Xero is great for managing accounting data, but what about your employees? In most cases, the team is truly the most valuable resource in the business, but yet there are still some companies that don’t have a system for keeping track of basic employee records. With the current economic climate, companies are now competing based on who can attract, manage and retain employees - so this is not an area to skip over! If you haven’t used an HR system before, here are some of the key reasons to level-up your business in this area.

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Core Employee Records

Yes it’s true that Xero helps with basic employee details that are needed to run payroll, however this leaves a lot of areas open and unaddressed. For example;

• Do you have emergency contact details for every employee?
• Do you know which employees have not submitted a police check / NDA / vaccination certificate?
• Do you know which employees have done which training?
• Can you see which company assets each employee has in their possession?
• Can you easily access all files including contracts, resumes, certificates, etc for all employees?
  

An online HR system provides one central place for all employee records so that the right people can access them, wherever they might be working from.

‍An Improved the Employee Experience

With an HR system in place, you can streamline many HR processes that are otherwise cumbersome and time consuming - both for the administrator, and for employees. 

For example, with an HR system like HR Partner, employee leave policies are integrated with Xero and your team can apply for leave and have leave approvals routed through the correct management or HR channels (these can be as simple or complex as you like). Once approved, the leave shows in a calendar so that the right people can see who’s away at any time. Employees can easily access their leave balances and history through the employee portal - vastly reducing the number of questions and back and forth communications.

Another example is performance management. Without a system in place, it’s usually left to individual managers to decide how they conduct reviews. And in many cases, this means that they don’t get done. On the other hand, HR Partner allows you to use performance review templates that can be as simple or complex as you like. Performance reviews can be scheduled ahead of time and all reviews are then on record for future reference. You can also set goals and objectives for team members to keep everyone focussed on the right things.

‍Growing the Team

For businesses that are recruiting, you’ll already know that this is an incredibly time consuming process. But with the recruiting function built into HR Partner, you can easily filter applicants, see which stage everyone is up to, and use email templates to streamline communications with candidates. 

Plus, when you hire a new employee, you can automatically add their application details to their employee record, send them a contract to sign electronically, and get them started with a slick onboarding checklist that ensures nothing falls through the cracks. It’s a great way to save a lot of time and create a positive first impression for your new hires.

Building a Better Culture

Possibly the most compelling reason to use a proper HR system like HR Partner is that it helps create a positive employee culture that we all need to be striving towards. Can you imagine working for a company that didn’t have a decent system for keeping records about you? It can be hard for employees to believe they are truly valued if their details are just kept in spreadsheets and random filing cabinets.

Using a system like HR Partnre allows you to do things like;

• See upcoming birthdays and work anniversaries so that these milestones can be easily celebrated
• Allow team members to create their own introduction to help others get to know them better
• Provide team members with an employee directory to aid in communication
• Easily email groups of employees for important communications
• Create a company library of important files you want employees to be able to access readily

If your company has more than 15 team members but you’re not yet using an HR system, there are lots of time savings to be made. And with the Xero integration, your team’s basic details and leave balances are automatically pulled in to make it super easy to get started.