Harnessing the power of data for HR managers in the manufacturing sector
Are you fed up with the amount of time your HR function has to spend on manual administrative tasks? Would you prefer to have more time to focus on more strategic activity to support your manufacturing business? If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to either or both of these questions, you’re not alone.
HR leads in manufacturing companies across the UK have woken up to the fact that there is a better way to work and one of the keys to success lies in how you collect and manage data. HR is an information-rich function, which means that how you collect, verify, manage, track and store data has a big impact on how your HR people are spending their day. It can be time-consuming, resource heavy and labour intensive. It’s so important to ensure that individual staff members are not wasting time and resources on labour intensive and inefficient administrative activities when there are better, more effective and faster ways to achieve the same goals.
HR technology has come a long way in the last few years which means now could finally be the time when cash-strapped and time poor HR manufacturing teams could start to benefit. Sorting out a modern software and data management solution for your business doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. The latest options for HR teams in manufacturing businesses can be built up in a modular fashion, so no need to invest in one single system up front. The ingenious part about a suite of individual solutions for common labour-intensive functions like time and attendance management, training and compliance management, and payroll is that they can be purchased at different times but be quickly and easily integrated with each other once new modules are set live. In effect, you are building your HR system block by block as part of evolutionary process rather than a more disruptive revolutionary one.
The two biggest benefits most commonly experienced by manufacturing companies going down this path are that its much faster and easier to produce meaningful HR reports and that a joined-up system provides ‘one version of the truth’. Just imagine, no more data rekeying, no more time-consuming cross-referencing to verify information, and no need to block out days in your diary when HR reports are due for submission.
There’s an unforeseen benefit too. Having more efficient fundamental tools in place makes it so much easier to devote time to added value activities and improvements to the day-to-day elements that HR is involved in across the business. Adopting a mindset there your HR people have the time and headspace to continuous look for new ways to make incremental changes for the better avoids rocking the boat too much and ensures that the business and HR are always heading in the right direction.
Why not find out more about continuous improvements in HR for manufacturers? Download your free guide now.
