Utilizing HRMS to Manage Remote Employees

Working from home has become commonplace in this day and age. As companies vie for the best talent it becomes a useful recruiting tool and can enhance productivity as employees are more engaged in tasks and empowered by employer confidence. However, allowing an employee to work virtually without direct supervision can be daunting. You need a strong HRMS to support the HR processes necessary to manage these arrangements. Is your HRMS ready to manage employees who work from home or remotely? Here are some key areas where your HRMS can help to streamline the process.

1. HRMS Time and Attendance Management

As your HRMS is the backbone for employee data, it can make sense to incorporate time and attendance management into the system, in particular for your employees who work from home. The current generation of HRMS support employee self-service, so that an employee can clock in and out on their own device. This feature not only confirms that an employee is online to work, but it also protects you as the employer from any allegations of excessive hours, as you’ll be able to run reports and proactively address any overage in hours sooner rather than later. In addition, there is even the ability to restrict employees to certain IP addresses for clocking in/out, thus bypassing the old trick of allowing another to clock in for you.

2. Where’s Waldo via the HRMS

There is sometimes a tendency from employees in the office to assume that a work from home employee is off shopping or ‘sneaking’ time away, when in reality, the employee has an approved day off. To alleviate any misunderstandings, utilize the leave management features of your HRMS to manage employee leave, track who is on vacation or otherwise away from their desk, such as employees on a training course or those travelling to another office. This feature is especially useful if you are a virtual team with varying holiday allowances.

3. Position Your Employees for a Successful Performance Review

While many companies perform an annual review cycle, it may make sense to configure your HRMS to allow for additional smaller reviews for your work at home employees. As there is less face to face time in the office an employee or manager can benefit from more frequent feedback to ensure that everyone is happy with the working relationship. Build your HRMS rules to support proactive HR processes and employee management, and it’s less likely that you’ll be surprised or unprepared come the performance review cycle.