Business Continuity Planning and Hybrid Working

Getting used to the new normal

Over the past year, a lot of press coverage has been given to company working arrangements, whether that be in the office, remote, or most likely, a mixture of the two.

During the height of the pandemic, in some organisations, the majority of work shifted to a remote basis. With the cautious reopening of offices and commercial properties, many organisations are now operating on a hybrid basis, with employees alternating between home and office locations.

What does this mean for you from a Human Resources perspective?

• Has the organisation considered whether the new working patterns are sustainable to both the employee and organisation?
• Does the employee have a safe, comfortable workspace at their home, and have enough precautions been taken on the office layout/setup to mitigate all possible Covid risks?
• Are you keeping a list of any employee preferences regarding their return to the office? For example, do they have any special requirements due to a health condition or concerns regarding the transmission of COVID?

With so much fluctuation taking place, it may be the case that you are reviewing the systems and processes you use to capture working pattern feedback, schedule/track staff working times and where your employee contact information is stored.

Does your current HR system have these features and functions?

Sage People is a comprehensive employee management system that sits on a technology platform called Salesforce.com. Within Sage People are standard ‘Objects’ or tables, labelled Team Member (for employee information), Employment (for details on the current employee role), and others to logically group and report on this new information.

Sage People also has the flexibility to introduce new fields on the Team Member object. For example, you could label whether an employee is based in the office full time or is on a hybrid working model.

Tugela People has been helping companies get the best out of their Sage People HRIS for many years. If you require assistance with your existing Sage People HRIS or require a new HR System, please get in touch.

 Auditing your employee data

The new mixed working modes many companies are implementing due to COVID mean that HR now needs to ensure that employee information is accurate in the system.

For instance,

• Does your system allow you to create and track the various hybrid patterns that are now emerging?
• Does your system have the ability to monitor when a staff member may need to isolate for a certain number of days?
• When staff are working at home, can you be sure you have all the correct contact information for them?
• If you need to ship them any equipment for long term home working, have you confirmed that their current address details are correct?

It all starts with a single call

Imagine a situation where a staff member is due to be working in the office but hasn’t shown up. You check the rota to confirm they are not on leave.

You need to contact them.

How easy would that be to do?

Here are some considerations for best practice employee contact information in your HR system.

• Do you have phone numbers for your team all stored in a logical place?
• Do you have landline and mobile numbers for them?
• Have you confirmed that the phone number in the ‘Mobile’ field on the system you use is definitely the mobile?
• Do you ever need to send out mass SMS messages to the team? If so, when were the mobile numbers last checked?
• Do you have contact information for emergency contacts stored in your system? Have you checked those details as well?
• Do you know if all of those contact numbers are correct?
  • Perhaps they were keyed incorrectly when the employee record was first created.
  • Perhaps the employee has changed contract/number.

Tugela People can advise you on the best way to set up and configure your HR system to ensure that your employee contacts information is stored logically and verified. There are various ways to automate the checking of employee contact data, and several 3^rd party add-on applications are available to automatically verify address and phone data within Sage People.

You’ll find our contact information below - which we’ve had verified!

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To find out more about the Sage People HR System or to discuss your potential support requirements, why not reach out to us on tel +44(0)1908 030360 or email: info@tugelapeople.com. Alternatively, complete the ‘Get in touch’ form and a member of our team will be in contact with you.