Keeping on top of everything regarding your employees is a good way to run an efficient business; however, it does result in a lot of paperwork. Every action that an employee makes within your company leaves behind a trail of administration work, and you can have hundreds of employees under your roof at one time. Administrative work is important yet time-consuming. All of the time you and your human resource team spend filling out this paperwork can easily be used better elsewhere.
Fortunately, modern technology is able to shoulder some of this burden for you. Here are a few ways that you can reduce your employee administration.
Corporate Credit Cards
Your employees aren’t the only source of administrative work in your business. All of your financial transactions require a paper trail to make sure that everything is above board. Combine these two elements in the form of employee expenses and you have a lot of admin to contend with.
That is why you should look into a corporate credit card from Payhawk. Corporate cards can be used by your employees so that you can accurately reimburse them for any transactions without having to comb through hours’ worth of receipts. There are many other benefits to using company cards for your business, but this is the best example of how corporate credit cards can reduce your employee administration.
Project Management Software
As a business leader, it is your job to know what projects are being worked on and when they are likely to be completed. Only then can you provide accurate information to your clients and investors. You will have managers working below you that ensure that this work is being completed, but you do not always have time to go into detail with these individuals. An email chain is likely to result in even more paperwork for you to comb through, which is another waste of time.
Project management software can compile all of your employee project details into one database. This allows your employees to update you on their progress in real-time so that you know when to expect a completion date. Also, it prevents managers from overloading their staff with tasks.
Digital Time-Sheets
It makes sense that your team can only work on a set amount of projects at once; however, this is down to time limitations. It is likely that your staff are only in the building for eight hours a day. Unfortunately, these employees won’t always be available for the same eight hours.
There is a lot that can affect a person’s availability, and you can waste so much time chasing people up that aren’t in the office. A simple remedy for this problem that does not require a ton of admin work is installing digital timesheets. You can create these as a database or a companywide excel sheet that allows people to mark themselves as present and log out when they leave. Therefore, you will end up with a comprehensive list of where everyone is without having to contend with hours of paperwork.
Holiday Forms
On the topic of time, every employee should be entitled to time off to relax. Holiday time is often awarded at random times, which means that you can find yourself short-staffed during busy periods or giving an important deadline to someone that isn’t going to reach it. What’s more, the amount of admin work that you will need to do to compensate for these errors can be dreadful.
Holiday forms can provide your company with a way to mitigate these issues without overloading yourself with a ton of administration duties. You can hand out these forms at the beginning of the year so that your employees can request the time they wish to take as a holiday. Then, you can re-work some of these hours so that you never find yourself understaffed. Plus, you will have these holiday dates available for future reference.
Online Work Platforms
An online work platform works similarly to a social media site. It groups all of your employees under one site and allows them to interact with each other. This can be extremely helpful when it comes to problem-solving, especially when people are working from home.
However, the biggest benefit of an online work platform comes from the fact that it provides a record of your staff’s comings and goings. Employees can send a message on the platform stating that they have to leave the office for a bit and log back in when they return. They can also detail when they are going to make back the time that they missed. Therefore, this type of platform will save you so much time having to look up doctor’s notes or arranging meetings with employees that need to discuss a sensitive issue. All it takes is one message and it is in the system forever with a date and time for easy reference.
Automated Payroll
Making sure that your staff gets paid on time and in full is the best way to encourage employee morale. Unfortunately, the administration process of tallying up every employee’s hours and payment details is extremely long-winded. Plus, doing this process by hand leaves you open to all kinds of errors.
Luckily, there is software out there that can assist you with this. All you need to do is type in the employee’s hours and pay rate and the system will calculate the sum for you. What’s more, you can even make changes to monthly payments and send them out automatically. This type of software can provide you with the means to get your staff paid quickly and without error.
Feedback Forms
The people that know how to reduce your employee administration are going to be the ones that have to deal with the issue themselves. As a business leader, you aren’t always going to be in the thick of it. That is why you hired an admin team in the first place, after all.
Fortunately, these individuals will have in-depth knowledge of what works within the admin department and what doesn’t. Try to take this advice on board and hand out staff feedback forms wherever possible. Whatever you can do to lessen the admin load or improve working conditions is only going to increase efficiency. Therefore, you should always keep yourself open to your employee’s ideas.
Outsource
All of the methods listed above are great ways to reduce employee administration in your business. However, you cannot get rid of all of your admin work, only lessen it for your current admin team.
Therefore, you may find it useful to know that you can outsource your administration work to specific companies if you feel that your admin team is going to get overworked. It is important to get these documents filed on time, but sometimes life doesn’t always afford you this chance. Of course, outsourcing to an admin company is going to cost you some money; however, it might be worth it if you find yourself struggling.
Conclusion
You are never going to get rid of all of your admin work when you run a successful business. Fortunately, the methods described in this article can greatly reduce your load, allowing you to focus on more important matters.
