It may not surprise you to read that being an effective HR Manager requires good marketing and communication skills.
Especially when you are being in charge of managing change within your organisation.
Introducing time and attendance software undoubtedly brings many benefits to your business, which you might be fully aware of, but the implementation process can prove to be a difficult task.
And I don’t mean the installation process. I mean convincing your employees that the system can help them too!
At first, your employees may feel that you are trying to create a Big Brother environment by monitoring their working hours and absence records. The system will show a clear picture of their lateness rate, the length of lunchbreaks they take, as well as how many times they have been on a sick leave.
Your job would be to ‘sell’ the idea to your employees in a way that encourages them to adjust to this change and embrace it amongst others.
Marketers in their everyday jobs work on promoting (communicating) ideas in such a way that they could be spread without a great deal of further influence from the originator. Good communication skills could help you achieve these results inside your organisation.
Even if you aren’t the person who initiated the project, as a human resources manager you need to become a champion of the idea in order to overcome employees’ obstacles. A person who will not be afraid of answering difficult questions and getting rid of any doubts raised by your staff.
You need to make sure your employees understand how to use the new solution and how they can benefit from it.
Once your employees are convinced that more accurate data tracking will improve the accuracy of their wages and enable them early notice of schedule changes that impact their working hours, they are more likely to buy-into a change.
The fact that they would be able to request holidays without having to ask their managers directly and amend their personal details, such as address, telephone number etc without contacting their HR manager can also work miracles. Being able to see their absence profile could also help them to better manage their time.
Likewise, when supervisors realise the importance of having accurate data to manage their employees and once they learn that the system will help them minimise the time spent on administration tasks, they will be more likely to embrace the idea.
Sufficient training time to understand the system would also be a valuable step towards better system implementation.
You should also know that the employees who resist technology are likely to be the least productive workers. With a time and attendance system the staff who consistently outperform are the ones who will shine which could encourage you to implement performance-related incentive schemes.
Time and attendance system may well create a barrier to entry, but with your carefully planned awareness campaign and training slots it will be well worth the invested money!
