Home » Tag: HR help desk

HR HelpDesk’s New Chat Features

HR Help Desk with Chat

An HR helpdesk is an essential resource for your HR team. It’s the one place where your employees can find your employee handbook, FAQs, onboarding documentation, and all the other important information and documentation that you want your employees to have easy access to. It allows your employees to resolve their HR issues quickly on their own or get further assistance from dedicated customer service reps through a chat.

The latest version of LBi’s HR HelpDesk offers an updated Chat feature. In addition to the Employee Interactions feature, the more traditional Chat function allows employees to speak with a CSR through the Employee Portal. The interface is similar to an instant messenger window.

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Behind the Scenes of HR HelpDesk’s New AI Features

Helpdesk Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have become key components in helpdesk software.  One of the biggest benefits of AI for helpdesks is that it can help eliminate repetitive administrative tasks. Ticket request routing and knowledge management are two categories of AI features that are part of helpdesks today. LBi’s HR HelpDesk is no exception.

AI is an important tool for the Employee Self-Service Portal of HR HelpDesk. It’s used for searching FAQs and for classification of newly entered Questions.

HR HelpDesk uses two machine learning models, one for each task:

  1. Suggesting an FAQ related to the user’s inquiry
  2. Classifying an inquiry into one of the existing categories

FAQ Suggestions

The learning process begins with data collection. The results produced for an FAQ Suggestion are only as good as the data that comes in. The model is “trained” on the text in the FAQ as soon as the FAQ is created to be able to offer suggestions to the user. Over time, data is gathered on the inquiries that were answered by the FAQ. This additional data allows the model to “learn”, improving the ability for the model to match different wordings of the same FAQ inquiry and to filter out irrelevant FAQs.

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Security and HR Case Management

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

The last thing you need is for employees to distrust HR. Distrust can come about when you don’t have a case management system in place that can route confidential cases, such as harassment or manager dispute cases, to strictly authorized personnel. It can also happen when you use a manual system that fails to ensure that you’re compliant with HIPAA, PHI, PII, and safe harbor regulations. There can be fines of up to $250,000 for violations (and imprisonment of up to 10 years for knowingly abusing or misusing an individual’s health information).

LBi HR HelpDesk secures confidential communication so that it’s never seen by unauthorized eyes. Personal issues, such as harassment and manager disputes, are automatically tagged as confidential and only HR personnel who are authorized to handle those cases can view them. These cases are not visible to others through searches or reports. LBi HR HelpDesk includes features and tools that ensure privacy and confidentiality.  Here are some examples:

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3 Things That Are Killing Your HR Team’s Efficiency

HR Efficiency

The role of Human Resources has evolved — once marked by administrative and day-to-day people management, modern HR now occupies a more strategic position serving to support long-term business goals.

At least, that’s the mission; in practice, many HR teams are struggling to function this way. According to EY, a staggering 86% of HR professionals’ time is spent on administrative work.

In this post I talk about three major things that are killing HR efficiency, and how to tackle them so your team can spend less time on administration and more on strategic work that drives business value.

1. Information “Rework”

A majority of the administrative work mentioned above involves HR professionals tracking down information and fielding questions. Often, these are the same questions with the same answers — asked by different employees. In mid-to-large size organizations, where many employees are asking these questions to many HR people, this could mean thousands of hours spent finding and communicating simple information.

Most of these questions don’t (or shouldn’t) merit direct HR attention. Things like checking vacation or accessing benefits information are better managed via centralization and automation.

HR leaders should focus on leveraging technology to make information easily available to employees through self-serve platforms that streamline information access and remove unnecessary human intervention.

2. The “Patchwork of Platforms”

I’ve talked before about HR’s patchwork problem. We have so many processes, tools, platforms and vendors that often serve a specific purpose but fail to work together seamlessly. What we’re left with is a “patchwork” that creates information silos and makes everyone’s life difficult:

What’s the solution to this patchwork? In simple terms, centralization. HR leaders can focus on making disparate systems and processes better integrated to reduce the time spent (and degree of difficulty) navigating the patchwork. This is one of the main reasons why we created LBi’s HR HelpDesk — to provide an intuitive tool that layers on top of existing systems and centralizes disparate HR functions into one easy-to-use interface.

3. Overly Complex Systems Read More

Making Life Easy for Your Employees: 3 Tips for HR Leaders

Employee Experience 3 Tips for HR Leaders

Employee experience is integral to the future of Human Resources. With unprecedented changes to the way we work happening over the past year or so, it’s no surprise that more than 42% of HR leaders claim it’s their biggest human capital challenge.

94% of talent professionals agree —

Employee experience is very important to the future of recruiting and HR

Linkedin 2020 global talent trends

While employee experience has many layers, HR leaders have an opportunity to vastly improve how they serve their people by focusing on a basic, foundational principle — access to information.

Here, I offer three actionable tips for HR leaders to improve information access and as a result, greatly improve the employee experience.

1. Embrace a self-serve model

Knowledge workers spend an average of 2.5 hours per day looking for information. HR has the opportunity to help reduce bottlenecks by embracing a self-service model.

Almost ¾ of employees in the United States

want self-service HR tools

A 2019 survey found that in the United States, 73% of employees want self-service HR tools to find information and perform basic tasks like managing time off and viewing payroll information. Self-service helps:

  • Give employees the flexibility to access information when they need it, from wherever they need it;
  • Drastically reduce the time it takes for your people to find answers;
  • Eliminate the human capital required to service information requests; and
  • Save time for employees and your HR team

Organizations already offer self-service options to improve the customer experience — it’s time to apply the same principles to the employee experience.

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Software Application Warranty vs. Maintenance/ Support

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
warranty vs maintenance

What’s the Difference?

The purpose of a contract warranty is to ensure that the delivered software application conforms to the contract’s defined scope. This means, for example, that all the requested features, reports, and utilities are delivered. Maintenance/Support, however, delivers much more.

Maintenance Patches and Upgrades

Maintenance Patches – provided on an as needed basis, a patch resolves a critical application defect(s) or security flaw or browser compatibility issue which cannot wait for the next product upgrade. The vendor should install all Maintenance Releases as soon as practicable after receipt. Testing, implementation, and installation for Maintenance Patches should be included.

Upgrades – a new version of the application released by the vendor. Clients with continuous maintenance should be eligible for upgrades to new versions of applications as they are available. 

Application Security Monitoring

LBi Software, for example, makes use of an automated application vulnerability management tool, as well as a dynamic security testing tool, that test our apps against a large array of threats – including SQL injection, cross-site scripting, antiquated third party libraries, as well as other items found in the OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) top 10. These static and dynamic tests are continuously updated to account for the latest vulnerabilities that are continuously being found. The end result is software that is as secure as possible. These tools are always updated with new flaws that hackers have discovered and exploited.  Not only does your application have to be secure from Day One of use, but every day afterwards.

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Why You Need a Maintenance Contract for Your Software Application

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment

Why Custom Software?

When off the shelf applications don’t fulfill a critical business need that is directly tied to your organization’s profitability, custom enterprise-level applications are necessary. Building such an application is a significant undertaking in time, effort, and cost. Development for such a system can take a software team 6 months to 2 years to complete. The investment is worth it, though, because of the improvement in business processes, which in turn leads to improved performance, efficiency, cost savings and a Return On your Investment (ROI).

Normally because of the significant investment, the goal is for enterprise-level software to be used in production for 10 to 20 years. For example, LBi’s software product, Personnel Assistant (PA), was in production approximately 17 years. Each software application has its own unique life cycle, and it depends in part on real world changes, such as changes in business requirements, environment changes, security issues, software bugs, software upgrades, hardware changes/upgrades, etc. In order to keep your application viable for a long period of time and maximize your ROI, we recommend including ongoing maintenance.

What is Software Maintenance?

To keep your software up to date, you need Software Maintenance. There are four types of software maintenance: Preventive, Adaptive, Corrective and Enhancements.

  • Preventive – helps to reduce the risk associated with operating software for a long time, helping it to become more stable, understandable, and maintainable by optimizing code and updating documentation as needed
  • Adaptive – modifying software to allow it to remain effective in a changing business and technical environment
  • Corrective – modifying the software to correct issues (“bugs”) discovered after initial deployment
  • Enhancements – these can include:
    • New features or functions
    • Improving existing features or functions
    • Removal of outdated features or functions

Why Do You Need Maintenance and Support Services?

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Advanced Reporting in HR HelpDesk

The best HR Help Desk systems also do an excellent job of collecting the data HR needs to track trends, see HR’s performance impact on the organization, expose problems and more. With a wide array of reports, HR can really control reporting and analytics.  

LBi HR HelpDesk provides a variety of standard and customizable reports that HR can use to improve their operations. Whether users run the standard reports, customize criteria, or extract specific data points to use in external analytics systems such as Excel, Crystal, Business Objects or others, LBi HR HelpDesk presents the data that lets HR get the most out of their systems.

For the average user, the LBi HR HelpDesk standard report templates provide all of the core reporting that most organizations need. The more advanced users can use the LBi HR HelpDesk reporting tool to adjust criteria with over a dozen fields and save these custom reports for the future. Lastly, the data extraction tool is user-friendly and non-technical, almost any HR user has the tools to perform complex analytics. Just open a template, select the fields you need from the dialog box, save it as an Excel worksheet, and you are ready to manipulate the data as you desire.

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The Importance of Scalability in Software Solutions

software scalability

As we begin a new decade, businesses should no longer be restricted to limited products. This includes applications that don’t scale as organizations grow and their resources increase. With software solutions such as LBi’s HR HelpDesk, businesses can now rest assured that their systems will have the same scalability as they do.

HR HelpDesk is specifically designed to scale with its clients. For instance, a start-up with 50 employees will have significantly less HR inquiries than even a small-to-mid-sized business. But as that start-up flourishes and adds more employees, the need for a self-service portal may be apparent.  That’s where LBi comes in and seamlessly reconfigures HR HelpDesk to fit the organization’s needs.

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Investing in a New HCM System? Determine the True ROI

ROI on HCM

The following post first appeared in 2018.

When you make the decision to install a new HRIS system, you may or may not factor-in a potential return on investment (ROI). Some systems are necessary regardless of cost (i.e., Payroll), while others (talent management, for instance) may require some level of financial justification.

Some systems, however, clearly demonstrate a solid ROI. One obvious example is replacing a manual time and attendance collection process with an automated one. Automated T&A systems dramatically reduce time collection and processing hours (thereby reducing FTEs), and reduce errors to almost 0%. Not to mention stricter adherence to payroll policies.

Example:

Take a look at the following example:

  • 500 employee company with an average $45,000 annual salary = $22,500,000 annual payroll
  • According to the American Payroll Association automating T&A can save a minimum of 1% of payroll = $225,000 annual savings
  • A typical SaaS-based Time &Attendance system (clocks, software, services, etc.) for a 500 employee firm will generally cost <$100,000 annually for a top-name system
  • That amounts to a virtually instant ROI ($100K annual investment to save $225K annual payroll expense)

One caveat is the inclusion of hard dollar savings (i.e., less paper used) vs. soft dollar savings (i.e., FTE time). Why aren’t FTE savings a hard dollar benefit? Because payroll departments rarely cut headcounts, even if they can. More often than not, underutilized FTE resources are reallocated to other responsibilities.  But the overall benefits are still obvious.

Other systems, such as HR Help Desk, can demonstrate a solid ROI as well, though not as directly. A comprehensive help desk includes employee self-service features such as a FAQ database and real-time case history.  In actual practice self-service features reduce unnecessary calls into HR, freeing up FTE time. However, ROI benefits from HR Help Desk systems are primarily based on soft dollar savings — greater employee satisfaction and engagement, greater adherence to HR policies, and workforce analytics, for example.

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HRIT Systems: SaaS vs. Leasing

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
ROI vs Leasing HRIT

The following post first appeared in 2018.

Various options for payment do not always equal the same amount. For now, let’s ignore deployment technology (shared vs. dedicated server, hosted vs. on-premises, single tenant vs. multi-tenant, etc.).

So how can you pay for HR systems? At the highest level, you can write big checks up front or you can make monthly payments (or even a combination of both, sometimes). Writing big checks generally means you are essentially buying a software license (actually you are buying a perpetual use license) and paying for associated professional services. You, therefore, “own” the system.

In a traditional SaaS model, you may pay something up front for implementation, but subsequently you make monthly “rental” payments in return for having access to the system. Generally there is a minimum term of maybe a 24-36 month commitment.

Deciding how to pay for the new systems comes down to where the available funds are appropriated — either capital (buy) or operating (rent) funds. You are essentially buying or renting the system, though the contract language may not state either terminology.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both options, and not just related to cost. Often the buy option breaks even with a rental after 2-4 years. At that point rental (again think SaaS) becomes costlier because the high monthly rental fees far exceed the cost of an annual support agreement that is offered in a buy option.

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Understanding Big Data to Streamline HR Decision-Making

Big Data - HelpDesk Dashboard for Data Data Visualization

Each day companies of all sizes utilize big data to uncover insights in their industry. From financial institutions to sports organizations and every business type in between, they understand that recognizing trends is one of the most vital solutions in their landscape. The same goes for Human Resources departments.

At LBi, our latest version of HR HelpDesk incorporates a robust Executive Dashboard for HR. This tool allows users to visualize HR insights. Key information includes ticket resolution, CSR effectiveness, and ticket distribution, among many other categories. This component is meant to serve as an added solution for HR professionals.

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How an Employee Portal Frees Up Time for HR Teams

employee portal

No matter the profession, there are only so many hours in a week to accomplish tasks. Specifically, HR professionals must prioritize their myriad of tasks based on their level of importance. We can all agree that accommodating company employees’ needs is certainly a main priority. But how much time should it consume in an HR professional’s week?

In a recent study by TotalJobs, more than 20 HR decision-makers were polled on their individual weekly work routine. The results showed that HR professionals spend nearly 30% of their time dealing with employees. From employee meetings to relations and engagement, this study found that the HR elite are consumed by their employees’ needs. This forces them to disregard additional, important tasks such as developing HR strategy, administrative work and operations management, to name a few.

What if there was a tool to accommodate employees and essentially free up HR professionals’ time? The answer is an HR HelpDesk system with an Employee Portal.

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AI is the Answer in Today’s (HR) Workplace

AI for the workplace

The world of artificial intelligence is booming. This next-gen innovation is more influential in the workplace than ever before. AI can be described as the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, most specifically computer systems. From transforming productivity to eliminating repetitive administrative tasks and transforming internal communications and support, AI is here to stay.

And Artificial Intelligence can benefit HR departments of all sizes.

HR professionals have their hands full with an array of responsibilities. Personnel on the employee support teams work on both necessary and repetitive tasks. In today’s workplace, it’s important to limit the amount of tedious processes throughout the day. Fortunately, AI has taken a long step towards eliminating repetitive administrative tasks throughout HR.

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Employees Are a Company’s Most Valuable Asset

valuable asset is employees

The following post first appeared in 2013.

Talk about a valuable asset — Recently I closed one of the biggest contracts of my career. The last key piece that sold it was “our employees”. During one of the sales meetings the prospects’ CFO said something profound – “after all, it is not so much about choosing company A over company B as much as it is being comfortable with the people from company A”.  The CFO liked the team that presented the solution but he wanted to be assured that the team that would execute it was just as good.  So I sent him the name and bio of every person who would be assigned to the project.  We then followed that up with an in-person presentation of all the team members. The next day we got the contract.

It seems so obvious yet we always seem to forget it.  Our most valued asset is our employees. So, why are companies always looking to cut on Health and Retirement costs — the very items that motivate their employees? Why does it seem that investments in HR are hard to come by? HR, after all, is responsible for recruiting and cultivating our employees. It should be the most important piece of the organization. I read many articles about how “HR is becoming a strategic piece of the organization”; in what universe would it not be?

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Sierra-Cedar 2019-2020 HR Systems Survey

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
HR Systems Survey HR trends

The 22nd Annual Edition of the Sierra-Cedar HR Systems Survey is now available. This is arguably the most comprehensive survey for HR users, covering nearly all aspects of HR solutions, from the traditional integrated HR/ERP systems to the latest emerging technologies and innovations.

In partnership with Sierra-Cedar, LBi Software invites you to participate in the 2019-2020 survey. It is now available at www.Sierra-Cedar.com/hrssv45 until June 10, 2019. Please note, all responses are confidential and only used in aggregate results.

Some important topics covered in this year’s survey include, but are not limited to:

  • Strategy, process, and structure
  • Adoption of all HR Technology applications
  • HR Analytics and workforce planning
  • Deployment roadmaps, resourcing and budgeting
  • Implementation, maintenance, and integration
  • Emerging and innovative technology

The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete, but in return you will be presented with invaluable insight into business trends, adoption of HR software solutions, top issues and challenges, and much more. This survey also helps vendors like LBi provide the first-class technology solutions that you expect.

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Monitoring Employee Computer Use at Work

By | HR Effectiveness | Leave a comment
Monitoring Computer Use

Before the advent of desktop (“personal”) computers, many office workers utilized mainframe (“green screen”) terminals to perform their daily computing duties. There was nowhere to surf outside of a few stark business related menu choices. Interestingly though, some of the most common mainframe systems actually included one or more video games. Some were included with the system’s core programs, while others were written by adventurous in-house software support personnel.

These simple games used rudimentary two-color graphics (green and black), if at all. Many were 100% text based. But they were fun for bored or overworked workers who needed a brief distraction from the day to day drudgery of their jobs.

Then came Apple, IBM and others with their new personal desktop computers supporting full color screens (16 colors at first – billions later). Game programmers took full advantage of this new user interface (UI) and started to create more sophisticated and exciting games. Remember Solitaire, PacMan and Space Invaders?

At first these computers were used in businesses to connect to company mainframes via something called terminal services, essentially making the PC a “dumb terminal”.

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Is Micromanaging an Effective Management Model?

By | HR Effectiveness | Leave a comment
micromanaging

Micromanaging, by definition, focuses on the smallest details of the manager’s direct reports’ daily activities. Nothing is too insignificant, too mundane, and even too irrelevant to bypass a micromanager’s wrath.

In some industries this may be a good thing — think heart surgeons or NASA engineers. Missing just one small detail can costs lives. 99% accuracy and completeness may be perfectly fine in one business but can spell disaster in another.

What about businesses where perfection is not mission critical? Is micromanaging necessary and even beneficial in a sales organization, for instance? Sales people have performance quotas and other responsibilities such as record keeping, cold calling, etc. Sales managers’ styles vary greatly from being entirely hands-off (the uber-trusting type) all the way to the hyper-controlling style.

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Newsday Names LBi Software a Winner of the Long Island 2018 Top Workplaces Award

2018 top workplaces

LBi is proud to announce that we have been awarded a 2018 Top Workplaces honor by Newsday. We’d like to thank all of our employees, who made this happen.

The list is based solely on employee feedback that was gathered through a third-party survey that was administered by research partner Energage. The anonymous survey measures several aspects of workplace culture, including alignment, execution, and connection, just to name a few.

According to survey responses, some of the things we do well include:

  • Senior Management understanding what’s really happening at LBi
  • Heading in the right direction as a company
  • Making sure our employees feel genuinely appreciated

Of course, we received some constructive criticism, as well, and have been working on some action items to improve in areas that we’re lacking.

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Is HR Ready for AI?

It’s cool, it’s fun, it’s the future. But are we ready for it? Or, more appropriately is AI ready for us?

In case you have never heard the term, AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. Essentially, AI refers to teachable computer software applications, or machine learning. The more you use it the smarter it gets. Apple’s Siri and those new smart speakers are good examples of AI’s practical application. Ask Siri “restaurants” and she not only assumes you are asking for restaurant suggestions, but it assumes you are interested mainly in places near your current location and possibly serving your favorite cuisines.

Chatbots are another good example. Have you ever initiated a chat session online only to realize well into the conversation that you are interacting with a computer “bot”, not a live person? “Hello, my name is Andy. How can I assist”? Andy is in fact…an Android.

IBM’s Watson computer is probably one of the most well-known and comprehensive examples of AI in a real world application. First used in the healthcare industry (not including its debut on the game show Jeopardy) and spreading rapidly into many other markets, Watson is a shining example of AI at its best. A lot of power for IBM’s nearly $2B investment.

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HR Help Desk’s Special Importance in Higher Education

HR Admins already know the importance of a robust help desk solution being central to developing a comprehensive shared services program. HR Help Desk manages all employee interactions with HR from onboarding through off-boarding. HR Help Desk uncovers patterns of issues that can impact overall employee performance and productivity, by identifying even subtle warning signs. Ongoing harassment complaints, manager disputes, departmental unrest, and other critical issues come to light in help desk reporting and analytics.

So what is different in the higher education industry? College and university campuses not only support hundreds and even thousands of employees, those employees interact closely with student populations in numbers that far exceed the employee base. Even a small university with just a few thousand employees can have 3-5 times as many students on campus. And those students on work-study are also technically employees of the institution.

Other businesses may engage closely with the public (i.e., the retail sector), but none can compare with higher education when it comes to potential personnel issues and complaints. Students frequently bond with their professors, and professors often develop closer relationships with special needs students or especially higher performing students. The same holds true with students and coaches. If those relationships sour, accusations can occur unexpectedly, and be quite serious in nature. HR must be prepared to intervene immediately to assess the situation and document all of the details and supporting materials in order to minimize the negative impact on the institution.

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Top Ten Reasons RFPs May Not Be Necessary

RFPs

Many companies require departments to issue RFPs for new business software systems, often when the cost estimate exceeds a certain dollar amount. Unless there are legal requirements that mandate an RFP process, consider these ten reasons why you should research alternative acquisition options.

  1. With today’s internet, gathering competitive information on products and vendors couldn’t be easier. Why bother with an RFP or RFI if the goal is information gathering?
  2. Many vendors, as a matter of policy, will not respond to RFPs, believing there is already a preferred vendor in place. Your well-intentioned RFP could inadvertently be excluding qualified vendors.
  3. RFPs tend to unnecessarily prolong the vendor selection. If you already have a preferred vendor or two, focusing on them will save time and generally produce a quality choice.
  4. Vendors want your business and will often lie or exaggerate their capabilities in RFP responses. Researching vendors and engaging them 1 on 1 will provide a more honest assessment. It’s easy to lie or stretch the truth in a written RFP response, but much harder to do so when asked face-to-face in a presentation.
  5. If the ultimate goal of an RFP is to gather competitive quotes from already screened vendors, consider a less formal RFQ. You will save time and generate the same desired result.
  6. RFP questions are often all over the map, intermingling true requirements, nice-to-haves, and even completely irrelevant questions. Nothing discourages prospective vendors like entire sections where they must respond in the negative. If you must issue an RFP, stick to your known requirements, and consider an RFI instead.
  7. If you are considering releasing an RFP for a new system, chances are you already have a qualified vendor in mind. Why muddy the waters with several new and often confusing proposals when you already have confidence in your first choice.
  8. Consider researching and selecting a short list of vendors and go straight for demos, circumventing the Q&A process. RFP decisions are almost always made after the demo. So head straight for the presentation/demo. You will save time, and likely make the same selection.
  9. In most business software categories, there are usually one or more “safe bets” — older reputable companies with large install bases. You have heard the phrase “No one was ever fired for choosing xxx”. There is a reason they have that level of reputation, so why not make that safe bet?
  10. If your department has a requirement to issue an RFP for purchase of systems above a certain threshold, consider finding a qualified solution that falls within that cap. Even though a cheaper system may be lacking in some functional areas, they may simply be “good enough”. You may just look like a hero by saving your company time and dollars.

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The Potential Risks of Multi-language Capability in HCM Business Solutions

multi-language in HCM solutions

More and more companies, both large and small, are building a multi-national presence. These organizations often have employees in several countries, speaking different languages. Even domestic businesses may have a multi-lingual workforce, commonly with workers speaking Spanish, French, and multiple Asian languages, for instance. In those companies, the ability for HR to effectively communicate with this diverse group is critical to success.

The most comprehensive HCM software solutions, such as LBi HR Help Desk, offer multi-language support, often via integration with Google Translate. HR staff and employees have 2-click access to over 90 different languages, which translates each page on the fly and remembers the user’s selection every time they log in.

That may work fine when translating drop-down menu items and static text, but what about freeform text boxes? What happens with common slang expressions or regional colloquialisms in the translation process? What happens if the employee’s or HR’s true meaning is literally lost in translation? Google Translate does a fine job with standard text words and phrases, but doesn’t always properly convert slang and similar idioms. Even the most comprehensive translation engines can get it wrong all too often.

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Rewards & Incentives

Rewards and incentives and employee engagement

Every employee loves incentives and rewards and they can be part of the tools that help keep engagement with your company. They can come in the form of cash bonuses, salary increases (and/or promotions) or prizes (tangible gifts). Generally, incentives are considered more like the carrot on the stick – achieve management’s stated goals and you receive the gift. Rewards on the other hand may be given ad hoc after an employee performs well above expectations, without any awareness of a potential recognition.

So which method can potentially help management achieve peak performance from their employees? In this blog we will only consider positive awards. Negative incentives (threats of termination or demotion, for example) will be saved for a future blog. And we aren’t talking about traditional holiday bonuses.

Let’s take a look at some of the various incentive options that could trigger an award, and the recommended award types:

Incentive/Reward Plan Award? Award Type Meet stated goals Not recommended unless the team as a whole is well below plan/quota N/A Exceed stated goals Yes – can be ongoing Raise or bonus One-off performance contest Yes – occasional Bonus or prize Top producer for a period Yes – ongoing Bonus Special activity – e.g., best new idea, charity work, etc. Yes – occasional Prize Recommends a new hire candidate Yes – when candidate is hired Bonus Unexpected performance above & beyond Yes – as one achieves this designation Bonus or prize Random lottery game Yes – occasional Bonus or prize

How did I select specific award types depending on the activity?:

Award Type Reasoning Raise Permanent, used for rewarding ongoing or longer-term success. Bonus Cash is king. When the achievement is one-time and high-value to the company. Everyone likes cash. Prize Fun, different, unexpected — when the employee’s special performance doesn’t necessarily impact company performance, and the award impacts general morale.

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Combining HR Help Desk Data with External Data Sources

hr help desk data

LBi HR Help Desk is known for its flexible reporting templates – more than 15 templates HR can access to build a wide array of powerful and productive custom reports. These templates in aggregate provide end users with access to virtually all of HR Help Desk’s data fields.

Using HR Help Desk’s export feature, data points may be combined from multiple templates to provide an even greater capability to build specialized reports and analytics. But what about merging data from non-HR Help Desk systems for literally limitless analytics capability?

Today, in many industries analytics is the name of the game for companies seeking a competitive edge. IT departments are often inundated with custom analytics requests from every department and business group. You want a custom report? Take a number. Don’t call us – we will call you.

So what can HR do to accelerate delivery of their custom report requests? This blog will demonstrate how to use Microsoft Excel and one single key function plus Pivot Tables to combine data from literally any source into a single table, ready to slice and dice.

That’s right. Specifically VLOOKUP and Pivot Tables together are the keys to HR analytics nirvana. Perfect? No. Limitless? No. But you will be amazed how easy and flexible it is to create a wide variety of reports using your help desk data combined with data from other sources.

Let’s say you want to analyze the demographics of employees that have submitted harassment or discrimination claims. You are primarily concerned about patterns of abuse by age, gender and/or race – neither of which is tracked in HR Help Desk. Additionally you want to analyze whether your recent diversity training was beneficial in reducing complaints.

Here are the basic data points and common location you need to create your reports:

Data Field Data Location    Employee ID (key field) HRIS, Help Desk, Talent mgmt Employee gender HRIS Employee race HRIS Employee age HRIS Date of complaint Help Desk Category of complaint (i.e. discrimination) Help Desk Date of diversity training Talent mgmt

Notice the key field must be included in each export table. This field ties all tables together.

Here are the steps you need to take:

  1. From each system (HRIS, Help Desk, Talent Mgmt) create an extract of the above fields and open in Excel. Place each table in the same workbook, each in separate worksheets.
  2. Highlight each table and create a name for each (i.e. HRIS_table, HD_table, TM_table). Make sure the Employee ID is the 1st column in each table.
  3. Open the HRIS table and add the Complaint Date, Category, and Training date column headers. The table should look something like this:
  4. Now for the magic formula – =VLOOKUP(lookup cell, in this table, return this column value, false)

Enter this formula in cell E3: =vlookup(A3,HD_table,3,false) , where “3” is the HD_table column for the Complaint Date.

Copy this formula down to the last row. Your table should look like this:

Now repeat these steps for the Category and Training Date columns. Now your table should look like this:

  1. Your table is now ready for pivot table analysis. Click anywhere in the table and select Pivot Table or chart from the Insert menu in Excel.

Below are just a few of the pivot table/chart analytics you can create in just a few mouse clicks:

Complaints by age range

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Why Participate in the 21st Annual Sierra-Cedar HR Systems Survey

Sierra-Cedar Survey 2018

It’s that time of the year — the 21st annual Sierra-Cedar HR Systems Survey is upon us.  This is probably the most comprehensive survey for HR users, covering virtually all aspects of HR technology use, from the traditional integrated HR/ERP systems to the latest emerging technologies and innovations.

Some of the most important questions you may have are answered in the survey results, such as:

  • What are the latest trends in HR technology
  • Who are the leading vendors
    • Best of Breed vs. single-source integrated solution
  • What systems are my peers and competitors using
  • What systems are my peers and competitors considering in the next 12 months
  • What systems provide the greatest efficiencies and ROI
  • Where the most/least money is spent
  • By vertical market, how strategic is the HR organization perceived
  • Who is upgrading and who is not, and why
  • Data privacy & confidentiality issues
    • To cloud or not to cloud
  • How and where analytics is being used
  • Much more…

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Determining the True ROI When Investing in New HCM Systems

HCM ROI

Your decision to implement a new HRIS system may or may not factor-in a potential return on investment (ROI). Some systems are necessary regardless of cost (i.e., Payroll). Others (talent management, for instance) may require some level of financial justification.

Then there are some systems that clearly demonstrate a solid ROI. One obvious example is replacing a manual time and attendance collection process with an automated one. Automated T&A systems dramatically reduce time collection and processing hours (thereby reducing FTE’s), and reduce errors down to almost 0%. Not to mention stricter adherence to payroll policies.

Take the following example:

  • 500 employee company with an average $45,000 annual salary = $22,500,000 annual payroll
  • According to the American Payroll Association automating T&A can save a minimum of 1% of payroll = $225,000 annual savings
  • A typical SaaS-based T&A system (clocks, software, services, etc.) for a 500 employee firm will generally cost <$100,000 annually for a top-name system
  • That equates to a virtually instant ROI ($100K annual investment to save $225K annual payroll expense)

One caveat is the inclusion of hard dollar savings (i.e., less paper used) vs. soft dollar savings (i.e., FTE time). Why aren’t FTE savings a hard dollar benefit? Because payroll departments rarely cut headcounts, even if they can. More often than not, underutilized FTE resources are reallocated to other responsibilities.  But the overall benefits are still obvious.

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Benefits of HR Help Desk in Small Businesses

HR HelpDesk Multi Device

Utilizing an HR Help Desk in large organizations is unquestionably critical to the company’s success. A typical 5,000 employee business generates on average 30,000 HR cases per year, with issues ranging from simple PTO requests up to sexual harassment complaints and other legal-related complaints.

Case volumes in the tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands can be analyzed to find patterns of issues that HR must recognize and address before they hit critical mass and begin to negatively impact the business’s operations.

However, companies with, for instance, 500 employees may only create as few as 3,000 annual cases, or about 12 cases daily. From an administrative point of view, numbers that small can easily be tracked in Excel spreadsheets, without the need for a formal help desk solution.

So why consider an HR specific case management system for your small business? The answer lies in 3 acronyms – HIPAA, PHI, and PII. Small businesses are not immune from lawsuits filed due to breaches of private employee data. HIPAA violations can cause fines in excess of $1M per incident – regardless of company size. In today’s litigious society, workers are often likely to sue, even for small HR related infractions, if their contingency-paid lawyer thinks they have a case.

Whereas a larger organization may have the resources to fend off frivolous lawsuits, one bad case could put a small company out of business.

A well-designed HR Help Desk tracks all employee-to-HR interactions, and maintains that data in a secure and HIPAA-compliant system. From initial complaint through case resolution, necessary confidentiality is guaranteed. Unauthorized eyes will not have access to sensitive case data, documents, phone records, etc. Read More

We Moved to a Bigger Space Thanks to You

LBi Software New Building

These past five years have been good. Good for LBi, and good for LBi’s clients. Our organization has seen a tremendous amount of success and unprecedented growth, and we’ve been honored to help our clients reach their full potential as we continue to grow.

Whether we’re helping our sports clients create better teams through improved draft picks, signings, and trades, or helping our HR clients with innovative HR case management and call-tracking workflow solutions, we have a long history of success with our clients across the board.

And it’s paid off.

In just five years, we launched LBi Dynasty, our custom sports analytics solution, and now we have clients in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Basketball Association. We’re incredibly proud to have clients in three of the four major sports leagues and 20 percent of the teams in MLB. And we’re proud of how our HR clients continue to grow through HR HelpDesk, as well.

These past five years have been incredible, and it’s all thanks to our clients and our amazing employees. It’s because of them that we can make this announcement.

We’re very excited to announce that we purchased a 25,235-square-foot building for $5.4 million in March of 2017. This three-story building is located at 999 Walt Whitman Road in Melville, New York, where we’ll occupy the first and second floors of the building. And it’s all thanks to our clients, our employees, and the past five years of unprecedented growth.

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When 1099 Workers Function as Full-time Employees

Many businesses occasionally (or even frequently) require the services of part-time and/or specialty contract workers. Workloads may be seasonable. New projects require talent that is not currently available on staff. The business cannot find qualified permanent employees. Whatever the reason, sometimes the company must hire 1099 workers.

1099 workers generally consume fewer HR resources because they are provided with fewer benefits, and they are paid without tax and other deductions. Generally they are not entitled to holiday pay, or any PTO pay. However, their hourly rate (or fixed base pay) is usually higher than their coworkers performing the same or similar tasks.

Here-in lies the potential problem. What if the 1099 “employee” actually works full-time and truly functions essentially as a full-time employee, particularly if the worker has been with the organization for many months, or even longer?

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Controlling Access to Confidential Cases in Your HR Case Management System

By | Data Security | Leave a comment
HR HelpDesk New Case Entry

IT help systems and customer relationship management (CRM) systems have much in common with HR case management solutions. However, what distinguishes the finest HR-specific systems from the rest is the ability to virtually (and often literally) hide confidential tickets from all but specific authorized users.

The level of confidentiality needed in generic CRM systems simply does not demand a true lockdown of sensitive cases required by HR. Without this capability, HR would be at risk of breaking HIPAA and other regulations.

Defining what is confidential, and the degree of confidentiality, should start with the employee’s new case entry. By defining general levels of confidentiality in case categories (e.g., “Disputes”) and subcategories (e.g., “sexual harassment issues”), the employee can select a specific topic and therefore indicate the need for privacy in the matter. Proper workflow setup ensures that not only will the case be routed strictly to the authorized specialist(s), but only that person or persons can even view the case. Unauthorized eyes won’t even know the case exists, whether in reports or by conducting a case search.

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HR Help Desk – Reporting & Analytics

customizable reports

LBi HR Help Desk provides a wide variety of standard and customizable reports that HR can use to improve their operations, as well as delivering analytics that can impact the entire organization. Whether users run standard reports or extract specific data points to use in external analytics systems such as Excel, Crystal, Business Objects or others, LBi HR Help Desk serves up the data HR demands to gain the most benefit out of their Shared Services systems.

Take a look at the key data items HR Help Desk collects in just one standard report template:

  • Case Details:
    • Employee ID
    • Employee Division/Department
    • Open/close dates
    • Days open
    • Overdue status
    • Case priority
    • Tier 0,1,2 response (resolution via self-service, Agent assistance, or escalated)
    • Case Owner
    • Case Originator
    • Case Category/subcategory
    • Issue & resolution text
    • Case created via (email, phone, portal, etc.)
    • Employee’s preferred response mechanism (phone, email, etc.)

From this single basic report template, users can extract data to create very powerful analytics, such as:

  • Case owner overdue performance comparison
  • Employees making excessive calls to HR, and the reasons for the calls, by department
  • Overdue status by case category/subcategory (i.e. comparing 401K issue status to Payroll issues)
  • Evaluating the self-service knowledge base effectiveness
  • Cases requiring the most escalation
  • Detailed Case load by date range (i.e., peak periods for specific case types, for planning/resource scheduling purposes)
  • Much more

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Should Performance Reviews Include Information from Social Media?

social media

In other words, is it acceptable to judge an employee’s performance on activities that occur outside of the office, even if those activities include disparaging the employer? Though laws and policies are different in different states and jurisdictions, the question is still valid.

It may seem obvious that employees (and really everyone) should not compromise themselves in any way online, but the facts show otherwise. People simply do dumb things all the time and post them for all to see. In reality, anything posted online in a publicly accessible page could be considered fair game to anyone else who decides to use that information freely.

What if the employee is posting a job search on LinkedIn? Is it reasonable that the employer’s view of the employee be impacted one way or another? Management may decide to cajole the employee with a positive review (and associated bonus). Or they may prefer to cut the cord and let the employee go prior to him/her actually resigning. In employment-at-will states, employers don’t even have to give a reason for dismissal, as long as the termination is not violating other laws such as discrimination.

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Securing Confidential Data in Your HR Help Desk

HR Help Desk systems are not payroll systems, though discussion of confidential payroll information may likely be collected during the course of managing an employee ticket request. The same holds true with healthcare data, personal credit data, and more. Certainly your HR Help Desk is not a financial system, benefit provider system, or any other system that is designed to collect and manage discreet types of personal information.

In some ways, the HR Help Desk system is more akin to email – with one key differentiator – data security. Your unsecure corporate email system collects and stores virtually any and all types of data, much of it potentially highly confidential in nature. HR Help Desks can and do collect that same information. The danger with email is that emails can easily be forwarded and/or copied to unauthorized eyes.

There is literally no feature in email systems designed to prevent confidential information from being sent to anyone. If you know their address, you can send anything to anyone without restrictions. Corporate policies may be in place to control email flow, but that is no guarantee that violations will not occur, whether inadvertently or intentionally.

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For Grievance and Conflict Resolution, HR Case Management Software Can Be a Valuable Tool

conflict resolution

The following post first appeared in 2014. 

“A good manager doesn’t try to eliminate conflict,” says Robert Townsend, author of the bestseller Up the Organization, and co-author of Reinventing Leadership. “He tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people.”

As an HR professional in an enterprise organization, you have a choice in how your team — and, therefore, your entire organization — handles all of the conflicts that arise from employee complaints, grievances, and concerns.

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Meet Your New HR Superstar

AI for the workplace

Would you hire a highly skilled and experienced prime HR candidate for the price of an entry level clerk?  What if your new employee is guaranteed to:

  • Save the organization valuable time and dollars
  • Resolve HR cases faster
  • Free up other HR resources for more strategic work
  • Guarantee consistent adherence to company policies/procedures
  • Increase employee satisfaction
  • Electronically archive and manage all HR case history
  • Assure adherence to government regulations
  • Automatically generate and distribute valuable analytical reports
  • Track patterns of issues & resolve them before they fester

Additionally, what if your new hire will:

  • Work 24/7/365
  • Never take a day off
  • Never complain about anything
  • Require no paid benefits
  • Will do everything you ask (within the job description)
  • Never make a mistake
  • Do all of this – guaranteed

Interested?  Meet LBi HR HelpDesk 6.0, your new superstar. LBi HR HelpDesk is your loyal and dedicated partner, dedicated to helping you build and maintain a successful HR Shared Services operation.

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How to Capitalize on Your HR Help Desk Data

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
HR HelpDesk Manager Dashboard

You just invested in a shiny new HR Help Desk solution. You integrated it with your HRIS systems. HR and employees embraced the new tool. The new reports are awesome. Management now has a handle on the day-to-day workload. Problem areas are being identified and corrected. Love the new system.

Is that all there is? Isn’t that enough to justify the investment? Yes, but… let’s take it to the next level with analytics. Reports merely summarize the data; the Who, What, When and Where. Are you ready for the Why and How? Hopefully so. However, as they say – garbage in garbage out. Without the right data (and complete data) faulty analytics could send HR down the wrong mid and long term path.

The finest HR Help Desk systems are very good at collecting the right data points which HR can use to track trends, expose pain points, HR’s performance impact on the entire organization, and more. The Help Desk is designed to capture the right data, but it is up to each HR user to collect all of the data.

First and foremost, every contact between HR and employees must be captured as a case.  Most HR Help Desk systems offer a chat feature, and most of those allow a chat session to close without creating and saving as a new ticket. LBi HR Help Desk is designed such that a case must be opened first before initiating a chat dialog (we call it Employee Interactions). This feature forces the chat dialog to be saved to a permanent case record.

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Harnessing Big Data with HR Technology

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
big data

The prominence of big data’s role in business has been growing steadily over the last few years. Today, it has reached every area of business, creating even a new name for data-driven companies — the “quantified organization.”

And HR has been no exception. In fact, the concept of people data has created a huge buzz, expanding ideas of what HR thought was possible with solving issues such as employee engagement, recruitment, retention, and more. But with all the scraping and storing of scores and scores of data, companies have run into a new conundrum — putting that data into action.

However, 2016 has seen new hope for the application of big data in HR. Deloitte University Press recently reported that the percentage of companies that feel ready or somewhat ready to use this data in people analytics jumped from 24 percent to 32 percent this year — one-third greater than last year.

Why all the hype? Sierra-Cedar reported in its “2014–2015 HR Systems Survey Results” that organizations with an environment of data-driven decisions have a 79 percent higher return on equity than non-quantified organizations. So it’s no wonder that businesses are beginning to look for the tools and methods that will best put their invaluable stores of data to work.

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Is Time and Attendance Collection in White Collar Businesses Necessary?


Automated Time and Attendance (T&A) systems have been on the market since the late 70’s – starting with standalone “punch clocks” that calculated employee worked hours and enforced basic attendance policies (late-in, early-out, etc.). The next generation of clocks moved to a computer based environment, connecting to clocks via modem or hardwire. Then came networked (multi-user) systems, client-server systems, and finally web based systems.

In the beginning, these applications were used almost exclusively in blue collar and other hourly businesses. Employees in these organizations were paid for hours worked, not on a salary basis. So the prospect of strict (and virtually instant) enforcement of company pay policies drove the adoption of automated T&A systems. Common markets for T&A systems were (and still are) manufacturing, retail, distribution, government, healthcare, construction, building maintenance and other service industries.

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When RFP Questions Cross the Line of Reasonability

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
RFP

In my business, responding to RFIs, RFQs and RFPs are a part of my daily work life. If you want to win the business, you must accept these requests as a mandatory function during the sales cycle.

20 years ago, questionnaires focused almost entirely on the business application up for bid; features, functions, bells, whistles, and the like. Technology questions primarily centered around the technology platform – Windows, Solaris, SQL Server, Oracle, web vs. client-server, etc.

In today’s cyber security threat world, IT has essentially commandeered the process, and now RFPs are often heavily weighted on security questions. Frankly, many recent RFPs that have crossed my desk barely touch on the relevant and in-demand application features, in favor of addressing IT Security issues. In a few cases, it has been hard to find the actual application questions buried in one of many Excel tabs (worksheets).

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The 3 R’s of Managing Workplace Stress

Stress or agitation can dampen an employee’s productivity and emotional well-being in the workplace. Learning the 3 R’s — recognition, reduction and rejuvenation — is essential to lowering stress levels.

Recognize

Workplace stress comes in many shapes and forms, and in order to beat it, you have to know what it is and how it affects the mind and body. According the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, three-fourths of employees think that people face more workplace stress than one generation ago.

Today’s workers encounter situations that trigger physical, psychological and behavioral symptoms. Some physical symptoms to watch for include headaches, fatigue, sleeping problems and gastrointestinal upsets. Next, it is important to recognize psychological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety and discouragement, and to notice changes in behavior that range from aggression to disinterest.

Having strong organizational networks to alleviate stress levels in the workplace is a major step in the right direction. Employers who show support for their people make it easier to recognize the pitfalls of stress. Read More

Should You Ignore Questionable Social Media Posts from Job Applicants and Employees?

Over the past decade, employer reviews of social media accounts rose by around 500 percent, according to a CareerBuilder survey. Employers report using social media to investigate potential new hires and to communicate with — and check up on — existing employees. While the practice of involving social media in the employer/employee relationship is still being debated, if you do decide to review social media, you might not want to take every post into account.

Social Media Isn’t a Complete Picture

Brands today know that social media isn’t a complete picture of any person or company. A single joke made in poor taste or a photo of a night partying doesn’t actually tell you much about a person’s skills, work ethic or overall personality. Instead of reacting to single pieces of content, look for a pattern or trend that would be concerning for your workplace. If you refuse to hire anyone who has at least one questionable social media post, you’ll have a hard time finding any candidates.

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Sierra-Cedar 2016-17 HR Systems Survey

HR Systems Survey

Is your HR organization performing at peak efficiency levels? Do you understand how your peers are managing their firms; companies with the same issues and challenges you face? They can only expose new and potentially productive ideas.

How can you broaden your knowledge of industry trends and cutting edge business tools? The answer is in the HR industry’s most comprehensive annual survey, the Sierra–Cedar 2016–2017 HR Systems Survey, 19th Annual Edition.

In partnership with Sierra-Cedar, LBi Software invites you to participate. The survey is now available at www.Sierra-Cedar.com/hrssv45 until the deadline on July 1, 2016. All responses are confidential and only used in aggregate results.

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LBi HR HelpDesk Tips and Tricks – Extracting Data From Reports

HR HelpDesk Data Tools

All good Help Desk report writing tools offer multiple data sorting and filtering options, providing the user with the specific view they require for a specific report. But what if the resulting report presents some extraneous data, or possibly is missing desired data points that may not be included in that particular report template?

Novice and non-technical users generally are not provided access directly to the underlying database, and even if they were they wouldn’t know how to use it for customized reporting. Crystal and other popular report writers, often used as the reporting engine in business applications, try to provide a reasonably simple tool for creating or modifying reports, though these tools are far too complex for the average user.

And don’t bother contacting IT for assistance. Take a number and they will get back to you.

So, how would you like to run a report thinking “I don’t need these 2 fields, but I would like to add a different field; and create a different presentation of the report. And accomplish that in a few mouse clicks.” That would be nice, right? Read More

The Importance of Multi-Language Capability in HR Software

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
Multi-language

If your organization is multi-national, then you already understand the requirement for multi-language versions of business software. Whether the software application is employee-facing (i.e., HR Help Desk or Time & Attendance) or not, your multi-national workforce may necessitate the adoption of systems that provide multiple language versions.

However, even very small organizations can have the same or similar language issues. In the US today, there is tremendous growth in the Hispanic population, as well as steady immigration from Asian and Middle Eastern countries. The chances of SMBs having some predominately non-English speaking employees are very high. Proactive companies are providing English as a second language classes for their foreign-born employees, helping them assimilate into American culture.

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Determining the ROI on HR Business Systems – or Not

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
HR Systems ROI

Return on Investment (aka ROI) implies at some future point you get your money back after the investment is made. There is an initial financial investment, and an eventual “return” of those dollars (and then some, hopefully) down the road.

Depending on the system being implemented, calculating your potential ROI can be simple math or a much more complex process. Are there truly hard-dollar quantifiable savings — elimination of paper records and storage, staffing cuts, etc? Or are the savings more in the soft-dollar category, such as time saved or greater employee satisfaction? Probably, with HR systems, it will be a combination of both.

 

Calculating the Total Cost of Ownership

First you have the task of attempting to accurately quantify the numbers. How much does all that paper actually cost? And did the staff cuts force new overtime pay for the remaining employees, cutting FTEs with little to no drop in overall payroll expense? Did employee satisfaction improvements result in measurable productivity gains and/or lower turnover? Can you even determine that?

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Don’t Use Your IT Help Desk for HR

Don't Use Your IT Help Desk for HR

When seeking a new case management system for HR, many HR organizations opt for the easy decision of using the company’s existing IT Help Desk solution. Why not? It has similarities to an HR specific system. It has been used successfully by IT for years. It’s feature rich, lower cost, and possibly even no cost to expand the system into the HR department.

Then comes the painful reality of critical differences between IT focused systems and HR-centric systems. And as many people know, once a system is in place it will be very difficult to replace later. You will probably have to live with your selection for years to come.

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Sierra-Cedar 2015-16 HR Systems Survey

Sierra-Cedar 2015-2016

How efficient is your HR organization? Is there room for improvement (there always is, right)? Just as importantly, how well run is your group compared to others in your industry, or in the market in general?

Whether or not you believe your HR organization is performing at peak efficiency levels, understanding how your peers are managing their firms, companies with the same issues and challenges you face, can only expose new and potentially productive ideas.

Since you are not likely to call on your competition to compare notes, how can you broaden your knowledge of industry trends and cutting edge business tools? The answer is in the HR industry’s most comprehensive annual survey, the Sierra–Cedar 2015–2016 HR Systems Survey, 18th Annual Edition.

In partnership with Sierra-Cedar, LBi invites you to participate. The survey is now available at www.Sierra-Cedar.com/hrssv45 until the deadline on June 30, 2015. All responses are confidential and only used in aggregate results.

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LBi HR HelpDesk: Delivering the Choices Our Customers Need

No business application can be all things to all people, but with the right team behind it, it can certainly come close. Rather than taking the “build it and they will come” strategy, successful software developers continually research their market and listen closely to what their customers and prospects are asking for.

You have spoken and LBi has listened. Whether your business is a 10 employee startup or a multinational conglomerate, LBi HR HelpDesk is the HR Case Management solution for you.

Designed explicitly for HR, and fully capable in virtually any industry, LBi’s HR HelpDesk covers every common client feature request. Some clients desire the convenience and low cost of a cloud-based solution. We delivered. Larger and more security minded organizations still insist on dedicated server hosting or on-premises deployments. We delivered. Multi-language needs?  How about 90 different language options via the new embedded Google Translate on-the-fly language translation service? We delivered.

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Encouraging Employees AND Employers to Use HR Self-Service Tools

self-service

Recently, two new clients opted to implement LBi HR Help Desk without, at least initially, the Employee Self-Service Portal feature. Though the great majority of clients do deploy the Self-Service Portal, there are still a number of clients that choose to continue with phone and email case requests.

LBi HR Help Desk does provide features that help automate call-ins and email initiated tickets. For instance, HR Help Desk supports Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). With IVR/CTI technology, calls into HR can automatically be routed to the appropriate agent, and instantly open the employee HR Help Desk Masterfile screen ready to verify and engage the caller. More advanced telephony integration can be implemented where employees can generate cases via the touchtone system, similar to phone-based banking, though this option is less common.

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Putting "HR Help" Back in the HR Help Desk

HR Hep

The expectations of HR continue to grow — to be more of a strategic player in the organization as well as to provide increasingly user-friendly services to employees. HR could use a little HR help from some friends.

Among those friends is an automated HR case management system, built specifically for HR departments to improve HR service delivery and provide HR self-service. This kind of solution can be just the kind of HR help that HR needs today.

First, however, you want to make sure your HR case management solution is designed specifically for HR departments. A system built for IT’s needs and repurposed for HR will fall short of the mark in several ways. You can read more about why that is in our blog post “HR Delivery Excellence Demands HR-dedicated Case Management: True Temper Tools Would Agree” and dig even deeper into the topic in our white paper “Case Management: The Backbone of Excellence in HR Service Delivery.”

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How to Green Up Your Workspace

Have you ever noticed that you feel different when surrounded by nature or when there are plants nearby? New research conducted by the University of Exeter shows that employees are happier and up to 15 percent more productive in work environments with plants than in environments without any greenery.

Green Is Good for Productivity

Academics from the University of Exeter, the University of Queensland, Australia, and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands carried out a long-term experiment comparing employees in two large commercial offices in the UK and the Netherlands. They monitored one office with plants and one without plants and measured employees’ perceptions of air quality, workplace satisfaction, concentration and productivity levels. The results show significant increases in all three areas of employee perception in the work environment with plants and a 15 percent increase in productivity. Researchers believe that the plants help employees to be more physically, cognitively and emotionally involved in their work.

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The Importance of ROI When Evaluating Ancillary Business Systems


There is a general category of software based business systems that is considered mission critical to most organizations. Very few companies can operate without a general ledger package, a payroll system (or service), HRIS system, as well as industry specific systems for time and billing, manufacturing, distribution, etc. Final selection of these applications (often through an RFP process) is generally based on a combination of factors such as required functionality, ease of use, integration with other internal systems, and cost. Ultimately, regardless of whether these systems can actually save time and/or money, the business needs them and choices are made.

Where ROI (Return on Investment) analysis starts to become a greater factor in product selection is when internal business units (such as HR) are seeking out ancillary systems, sometimes referred to as “bolt-on” solutions. Examples are Data Warehouses, HR Recruiting systems, Performance Review systems, Case/ticket Management, etc. Products in this category may not be viewed as mission critical to the entire organization, but rather are considered more business critical — important primarily to the specific business group seeking the solution. In other words, the company would not shut down without them, although business operations could likely be greatly improved with them.

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Managing Human Resources Service Level Agreements (SLA)

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

With the advent of productive office automation systems in HR, management now has the tools to create, track, and effectively adhere to standards of service delivered to their employees.  Modern HR systems for time and attendance automation, case management, talent management, and more all provide the ability to set unambiguous SLAs and analyze actual HR performance results.

So what is the best process for defining specific SLA standards for specific tasks and functions?  Some tasks, such as handling FMLA requests or payroll errors, are likely already defined by the government or your current company policies.  But since newer, more comprehensive computer systems provide the ability to be much more granular in task management automation, service levels for many other discrete tasks may now have to be developed and agreed to.

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Clearing up the Cloudiness

By | Data Security | Leave a comment

The benefits of the cloud for HR technology are unassailable. It makes the adoption of robust, complex programs and systems affordable and scalable. Unlike legacy systems that run on your organization’s own servers, cloud-based solutions don’t require you to buy any hardware; all system maintenance, updates, and support are part of the package, and they’re usually paid for on a subscription or fee-for-use basis. Cloud-based solutions are also often designed with layers of features and complexity built in — behind the curtain, so to speak — so you can change your configuration and add more users with the flip of a switch.

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3 Design Tips to Increase Office Productivity

There are some office configurations that are simply more conducive to productivity than others. A 2013 survey of 42,000 office workers by the University of Sydney found that open-plan spaces — those that have employees seated in large spaces without walls separating them — lower office productivity and morale. Researchers concluded the lack of privacy, personal space and perpetual noise were the biggest factors in lowering productivity.

These results contradicted the industry-accepted idea of open-plan spaces benefiting work environments. They also showed that the layout of your office can make all the difference between a distracted staff and one that is content and comfortable, and thus productive. Here are three additional ideas to help create an environment that boosts morale and subsequently, productivity. Read More

HR Tech 2014 Recap: HR HelpDesk Rated “E” for Everyone

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment

Guests at our HR Tech booth had fun playing Plinko for a guaranteed prize (vibration speakers, ear buds, USBs, water bottles…) and a chance at four Chromebooks and four Kindles.

The hottest prize at the booth was the vibration speaker — a cool gadget that magnifies the sound of your smartphone via vibration (no bluetooth); we had a lot of fun giving those demonstrations.

Our booth theme was HR HelpDesk Rated “E” for Everyone – HR HelpDesk, our innovative Case Management software, comes in four versions for organizations of varying sizes.

The E also stands for:

  • Employee Engagement
  • Efficient Case Management
  • Easy Sign up – no credit card required for free trials
  • Encompassing Pricing
  • And any other “E” word our marketing people could come up with.

We also generated some buzz on twitter at #EforEveryone.

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Why HR Needs Technology Rated “E” for Everyone — #HRTechConf

With more than 25 years of experience creating and delivering intuitive technology solutions that simplify HR administration, we’ve learned that regardless of the number of employees in an organization, HR wants more than just technology that works. They want innovative solutions with robust capabilities that their employees can access anywhere, backed by quality support. LBi offers all this and more, with a tiered, pay-as-you-go pricing model for organizations of all sizes.

To learn more about how cloud-based case management can change HR administration in your organization, keep reading. Our technology is rated “E” for everyone — find out why.

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Operating a Centralized HR Help Desk Across Multiple Geographies & Time Zones

By | HR Efficiency | Leave a comment

Operating your centralized HR help desk, or any centralized HR system for that matter, in multiple geographical regions can be challenging at best, and at worst painfully difficult to manage. There are language constraints, SLA differences, general work-day availability issues, HR policy variances from region to region, and other issues unique to global organizations.

The easy answer might be to take a decentralized approach with multiple systems managed locally, though that solution presents an entirely different set of problems and complexities, such as multiple system integrations, added IT resources, complex reporting, higher costs, system management, etc. Obviously there is no easy answer.

There are very few truly global HR systems available, and those that exist can be cost prohibitive and difficult to maintain. Just because an organization is global in structure does not mean it is particularly large in size or replete with available IT resources, or enjoys the budget necessary to acquire such systems.

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Win Big with HR Technology Rated “E” for Everyone at #HRTechConf

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment

If you’re a business leader in HR or IT, the annual HR Technology® Conference & Exposition is one event you don’t want to miss. HR Technology® is the world’s largest expo of HR technology products and services — attracting industry experts, thought leaders, innovative software vendors, and senior HR executives and practitioners. There isn’t a better venue to evaluate your technology needs — and the organizational processes that enable your buying decisions.

LBi Software is proud to be a vendor at HR Technology® for the fifth consecutive year, and we will be showcasing our automated HR case management suite, HR HelpDesk. If you haven’t yet registered for the event, you can save $500 as a guest of LBi Software if you register by Sept. 22 with promo code LBI.

At the event, we’ll be revealing our robust, yet flexible tiered solutions for companies large and small — whether you have 50 employees or 50,000. The new versions of HR HelpDesk are rated “E” for Everyone, focusing on empowerment, effectiveness, efficiency, ease, and encompassing pricing for organizations of all sizes.

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“E” for Everyone: HR Technology From SMB to Enterprise — #HRTechConf

For more than 25 years, we have focused on developing and providing solutions that make the complex world of HR administration simpler and easier. In that time, we have learned a lot, including these two important things:

  • Today’s companies want robust and flexible HR software with great service and support.
  • The best technology is simply the best technology — and shouldn’t be limiting for companies large or small.

In other words, powerful programs shouldn’t be reserved for enterprise-level businesses, and agility shouldn’t be limited to small and midsize businesses.

Our automated HR case management software prevents employee issues from falling through the cracks or becoming bigger problems down the road. It complements talent management software to identify potentially costly patterns of personnel issues, reduce risk, and maximize HR productivity by reducing help calls by up to 75 percent.

Simply put, we have put the power in the hands of each employee — whether you have 50 or 50,000 people in your organization.

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The ROI of HR Case Management

Implementing automated HR Case Management/HR Help Desk can save you money. This post will show you how to calculate that savings.

If you have a traditional manual HR call center with no automation you already have efficiencies in handling the incoming queries compared with a traditional HR staffing system. But you still face the challenges of providing accurate and consistent information, as well as the problem of managing the call center and staffing it with HR professionals. The bottom line is that many of the challenges inherent in a manual process tend to remain, while the biggest potential for reducing costs through an automated system are not leveraged.

Upgrading your call center with an automated HR help desk will help you address these problems and lower operating costs.

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Secure HR Case Management

By | Compliance | Leave a comment
Secure HR Case Management

The last thing you need is for employees to distrust HR. It can happen when you don’t have a system in place to route confidential cases, such as harassment or manager dispute cases, to strictly authorized personnel. It can also happen when you use a manual system that fails to ensure that you’re compliant with HIPAA, PHI, PII, and safe harbor regulations. There can be fines of up to $250,000 for violations (and imprisonment of up to 10 years for knowingly abusing or misusing an individual’s health information). Read More

The Rise of HR Knowledge Bases

We live in the self-service era — self-serve check-out lines, pay at the pump, YouTube do it yourself videos… I just fixed my mountain bike by watching a YouTube video on how to adjust the disc brakes. It is just faster to do it ourselves. I didn’t have to drop my bike off at the shop and waste any time. Also, there is a bit of a self-esteem lift involved when you fix it yourself. Recently I fixed my garage door opener by ordering a $10 part and watching a YouTube video. (Although when I started it I did not realize the video was “1 of 5” and it would take me 8 hours to do it. But time management will be saved for another blog post.) The key was even though I wasted a tremendous amount of time, I felt good that I had fixed the door by myself.

An HR Knowledge Base can contain all types of employee information — benefits guide, code of conduct, policy information, PC FAQs… It is more than just an online Employee Handbook. The key to a knowledge base is the information that allows the employee to easily find answers to their questions. So properly indexing the knowledge base is essential. The knowledge base should have search engines that allow an individual to type in a question. It is much more than an FAQ.

A good knowledge base and supporting tools can empower your employees to find the answers to their questions themselves. This both saves HR time and engages your workforce.

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ESS…Build It and They Will Come…Not Necessarily

The best thing about computer technology is instant access to information any time, anywhere. Smart phones and tablet computers are a godsend in today’s fast moving world. Don’t agree? Just ask Siri or Skyvi (Google’s version of Siri). Now you can find a movie, a restaurant, a gas station, plumber, or anything else you need with just a few taps of the screen.

Pew Research estimates 58% of American adults have a smart phone, and 42% have a tablet computer. Clearly smart device owners understand the power at their fingertips and are realizing significant productivity gains, at least in the category of personal time management. So it stands to reason that mobile information access would provide similar benefits in the workplace, right? For instance, an HR self-service app that delivers virtually instant answers to all of a worker’s employment-related questions, right on their PC, phone or tablet? Well, this is true…if the content is comprehensive and the search tool is simple to use.

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The Power of Combining HR Case Management with Self-service Technology

SMB Employee Self Service

The combination of case management and self-service technology gives employees the power to answer their own questions and take care of many of their own HR and benefits tasks at a time of their choosing and from their own desks — or even from home. Employees are increasingly expecting their online interactions at work to be as easy and personalized as their online consumer experiences. Online workplace applications — including HR programs — are now considered table stakes for businesses of all sizes to reach and support their employees.

This means that by implementing these solutions, the company is also giving time and resources back to HR. Fewer HR hours need to be allocated to answering employee questions and managing routine paperwork. And that means more time and resources to focus on strategic business tasks and planning.

Studies show that the right self-service system, like that in LBi HR HelpDesk Pro and ProPlus, can accurately address and resolve 80 percent of all employee inquiries. This is particularly significant for SMB organizations that are still operating with a traditional HR department and a manual case management system or resolution process.

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Why SMBs Are Using HR HelpDesk

SMBs and HR HelpDesk

HR departments in small to medium sized organizations share the same employee issues that occur in large enterprises; the only difference being the volume of problems HR is confronted with.  Labor disputes, morale problems, productivity issues, compensation inequality and more, are the bane of HR departments both large and small.

As one well known technology company proudly articulates, “There’s an app for that”.  And there is.  But until now case management software solutions explicitly developed to address the privacy and confidentiality requirements of HR have been out of reach for the SMB market due to the generally higher cost factor. Lower cost IT help desk and sales/support focused CRM systems, even Excel spreadsheets and simple email public folders, have long been considered “good enough” for smaller HR departments, and for some companies that is certainly true.

However, what happens when that emailed ticket declaring an employee’s sexual harassment accusation is inadvertently (or intentionally) BCC’d or forwarded to unauthorized eyes? This breach of confidentiality can be extremely costly for any sized organization.

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Is the 360 Degree Employee Review Method a Good Idea?

Are 360 degree employee reviews particularly more or less fair to the employee? Let’s start with defining the 360 degree review process. 360 degree employee performance reviews encompass comments from the employee’s managers and peers, customer feedback, HR statistics such as patterns of absences and late/tardy occurrences, as well as actual performance measures.

Additionally, some companies monitor their employee’s social media sites, looking for more clues into their overall impact on the organization. Some reasonable weight is assigned to each of these processes in order to assess the total picture of the employee’s value and contribution to the business.

Seems fair and complete, right? Well they certainly can be, as long as the proper weight is applied to each component of the review, and subjectivity is minimized. For instance, an employee may have achieved 100% of his MBO’s, but for various reasons is not viewed favorably by his/her peers. Does that really matter in the long run? Another employee might have successfully completed all of his projects on time and within budget, but management was quietly expecting more cost cutting measures, though not openly mandated. Is that fair?

Traditional employee reviews focus primarily on performance compared directly to assigned objectives, with additional consideration given to other mitigating factors such as general employee attitude, leadership qualities, attendance, etc. But 360 degree employee reviews take a truly holistic approach and effectively become the “balanced scorecard” of employee reviews.

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Changing the Game for SMB HR: Case Management Your Way

SMB HR Case Management

We’re not here to say HR technology has ignored the small and midsize business market. If we did, we’d be cut to ribbons in a heartbeat. A Google search I just did for “HR technology for SMB” returned 29.7 million results. HR technology vendors have targeted the SMB user with cloud-based software to handle everything from recruiting and onboarding to performance management, time and attendance, career development and compensation.

Until now, however, no one has offered the SMB market a fully featured HR case management solution the way SMB companies really want to buy software — which means going beyond offering Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). That’s become table stakes.

Doing more for SMB buyers starts with offering free trials, just as SMB users expect from all kinds of other SaaS products. So LBi is offering LBi HR HelpDesk to the SMB market with free trials — including a free-forever trial for companies with fewer than 100 employees on the system.

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Why Do HR Technology Vendors Continue to Overlook the SMB Market?

Life is full of sad realities. One is that the SMB market has been vastly underserved by the HR technology industry. There’s one very simple reason: Despite the glut of cloud-based HR software, HR technology vendors have until now largely failed to sell products the way small and midsize businesses want to buy them. (For the record, we’re talking about companies with 2,000 or fewer employees.)

For starters, the HR technology industry has traditionally failed to let the SMB user “try it before you buy it.” They certainly haven’t wooed the SMB buyer with free trials like they offer to the enterprise customer. We concede that until now, we at LBi Software have been as guilty of this as our competitors, especially when it comes to our flagship solution, the HR case manager and call-tracking workflow system, LBi HR HelpDesk.

That’s a shame. HR leaders in the SMB market until now have never been given the opportunity to determine, without pressure or hassle, whether an HR technology solution could really benefit them (assuming, of course, other motivating factors also fall into place — factors like pricing and having an easy purchasing process).

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Finally, an HR Case Management Model Designed Uniquely for the SMB Market

Call us crazy, but we think HR buyers in the SMB (small and midsize business) market have been overlooked for too long. We believe HR technology vendors — including LBi — have failed to sell products the way SMB users want to buy them.

We think we’ve set things right.

LBi Software is proud to offer the SMB buyer HR HelpDesk, a fully featured yet affordable HR case management and call-tracking workflow solution. Of course, the powerful and robust enterprise edition of LBi HR HelpDesk is a highly configurable system that offers complete integration with HR, ERP, and email systems; advanced document management; options for on-premise hosting and licensing, or hosting on a dedicated server (for maximum security); single-sign on; corporate branding, and more.

But now we’re giving HR leaders in organizations with up to 2,000 employees the opportunity to launch a cloud-based version of LBi HR HelpDesk as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and start using it right away. And we’re doing that in a way that’s hassle-free — consumer-friendly access with no obligation to buy and a simple, one-step purchasing process.

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LBi Software Expanded Staff and Headquarters!

LBi Software is pleased to announce that it has completed an expansion of its headquarters to over 10,000 square feet at 7600 Jericho Turnpike in Woodbury, NY. LBI Software also recently reached the 50 employee mark. In the last 18 months LBi has grown by over 30%!  This expansion is to support the upcoming new offering of our flagship solution LBi HR HelpDesk.

The office expansion included new offices, new workstations to support 3 monitors per developer, meeting rooms, video games and a Ping Pong table.

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HR Help Desk Analytics: A Webinar Showing Real Use of Big Data and KPIs

HR HelpDesk Manager Dashboard

Discover how Human Resources Help Desk analytics can transform your organization. On June 3rd LBi Software will host a webinar demonstrating the power of HR Help Desk Analytics and Big Data.

The benefits of implementing an HR Help Desk and Employee Self Service Knowledge Base solution are many, including fewer calls into HR, consistent adherence to corporate business policies, greater employee satisfaction, and more.

However, a robust, well-designed and mature solution can provide even greater value through powerful analytics.

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Do You Really Need to Issue an RFP?

Before starting down the path of developing an RFP, it’s crucial to understand the ultimate goal of the journey. Not all RFPs are released with the objective of finding the best and most robust HR case management solution for a company’s needs. Other business goals for an RFP include:

  • Finding the lowest-cost solution to meet the most nominal requirements
  • Surveying the marketplace and gathering information for a future purchase
  • Collecting ideas and information for building a system in-house

If the above is your reason for considering the RFP process, then please don’t.

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Healthier Employees Make for a Wealthier Bottom Line

A 2001 Gallup poll found that Americans who are obese or have chronic health problems cost their employers an estimated $153 billion per year in lost productivity. As the prevalence of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and other chronic health conditions continued to rise from 1999 to 2010 (and beyond), employers are looking for ways to keep their employees physically fit. The best employee wellness initiatives are those that motivate without harming morale.

Promoting Healthy Body Weight

Obese and overweight individuals are more likely to take sick days, require more doctor visits and experience difficulty performing efficiently at work, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An effective strategy to encourage weight management is to have a friendly interoffice competition. For example, departments might compete against one another to see which can log the most exercise minutes, steps walked per day or pounds lost (following a group weigh-in, so as not to put pressure on an individual). Tying performance to monthly rewards such as an office party, financial benefit, or flex time is a great way to increase motivation.

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Is Work-Life Balance a Myth?

Work-Life Balance

Is work-life balance a myth? No, it just has different meaning and implications for different cultures. In the United States there is a trend towards encouraging employees to find a healthy medium between work hours and personal time. There is a widely held belief here that a happy employee is a productive employee. In some industries, employees are required to take all of their allotted paid time off. Others sometimes discourage long vacations greater than one week at a time. But today we are recognized as the most productive nation on Earth, though that belief is rapidly changing.

What about other countries and cultures? Certainly workers in China, South Korea, Japan and India, as well as other countries, are considered very productive. However, in those cultures generally work comes first, and sometimes to the exclusion of family and personal life. Disconcerting stories such as those coming from the Chinese factory Foxconn, are all too common. At Foxconn, employees often work seven days a week, eat in common cafeterias, and live in crowded dorms, though they rarely complain. On the contrary, many employees there are proud to work hard and strive for a solid middle class existence, which otherwise might be unattainable.

In these cultures, children are taught from an early age that hard work and personal achievement is the root of success and happiness. Anything less is considered shaming to the family. In school, “A” is the new “B”. Nothing less than “A+” is acceptable. Just look at the winners in the annual Intel Science and Siemens Competitions. They are consistently represented by a disproportionately large number of foreign born or first generation American students, often from Asian and Indian countries. It is truly hard to argue with success.

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Ensure Data Security and Strengthen Policies with HR Case Management

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

We live and conduct business in an increasingly litigious society. We all know that. At the same time, businesses are increasingly in the crosshairs of various state and federal agencies responsible for enforcing everything from fair hiring practices to safety in the workplace.

An HR help desk is the antithesis of the old way of responding to government audits and legal action. Then, managers and administrators had to almost manually piece together disconnected sources and chains of communication related to a grievance – emails, phone messages, printed forms and other sources.

An automated HR help desk, by comparison, offers an audit trail for every case, including all of its related documents and communications. A quality system also has the level of security to ensure privacy and confidentiality in the HR environment.

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Last Year’s Business Blunders and How to Learn From Them This Year

Whether 2013 was your most successful year yet or one you would like to forget, it should be seen as a learning opportunity for 2014. As a small business owner and captain of your own ship, it’s natural to make mistakes, but with the right tools, you can easily avoid common pitfalls and blunders like sloppy record keeping and spending too much time on social media.

1. Filing Messy Last Minute Taxes

If your 2013 taxes are proving to be complicated and cumbersome because you left everything to the last minute, take a few steps to make tax time easier in 2014. Third party Payroll Services organize all of your payroll records throughout the year. Instead of slogging through a year’s worth of records and manually transferring numbers, just click a few times, and your payroll software will download the relevant numbers and forms to your tax software.

Combine a program like this with an organizational app like Shoeboxed, which allows you to easily file receipts and track expenses. This app ensures that you never miss a write-off, and it has the power to effectively lower your tax burden. With the right tools in place, filing taxes in April 2015 should be a breeze.

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Key Performance Indicators Enhance HR Help Desk Value

The benefits of implementing an HR Help Desk and Employee Self Service Knowledge Base solution are many, including fewer calls into HR, consistent adherence to corporate policies, greater employee satisfaction, and many more. However, a robust, well-designed and mature solution can provide even greater value through powerful analytics that use key performance indicators. Key performance indicators, or KPI’s, define factors HR needs to benchmark and monitor.

Traditional HR systems do not track patterns of employee morale issues, the impact of personnel disputes on overall performance, management style inconsistencies, and other, often subliminal, employee related problems that can negatively affect corporate productivity.

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Keeping Your Contingent Workforce Engaged

The percentage of employees that are contingent is quickly growing. Currently 18% of the total work force is contingent.  Some are predicting this to rise to 50% of the Fortune 500 workforce! HR software and HR software vendors must be prepared to support this growing contingent workforce. Furthermore, this contingent workforce needs to be just as engaged as traditional full-time employees. We need to get the most from our employees whether they are permanent or contingent.

Contingent workers are not permanent employees and they know it. Depending on their contract or agreement with the firm, continued employment is always in question, as is the ability to move to a higher, more permanent position.

A contingent workforce may provide many benefits to the organization, such as helping to fill temporarily needed positions during uncertain times of unpredictable growth. But once those workers are in place they need to be properly managed. It is critical to understand that the disposition of contract workers is much different than the attitudes of regular full-time employees. Are they loyal to the company? Can they be trusted with confidential information? Are they at least as productive as regular workers?

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HR Case Management Can Get Actionable Analytics from Big Data

Today’s business systems create mountains of data. HR systems are no exception. Nor is the HR organization immune from leadership’s growing demand to mine that data and transform it into analytics that can help drive business decisions.

In his May 2011 review of a weeklong conference, Impact 2011: Building the Borderless Workplace, Josh Bersin wrote, “I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the focus on HR measurement, metrics and analytics throughout the conference.”

In fact, developing and applying measurement strategies that “ensure efficiency, effectiveness and business alignment” is among the 10 best practices of “high-impact HR organizations,” according to research by Bersin & Associates (now Bersin by Deloitte). These HR organizations provide data that illustrates “clear connections between the efforts of both the HR function and individual people.”

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HR Case Management Can Boost Employee Engagement

The features of an automated HR Case Management System – from resolving cases faster and easier, to empowering self-service – can help create and heighten employee engagement.

For example, an HR case management system designed to serve HR keeps a record, instantly available, of every employee transaction. With just a couple of clicks, an HR team member has access to the entire history of a case. The employee doesn’t need to restart the process if he or she needs to follow up on a case.  It’s obviously more efficient for HR, and it’s also an effective tool for heightening employee engagement. It shows employees that the company cares enough to handle their concerns quickly and knowledgeably – it brings consumer-like service to the world of HR.

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4 Must-Have Apps for New International Travelers

By | Technology Tools | Leave a comment

You have finally scrimped and saved enough money to afford an adventurous international vacation. Maybe your destination is a big exotic city like Bangkok or Sydney, or a tightly-scheduled itinerary where you’ll visit a dozen countries in a dozen days.

Perhaps you’re headed to the jungle or desert in the middle of nowhere, which will still be worth it because it’s a place that’s far from home. Whatever the case, you have earned this trip so the only thing you need to do now is to start planning.

Getting there, of course, is half the fun. You can get a head start on your travel plans with a mobile device. If you don’t have one yet for this trip, you can find tablet deals with providers like T-Mobile. Tablets can give you easy access to useful travel-related apps before and after you arrive. Think of it as traveling with a computer and your own native guide in one resource.

TripIt

This app can help organize details about where you’re going and how you’re getting there, everything from confirmation numbers to what gate you’re flying out of. It also alerts you to possible changes, such as a delayed flight or a changed gate, and syncs the same data to different device screens so any traveling companions can have access to the same data. It’s available for free for iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry, or $49 a year for TripIt Pro that provides more planning assistance, including details of where your seat is on your next flight.

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For an HR Case Management Shopping List, Consider Five Features of a Full-platform HRIS

It’s true that an HR case management solution is only one piece of a comprehensive HRIS solution. HR case management lives under the big umbrella of software solutions that help streamline the whole spectrum of HR management system functions, from benefits administration, to time and attendance, to performance reviews and succession planning.

Yet all of the pieces within an HRIS share two overarching goals: to help HR professionals manage their workforce more efficiently and to empower employees. Just as with a full-platform HR management system (HRMS), you also want an HR case management solution that will increase HR productivity by automating administrative processes and supporting HR on a strategic level.

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Is Your HR Help Desk System Smart Enough? See if it Passes the Test.

Help Desk systems have become mainstream solutions in virtually every aspect of business operations, including Customer Support, Salesforce Automation, IT Support, HR Support, and more. Though there are many similarities in these applications, it is a keen understanding of the inherent differences that can make or break a successful deployment. Selecting a product that falls short of expectations in just one or two key areas can lead to time delays, as well as wasted (and potentially very costly) financial and personnel investment.

Never has this been truer than in selection and deployment of a new HR system, particularly HR Help Desk. For instance, a lack of privacy features in the help desk system can breach confidentiality agreements, potentially risking expensive and time consuming legal actions.

A well designed HR system, built explicitly for HR, will plug all of the security holes that may exist in some non-HR centric applications. We invite you to take this simple test below and score your current system against the best solutions, such as LBi HR Help Desk 5.0.

Give yourself 5 points for every question you can unequivocally answer “Yes”.

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BYOD: My Employee Resigned – And His Smartphone Is Full of Business Data

Recent research from British law firm EMW paints a distressing picture of employee data theft. EMW found that cloud computing makes it easier for employees to take enterprise data when they leave, and that court cases over theft of business information increased 56 percent from 2011 to 2012. Adopting “bring your own device”, or BYOD,  in your business can leave you vulnerable to employee data theft when staff move on. Accept this, then take steps to minimize your risk.

What’s at Stake if an Employee Walks

When an employee leaves, he carries with him knowledge of your products, services and workflow. Employee laptops and phones will have enterprise and client emails, strategic information, work documents and other data. Since employees may leave for a variety of reasons, every policy should take this into account. Employees who transfer to another office or take a medical leave may need to keep business information, while those who resign, are laid off, or are fired should not keep data.

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HR HelpDesk Can Burnish Your Employer Brand

The days are gone when a company could control its brand either as an employer or a market solution. Gone also are the days when nearly everything a potential candidate or buyer knew about a company came directly from its public affairs office, from stories the company urged its employees and existing clients to disseminate, or from articles that appeared in the business media.

That was before the days of the Internet and social media, before we had the myriad channels through which an organization’s image could be trumpeted – or soiled. “Brand ambassadors, or employee evangelists, are becoming an increasingly common way for brands to leverage their biggest asset – their workforce, of course – to reach new markets, generate buzz, and put a real face on the company,” journalist Eric Markowitz wrote in Inc. Magazine. “They can be tweeters, bloggers, Facebookers – or they could just be the people you send to corporate events.”

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What Is a Company’s Most Valuable Asset? Its Employees

valuable asset is employees

Recently I closed one of the biggest contracts of my career. The last key piece that sold it was “our employees”. During one of the sales meetings the prospect’s CFO said something profound – “after all, it is not so much about choosing Company A over Company B as it is with being comfortable with the people from Company A”. The CFO liked the team that presented the solution but he wanted to be assured that the team that will execute it was just as good. So I sent him the name and bio of everyone who would be assigned to the project. We then followed that up with an in-person presentation of all the team members. The next day we got the contract.

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How Your Employees Communicate with Each Other Does Matter

By | HR Efficiency | Leave a comment

Phone, email, text, instant message (IM), in person? Unfortunately, many younger workers have grown up in a world where face-to-face (or even phone) communications are not deemed necessary in order to interact effectively with others. The nuances of verbal communications have given way to graphical emoticons and cryptic acronyms. Why bother interpreting visual or audible cues when there is a Smiley face for that?

Have we forgotten about the importance of body language and vocal inflections? In the animal kingdom virtually all creatures converse, not with the written word, but rather by sight and sound. And they apparently are quite successful at it. If sophisticated communications within species through visual and audible means is the product of millions of years of evolution, what does that say about humans and texting? Is this really the next phase in our evolution… or not?

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Stay True to Your Mission Statement

Almost every organization has a formal, written Mission Statement. These statements have at least two primary purposes — to clearly state long-term corporate goals, and to generally set the guiding principles by which employees conduct themselves internally and with their customers.

Mission Statements are top-down mandates that every employee must follow in their daily professional lives. Often it is the responsibility of HR and middle management to monitor (formally or otherwise) their employees to ensure adherence to corporate policies, including those broad principles detailed in the Mission Statement. So how can “the mission” be efficiently monitored day to day, week to week, and beyond, particularly in larger organizations?

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Bullying in the Workplace

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

One of the top sports stories in the news lately has been the issue of player bullying in the NFL. Recently, a rookie player for the Miami Dolphins, a 312 lb., 6’5″ tackle, suddenly resigned due to accusations of bullying by another player, foregoing a high six figure salary.  Certainly not your typical target, how is it even possible that the allegations (including physical, verbal and mental abuse) could be true? Who in their right mind would bully a 6’5″ giant?  Except maybe another 6′ 300 lb. giant.

But that’s not the real story here.  Several of the accused player’s teammates and many other NFL players are defending the accused, primarily on the basis that this is a common and accepted practice in the league, particularly with rookie players.  Think of it as harmless “initiation” or “hazing”.  In the eyes of many within the NFL community, these alleged actions were simply a means of toughening up the victim, preparing him for the rigors of the sport.  And since the victim ultimately could not take the abuse and subsequently resigned from the team, the team and league are now at a better place – after all it’s about survival of the fittest.  For the NFL, this story is far from reaching its conclusion.

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Why Do the Hottest Things Lose Their Mojo So Quickly?

By | Strategic HR | Leave a comment

This past summer three of my favorite TV shows ended: Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Burn Notice. Each one was very successful yet only one remained on top until the very end. Why is that? Did the others lose their way or just ride out the series like a cash cow?

As far as the reasons behind the failures of Dexter and Burn Notice, they are a matter of personal opinion. Dexter clearly had jumped the shark and, given the series plot, it got less real with each additional microscope slide. As for Burn Notice, in my opinion, it tried to be like the competition and turned from a fun campy A-Team-like show to a lame spy thriller.

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HR Delivery Excellence Demands HR-dedicated Case Management: True Temper Tools Would Agree

“The right tool for the right job.”

That’s been the advertising slogan for True Temper tools since at least 1907, when the Cleveland-based company was called American Fork & Hoe. The catchphrase is just as true today as it was then, and not only when it comes to forks and hoes.

Without the right technology for the right job, it’s highly unlikely any mission will achieve its optimal outcome. Sure, the job might get done. But at what cost? What will be left out or left behind? How much better could the job have been done with the right tools – with the benefit of software and a system, for example, uniquely designed to accomplish that particular job?

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HR Tech 2013 Recap: The Puzzle of HR Technology Solved!

Guests at LBi Software’s HR Tech booth participated in a game to try to solve the puzzle of HR Technology:

Each player would add a piece to the puzzle and try to guess the message. The first correct puzzle guess won a Microsoft Surface and each correct guess after that was put in a drawing for a second Microsoft Surface. Participants would also win a prize for just playing: Kindles, iPod Nanos, ear buds, Amazon gift cards, 8GB flash drives and water bottles.
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Using HR HelpDesk for Talent Management Processes

One of the hottest HR Shared Services products today is talent management software. Designed to manage the entire lifecycle of employee tenure within an organization, these solutions have become one of the most high-demand systems for corporations large and small. However, as they impact virtually every department within HR, from recruiting to benefits to payroll, etc., the decision timeframe for selection of the best-fit solution can be considerably protracted as many users are directly involved in the selection process. Additionally, the most comprehensive systems can be quite expensive, frequently requiring a longer term budget appropriation process.

For many organizations, the short-term solution is to continue with their current painfully inefficient paper intensive processes until a new system can be procured and implemented. There is, however, a viable alternative – LBi HR HelpDesk. As we have discussed in previous articles, HR HelpDesk is a productive and often necessary add-on to even the finest talent management systems, since HR case/ticket management is not generally a component of talent management suites.

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Stack-Ranking Employees (aka rating on the Bell Curve system)

By | HR Effectiveness | Leave a comment

For many years, large companies such as Microsoft, GE and others have rated their workforce on a bell curve system, which dictates how employees in a review period are ranked within their given group. More importantly, it limits how many can be ranked above average, and requires a certain % to be graded below average. Even if the entire team and every individual outperforms their goals!

The image below provides an example of GE’s stack-rank policy:

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Closing the Gap in Talent Management Systems

  • Recruitment
  • Onboarding
  • Performance
  • Training and Development
  • Succession Planning
  • Offboarding

Yes, the very best Talent Management systems are designed to handle the complete lifecycle of your workforce. They connect and manage all of the stages of the employee’s career within the organization. Cradle to grave, as they say.

Or do they? Is there something missing here? Absolutely there is.

Let’s talk about that cradle to grave analogy. Mom and Dad plan to start a family – Recruitment. The big day comes and the bouncing baby is born – Onboarding. Teach the little one how to walk and talk – Performance. Potty training, manners, and formal education follow – Training and Development. College and career aspirations – Succession Planning. The little one finally leaves the nest – Offboarding.

That’s it, right? Wrong. What about all those endless hours of issues, problems, questions and general conversations that you have with Junior through the years? Why can’t I have the car keys? Can you raise my allowance? Can I go to Miami for Spring break with the gang? I am really mad at my brother!

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HR Help Desk vs. IT Help Desk

IT Help Desk solutions are feature rich and generally lower in cost than those developed specifically for HR; but consider the mission critical role of a help desk solution in HR, and the inherent risk of confidentiality breaches from less secure solutions, and the choice seems clear.

IT Help Desk systems generally don’t need to be concerned with employee privacy and information security. They are designed to handle the management of technical computer and telephony issues, software problems, etc. Routing of confidential cases (i.e., harassment or manager dispute cases) strictly to authorized personnel (and out of the eyes of others) is simply not a necessary function for IT. Read 7 Employer Actions that Can Increase Likelihood of a Lawsuit for insights on the importance of HR maintaining proper documentation while handling employee disputes.

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The Affordable Care Act and Your Employees – Communication is Critical

With all the hype created in the media for The Affordable Care Act, (aka Obamacare), it is critical for HR departments to communicate openly with their employees regarding any impact (whether positive or negative) on them financially or otherwise.

While some components of the law have already been enacted, many key provisions (and some of the most confusing) are set to begin in 2014.  Because the press has had a field day covering the political football known as Obamacare, misinformation is bound to be created, causing tremendous FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt).  This fact has the potential to not only generate an unneeded distraction within the workforce at a minimum, but great anxiety and grave concern for their future at the other extreme.

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Are We a Disposable Society? Do We Replace HR Technology Too Quickly?

By | HR Efficiency | Leave a comment

This weekend my friend, an HR Department Head, asked me if he was being too hasty in replacing his legacy HCM system.  After all, his entire department had invested so much time and money into it: learning the nuances, customizations, interfaces…  So I asked him what was wrong with the current system.  His response was that it does not do everything they want and it is too costly to maintain (expensive upgrades and annual fees).  He predicted that the new software’s payback period was less than 3 years.

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