tours and get to know more about the Philippines in a very interesting way. Take note: free Choc-nut and halo-halo for everyone!

Carlos Celdran Tours

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5 Reasons Why Australian Businesses are Outsourcing to the Philippines

Australian's Opening BPOSOver the last 10 years, business process outsourcing (BPO) centres have cropped up all over Asia. Two countries have emerged as leaders in the BPO sector: India and the Philippines. While Bangalore city in India ranked first in 2014 for top outsourcing destinations, Manila ranked second. The Philippine BPO industry is likely to do extremely well and possibly overtake India soon.

Australian businesses have caught on to the trend. There is a growing number of companies that are looking at the Philippines for their offshoring needs. Australia is in a particularly favourable location because of its proximity to Southeast Asia. There are a number of reasons why Australia gives preference to the Philippines for outsourcing.

Inexpensive Labour

Common knowledge suggests that labour is cheaper in Asia. But to put that in perspective, an experienced BPO agent in the Philippines earns USD500 a month whereas the equivalent in Australia earns USD2700 a month. Back end operating expenses fall by a magnitude of 10 simply by offshoring. With wages rising in India, the Philippines looks like a good candidate for offshoring.

Literacy Rate: 97.5%

97.5% literacy rate is a staggering number. To put this in perspective, India stands at 74% and China at 88.6%. As a leading country in the BPO industry in Asia, this is very suitable for Australian businesses because of ease of communication with locals. The Philippines has the third largest educated workforce in terms of absolute numbers (after India and China).

Close to home, similar time zone

The Philippines is one of the closest countries to Australia.It is just a 6 hour flight away. Australia also enjoys the benefits of sharing a timezone with the Philippines. This wipes out the hassle of a mismatch in working hours for both countries.

Cultural Similarities

The Philippines was colonized by the Spanish for nearly 375 years until the Americans came along and colonized the archipelago for 48 years till 1946. The lifestyle of the Americans left a deep mark on the Filipino culture. Culturally, they are similar to most western nations, which is an anomaly in southeast Asia. The similar background makes for a negligible culture shock for Australian businesses. The friendly nature of Filipinos makes this the perfect place to set up customer service outsourcing.

Strong Government Initiatives

The government has been promoting the BPO sector for a few years now, through training progammes for Filipinos and financial incentives for companies. The financial incentives include Special Economic Zones, tax holidays for 6-8 years, import and customs duty waivers, reduced tax after the tax-holiday ends (down to 5%) and more. The government is also making efforts to improve infrastructure. Although the progress has been slow, internet connectivity is improving. The country does well in terms of office spaces. Around 80% of office spaces are occupied by BPOs.

There are a number of ancillary businesses that cater to Australian businesses that want to outsource to the Philippines. One of them is Mike’s Manila Tours by (you guessed it) Mike O’Hagan. Mike gives tours around the Philippines for businesses who need reliable information from someone closer to the ground. We spoke to Mike and featured him on our blog. You can check out the post here. We have also published a series on Australian businesses that outsource parts of their business to the Philippines. We have PANALITIX, ServiceSeeking Manila and Wint & Kidd Inc telling readers about what you need to know before taking that crucial step of moving to the Philippines.

If you would like to learn more about setting up in the Philippines with PayrollHero feel free to reach out and one of our team would be pleased to speak further.

Your Employees Are Asking 3rd Parties to Check Their Payroll Calculations

Have you ever heard of Glassdoor.com? It is a US based website that “is the world’s most transparent career community that is changing the way people find jobs, and companies recruit top talent.” Founded by Rich Barton who is no stranger to startups. Rich is the founder of Expedia and Zillow with a history at Microsoft. “Glassdoor holds a growing database of 6 million company reviews, CEO approval ratings, salary reports, interview reviews and questions, benefits reviews, office photos and more.”

Basically Glassdoor lets you check on positions salaries, company feedback and much more. While it is growing rapidly in North America it has not seemed to have taken off in Southeast Asia.

Which brings me to the topic of this post;

Your Employees Are Checking Their Payroll Calculations

Every month we get random inquiries from employees we don’t have a relationship with asking about their personal situation. Questions about their taxes, their payroll dates, deductions, allowances, etc.

Are your employees asking around?

For example, here is an inquiry we received recently asking about income tax for an employee of a Philippine retailer. We have no idea who the employee is or what company they work for but they are asking around.

hi.gud afternoon..im working at [retail] store as asst.supervisor..my rate was 513.62 per day..i have 1 dependent..but my tax was 1789 ..its is correct for my salary

Are your employees double checking their payroll calculations?

Feel free to reach out to us for more information about our Philippine payroll software, Singapore payroll software or our daily time record tools for your business.

Food Hygiene Regulations in Singapore

nea

In Singapore, food hygiene is monitored by the National Environment Agency (NEA). All food retail businesses must be registered to the NEA and regulated by the organization to prove that any food sold or produced by the food retail businesses is safe for consumption (retail businesses include restaurants, cafes, and more but excludes hawker centres).

Grading System

The NEA grades food service establishments based on personal and food hygiene and housekeeping of the premises. The grade must be displayed somewhere within the premises where it can be visible to the public. This is a method for the NEA to encourage establishments to improve their grade by adopting better practices. The assessment of the premises by the NEA results in the following grades:

  • A – a score of 85% or higher
  • B – a score of 70% to 84%
  • C – a score of 50% to 69%
  • D – a score of 40% to 49%

In order to help food service establishments to improve their cleanliness, the NEA has published the Food Handler’s Handbook and other practices and guiding materials.

Points Demerit System (PDS)

The PDS system is used in order to establish precedence for revoking licenses. Offences are categorized as minor, major and serious. Offences lead to demerit points. If an establishment collects 12 demerit points within 12 months, the establishment can be suspended for 2 to 4 weeks or its license can be revoked based on previous records. However this is a general guideline. The punishment differs for the type of establishment. For example, coffeeshops, food courts and canteens that accumulate 12 points over 12 months will be suspended for three days. Here is a detailed list of offences and the demerit points that they cost.

Food Handlers

The term food handlers refers to any person who is directly involved with food preparation: like the chefs, sous chefs, kitchen assistants, staff that handles beverages. Food handlers need to be registered by the NEA. As the owner of the establishment, you need to register all food handlers by filling up this form and submitting it to the nearest Regional Office. To find your nearest Regional Office, you must call 1800-2255 632 (1800-CALL NEA). In order to qualify as a food handler, a basic food hygiene course must be completed. The Food & Beverage Workforce Skills Qualification (WSQ) takes 6 hours of course work and 1.5 hours of assessment. Upon completion of assessment, the food handles will be given a Statement of Attainment. There are 2 subsequent refresher training sessions after 5 years and 10 years. The details on refresher training are on this page.

Food Safety Management System (FSMS)

The FSMS is used to ensure that manufacture, distribution and storage of food is safe for consumption. Every food service establishment must have an FSMS plan. The components of the plan are the following:

1. FSMS Plan 

a.    Flow diagram: with Critical Control Points identified

b.    Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points: charts for Critical Control Points (CCPs)

2. “WSQ Apply Food Safety Management System for Food Service Establishments Certificate (Statement of Attainment)

For more information on the FSMS and the requirements for your FSMS plan, click here. The link also gives information on different rules for new caterers and caterers that need to renew their license.

Finally, the NEA along with Spring Singapore has created a Singapore Standard for food service establishments so that they can make their FSMS plans by referring to the guideline. The guideline is $42 and can be purchased here. The process of creating the FSMS plan involves a workshop which includes 14 hours of course work and 5 hours of assessment.

That sums up the brief introduction to food hygiene regulations in Singapore. Hope that helps!

Executive Interview: Rob Nixon, CEO & Founder of PANALITIX

Rob NixonRob Nixon is the CEO and Founder of PANALITIX, a software as a service (SaaS) platform that provides analytical accounting data from small businesses to accountants around the world. Rob does a lot of education work in Australia and New Zealand with accountants and showing them how/why to outsource to the Philippines. We did a question and answer with Rob about his experience with the Philippines.

1. Can you tell me a bit more about yourself and your business? 
  • PANALITIX is a software as a service (SaaS) that provides analytical accounting data from small businesses to Accountants around the world
  • I have been working with Accountants for 21 years yet I m not one – I left school when I was 16
  • This is my 8th company and by far the most exciting
  • I educate Accountants on how to run a better business and how they can help their clients run better businesses
  • I constantly tell accountants they need to outsource repetitive tasks to lower cost labour in developing countries
  • I have been outsourcing to India for 4 years and the Philippines for 2 years.
2. Why do Aussie’s outsource to the Philippines?
  • We love the time zone difference – 2 hours
  • We love the English speaking abilities
  • We love the abundance of labour
  • We love the cost benefit – Australia is 5 times more expensive for the same task when all costs are added
3. What are the benefits? 
  • Definitely cost – 5 times difference
  • Eagerness to work – the Philippine team member wants to work and they work hard
  • easy to get along with
  • The service culture means they want to serve and please their customers
4. What are some of the downsides you have seen with outsourcing?
  • if you don’t train the new team or give them clear instructions if will not work
  • you have to initially travel to get the team up and running*

(*Note: Check out our other post about Mike O’Hagan’s Manila tours)

5. What are some of the best practices others should follow?
  • create good systems so the worker knows what to do
  • have good quality IT so solid communication can take place quickly
  • have 100% of systems cloud based – no transfer of files.
6. Do you suggest your clients start outsourcing to a company? or setup their own Philippine company?
  • Not initially. Go through a BPO and get the hang of working with a remote team.
  • Then when the team is 20+ think about incorporating.
  • If you’re going to have a team over 10 people there needs to be management in place to keep them working
7. You talk about “future proofing” – how can more people learn about future proofing their businesses?  
  • My latest seminar tour is in Australia and New Zealand in July & August. Covering 12 cities.
  • It is designed for Accounting firms and their team members
  • Full day workshop on how to to future proof the accounting firm and remain relevant.

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#MyClock iOS App Updated

PayrollHero MyClock DTR Time Device

The PayrollHero #MyClock iOS app has been updated in the Apple app store. There are quite a few changes to the app, most noticeably is the design. The overall look has been updated as well as some new functionality.

Screen Shot 2015-06-23 at 11.19.31 AMThe #MyClock iOS app is designed for individual employee use. The app shows an employee their upcoming and past schedules, their clock in and out data, the clock photos as well as lets them require a change to their schedule or notify of an absent.

Interested to know more about how PayrollHero works? Check out our website or reach out to our team and we would be pleased to give you a free one on one demo of the platform as well as the features and benefits.

Visit the Apple app store for the #MyClock app

Executive Interview: Russell Yu, IKI Concepts

I had the opportunity to meet up with Russell Yu, the Director of IKI Concepts in Singapore. Russell is in the process of bringing his successful restaurant concepts from Singapore to the Philippines.

IKI ConceptsIn Singapore, Russell operates Kaiseki Yoshiyuki, Horse’s Mouth Bar and Uma Uma! Original Hakata Ramen. They are very popular spots on Orchard Road. Russell is in the process of bringing Uma Uma! Original Hakata Ramen to the Philippines with the first location opening in November 2015 at the SM Mall of Asia.

Interestingly, one of Russell’s ideas to attract talent in Singapore is to rotate the team through Manila. We know something about this as we do the same thing with our #AdventureEngineering program. We rotate our team through our Whistler, Manila and Singapore offices and use that adventure as a core part of our recruiting effort – and it works. Russell’s take on this is interesting and I think has legs. Singapore’s restaurant and retail businesses have a big challenge when it comes to recruiting. The Singapore unemployment rate is 1.9% [2014 (Q4)] and it is difficult to bring in non-Singaporeans for the roles. So many restaurants and retailers go understaffed. The concept of rotating team members from Singapore through to Manila could be that added benefit to not only attract A players but keeps them around. Interested in learning more about the opportunities at IKI Concepts, reach out to their HR team.

Retail News: Canada’s Joe Fresh Coming to the Philippines

Joe Fresh PhilippinesimgresCanada’s Financial Post is reporting that the retail brand Joe Fresh is expanding further into Asia with the announcement of its partnership with SSI.

Joe Fresh is owned by Loblaws and has hundreds of stores throughout North America. SSI is the premier partner for restaurant and retail groups looking to enter the Philippines.

FamilyMart out of Japan choose SII along with Salad Stop from Singapore. Joe Fresh is another brand expanding into the Philippines in partnership with SSI.

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