A modern IT solution provides immense support to business administration
Only contemporary, professional IT solutions are suited to today's demands when a lot of work needs to be done in the shortest time possible, at the same time maintaining superior accuracy and reliability.
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Introduction
The work of secretaries and management assistants entails more than writing to dictation, management of incoming mail, answering phone calls, communication with business partners and management of agenda. Usually, they also:
- manage personnel records,
- verify employee clock-ins and clock-outs, and correct any errors,
- issue and manage travel orders, and arrange everything related to business trips,
- keep records of short absences, leaves and other full-day absences,
- keep records and prepare sick leave data for payroll and refund claim,
- calculate commuting costs,
- inform workers about their leave quota, roster, and any surplus or deficit working hours,
- prepare data for payroll processing.
Their work is demanding and they bear great responsibility, which is why they find different ways to help themselves. Even today, we can still find cases where record-keeping and accounting is done on paper. Some people are proficient in using Excel tools, and they choose to do everything in Excel. Some people have in-house created dedicated tools, but these tools may be complicated, limiting and inefficient or only partially support one of the tasks. The mentioned methods of data processing and storage require unnecessary work as the data needs to be entered twice or more at different points, such tedious work being prone to error.
Only contemporary, professional IT solutions are suited to today's demands when a lot of work needs to be done in the shortest time possible, at the same time maintaining superior accuracy and reliability. Moreover, applications developed by professionals excel in the following important features:
- the application is easy to use,
- the user is guided step-by-step through workflows,
- you only need to enter the same data once,
- only a simple click is needed to prepare a report or create charts,
- feature an appealing user interface created by professional user experience designer.
Commercial availability of software enabling you to manage Human Resources, Time and Attendance and Payroll is quite extensive. However, only few applications are available that support all the three mentioned fields with a single integrated solution thus enhancing accuracy and reliability. This is possible because you enter the data only once. Applications differ in how they look and feel, some are easy to use and some are difficult to navigate and require caution in entering the data, offering little tooltips. But they all have in common that you will need to switch between them during your work.
A modern it solution featuring a clear user interface supports secretaries and administrative assistants
To ensure high-quality business analytics and automate processes to the greatest extent, you need an information system that ties together the variety of your business processes. At the same time, these processes need to be lean in order for the organization to be modern and quickly adaptable. Last but not least, visual appearance is also increasingly more important as graphic user interface and user experience are the aspect of modern IT solutions that contributes to a serene and stimulating work environment. Colors and shapes have an important influence on your work in the office as they enhance your creativity and enjoyment at work. This may actually boost productivity and responsibility, although this might not be the first thing coming to your mind. If the graphic user interface is user friendly in terms of visual perception, this is an additional bonus that cannot be neglected. Appropriate representation of data in graphical form is demanded by a wider body of people who review, control, process and visualize data and include such visual representations in useful reports for the management. Naturally, protection against unauthorized access to the data must be ensured, and you need to ensure the correctness of the data entered in the system.
Minimum requirements which a good information system or IT solution should meet in order to support secretaries and management assistants in their work are described below.
Management of personnel records
Spreadsheets of any kind are still better than a paper personal file. However, a good IT solution with a well-thought-out graphical user interface contributes to the optimization of HRM department by providing reminders and integration with governmental portals, such as e-VEM.
Time and attendance registration
Time and Attendance functionalities of an application that is made to high professional standards provides more that clock-in and clock-out capabilities and informs you of any cases that violate scheduled working hours. Such cases include forgotten registration upon arrival to work, or forgotten registration when going home or leaving for a business trip. Manual correction of cases like that is simple. Time and Attendance software enables you to quickly and easily access a list of workers who:
- are on leave or are away for a few hours during work,
- are on sick leave (detailed by sick leave type),
- stay at work after regular working hours,
- have exceeded the committed working hour quota in the current month,
- have working hour deficit due to frequent cigarette breaks, late clock-back-ins from lunch break, or working less than committed working hours due to arriving late at work or leaving work early.
Top quality IT solutions enable you to register attendance using your smartphone. This expands possibilities and provides benefits to both managers and employees.
Scheduling and rostering
The application enables you to schedule workers to corresponding workplaces or jobs. This is how you plan for an uninterrupted work process. With a simple glance, you can see when a particular worker is scheduled for work, on-call duty, stand-by at home, overtime and other. The application takes into account regulatory and also internal scheduling restrictions.
Travel order management
Well-thought-out applications that are made to high industry standards support travel order management and allow employees self-service access to travel orders and business trip announcement. Users can book company-owned vehicles for their business trip. Upon returning, they can calculate expenses in the application. The travel order workflow enables you to open a travel order, approve expenses and calculate costs, and finalize the travel order. With this, the data will be ready to be transferred to external bookkeeping application for the purpose of expense refund. Communication between people involved in the travel order workflow is entirely supported by electronic means.
Announcement and approval of short absences, leaves, and other full-day absences
Clear and simple graphical user interface enables employees to access E-Permit functionality 24/7 and announce absence taking place during working hours. E-Permit is also used to approve work outside regular working hours. This enables your company to control excessive overtime. At the same time, the application enables employees to announce leaves, participation in learning events, and other full-day absences in a clear and simple way. The authorized person approves or rejects the absence request from within the application, which is available also on user's mobile device.
Management of sick leaves (sick leave certificate)
The application provides an e-form enabling you to enter employee's sick leave certificate, track the absence, and calculate corresponding wage types. It also creates a refund claim. This saves a lot of time and eliminates the possibility of error, which is quite likely in manual management of sick leave types and duration.
Calculation of commuting costs
For each employee, the application enables you to enter a written statement (required by regulations) on how the employee commutes to work, for each particular work location. Depending on where the employee clocked-in upon arrival to work, the application automatically applies the corresponding commuting cost. Some of your workers may work at different locations, which is why their commuting costs can differ from day to day.
Infomat can save you a lot of time and nerves
A well-designed and simple application enables employees to access their own information by presenting their ID card or using their username and password.
Fast and reliable preparation of payroll data
Modern IT solutions contribute to the preparation of data for payroll in a substantial way, as you can prepare the data with a simple click. Because you are using a reliable attendance tracking system, employee timesheet is already prepared. Moreover, the data for travel order refunds, commuting cost reimbursement, sick leave refund and similar are prepared, as well. The transfer of data to the Payroll application is readily available. This cuts the time required to prepare the data and mitigates the risk of error.
Graphical user interface must be clear and user friendly
Naturally, the intricacies of a computer system are hidden from view. What you see, is a graphical user interface presenting the application in a visual way. The application's image must be well-thought-out in terms of user experience and design. Data must be organized in clear way, as this is one of key elements in good design. At the same, the application must be easy to use. The application should guide you through workflow steps to complete a specific task, and notify you if any steps remained incomplete. It should enable you to create outstanding reports and charts to successfully support you in your role of a secretary or management assistant.
User-friendly solutions are only the solutions that are simple to use and feature excellent functionality, and are also appealing to the eye. Information systems that can offer all these features are already commercially available.
Authors
Nataša Centa, BSc in Education, Mathematics and Physics, expert in HRM digitization by means of modern IT-solutions, Product Manager at Četrta pot, d.o.o., Kranj
Mojca Hafner Jereb, Bachelor in Organizational Management specializing in IT, consultant and expert for the implementation of Time and Attendance information systems, Product Management Assistant in Četrta pot, d.o.o, Kranj
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