Employee Upskilling has proven to be a very effective talent improvement strategy for companies looking to scale and empower their workforce and bridge the skill gap. Any company interested in staying ahead of its competition must start by making its organization future-proof by investing in its people today through Upskilling.  

In general, many employers are already taking advantage of Upskilling programs to boost productivity at their organizations. A study showed that nearly 70% of companies invest in Upskilling to handle changes within their organization and increase the efficiency of their workforce. 

 In this article, we’ll explore everything you need to know about Upskilling Employees – what it is, its importance, and steps that companies can take to upskill their employees. 

What is Upskilling of Employees?

Employee Upskilling is a process by which companies invest in their workforce by providing them with knowledge and skills that can help them advance their careers. Upskilling ensures that companies and their employees stay in tune with in-demand skills and improve their processes in line with current trends. 

As a company, Upskilling your employees is vital if you want to achieve your goals and stand out in the industry. Upskilling allows employees to enhance their capabilities, increase their efficiency, expand their skill set and provide better quality work to your company. It is a win-win for everyone! 

According to a survey, 80% of employees say Upskilling training has boosted their confidence. Better employee morale will ultimately translate into a better working environment and organizational success. Want to put your company on the desired path to greatness? Upskilling is the way to go! 

Difference Between Employee Upskilling and Reskilling 

Upskilling and Reskilling are essential concepts in enabling a company to stay competitive. Even though these terms have some similarities, they are fundamentally different. 

While Upskilling focuses on increasing an employee’s performance and knowledge in a current profession or field, reskilling aims to teach an employee new skills to perform a different job.  

Upskilling helps employees adapt to changing market conditions, enhances their value, and positions them for the future. When a company takes time to Upskill its employees, it makes them feel appreciated and valued. And this may be what is needed to get the best performance out of them. 

Reskilling allows employees to test new waters and try a different role in another department or company. Companies may employ reskilling when an employee’s specific skill set is not needed anymore. The employees are then taught the skills necessary to be relevant in a new role. 

By leveraging upskilling or reskilling, companies can focus on developing and retaining existing talent within and avoid the cost and stress of hiring someone from outside the company. 

The Importance of Upskilling Employees  

Upskilling has become increasingly relevant in recent years, and the reason isn’t far-fetched. Many companies are experiencing a digital skill gap. To solve this problem and prepare for the future, companies must embrace innovative strategies such as Upskilling. 

Here are a few reasons why companies should invest in upskilling:

It Boosts the Performance of Employees 

Want to get more out of your employees? Try Upskilling. Not only does upskilling upgrade employees according to the latest trends and developments in the markets, but it also enables them to perform their tasks easier, faster, and more efficiently. Better employee performance will ultimately translate into more success for your business. 

 It Saves Time and Money

Hiring new and qualified candidates in a company is a challenging process, especially while working remotely. Companies have to invest a lot of time, money, and effort into searching for candidates who have the required skills and share the same values with the company.   

According to a study, the average cost of a company trying to fill a vacancy is about $4000. That’s a whole lot of money! Upskilling gives companies a cost-effective alternative by allowing existing employees to learn skills that make them perform better in their current roles without needing a new hire. 

Bridging the Skill Gap

 Undeniably, there is a growing digital skills gap today. Companies now demand more from their employees to stay competitive and keep up with current innovations such as robotic process automation solutions, artificial intelligence, and other technologies.

According to Catherine Schwartz, Finance Editor at Crediful, “Digitalization has created a skill gap that will only continue to get wider with time. Companies now have the responsibility of identifying and narrowing this skill gap through the use of proven strategies such as upskilling.“ 

It is essential that employers first conduct a detailed analysis to understand where the skill gaps exist within the organization. After identifying the priority areas where development is needed, the company should focus on upskilling employees appropriately. Employee Upskilling is arguably the most effective method of bridging this skill gap. 

Greater Employee Retention

The majority of employees will only enjoy working in an organization that shows genuine concern about investing in their upskilling. A report showed that about 94% of employees would stay longer at a company that invests in training them.

There is enough evidence to prove that upskilling can make employees more motivated, focused, dedicated, and loyal to a company that values them enough to invest in them, thereby boosting employee retention.  

Steps Involved in Upskilling Employees  

Now that we’ve seen how important upskilling can be in the success of a modern-day business, the next step is to look at the steps companies should take to upskill their employees. 

1. Evaluating the Workforce

The first step in upskilling is a detailed study of your workforce. You need to assess your team to find out where the gaps are. It is also good practice to survey your employees to find out specific aspects they feel they lack and would like to improve. 

It’s also possible for employees to desire to learn without knowing the areas that need to be worked on. So, you’ll be charged with helping them clarify their need for upskilling. 

2. Research the Latest Trends and Developments 

The next step is to do your research and deep digging. What skills are needed to stay ahead of the curve and relevant in the industry? Find out if your team is currently equipped for the present and the future. If not, how can you begin that journey that will always keep you a step ahead of your competition? 

 3. Implement the Plan 

Now for the most exciting part. How do you go about putting all your research into action? Is learning and development all that is needed? Do you take charge of the process? Or do you bring in experts? The answer to all the questions? Listen to your employees. 

Communicating and collaborating with your employees helps you know the best strategies for executing your plans and achieving the desired results. Even though you can implement some developments generally across the board, there are chances that different employees and departments will need unique training to develop improved skills. 

Remember to be flexible during this stage and customize your upskilling to the specific needs of every employee. Above all, avoid employing a one-size-fits-all approach. 

Conclusion 

Without a doubt, Employee Upskilling is the future of work! As digital technologies and innovation continue to grow, companies and their employees will need to embrace upskilling to stay relevant in today’s market and prepare for the future of work. 

The post Is Employee Upskilling the Future of Work? appeared first on Comidor Low-code Automation Platform.

Why so much noise around it? One of the reasons is that digital transformation isn’t leaving anything untouched in business. Automated payroll solutions have been applied by companies worldwide, as they introduce intelligent automation to HR. 

Did you know that 67% of medium and big-size corporations have already automated payroll? Roughly half of those take advantage of on-premise apps for payroll management, while the other half implement cloud-based solutions. 

This article will give you thorough answers to the top three questions concerning payroll automation: 

1. What does payroll automation mean? 
2. Why is it worth investing in?  
3. How to find the best payroll automation software for an expanding business?  

Let’s start, then, shall we? 

Automating Payroll: What it Implies and Why Growing Businesses Definitely Need It 

Payroll Automation – Defined and Explained

Payroll automation is a set of methods and practices to streamline payroll via automation approaches and technologies, and process automation solutions. 

Its fundamental principle is a simplification of payroll processing by delegating manual tasks and activities to digital automation systems. When the software automates salary-related procedures, it addresses everything: attendance tracking, wages and benefits calculation, payment distribution, deduction of taxes, etc. 

How can your business benefit from it? Find the answer in the next paragraphs.  

Key Advantages of Payroll Automation Solutions 

It’s highly beneficial to incorporate a payroll automation solution into your workflow management. It can assist you with the following: 

• Reducing costs 

What if we told you that you can cut expenses on payroll processing by 80%?  

Not to mention that manual errors in calculations may be too pricey. For example, in 2021 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collected over $6 billion in fines paid by employers because of payroll mistakes. 

• Eliminating human intervention and mistakes 

33% of employers are prone to making payroll errors habitually, according to the IRS. The most common triggers for them are: 

• Misclassification of employees 
• Confusion between taxable vs non-taxable income 
• Incorrectly deducted taxes from paychecks 
• Miscalculation of worker’s hours 
• Untracked absence/overtime, etc. 

These flaws not only cost business owners whopping sums of money and civil penalties but also result in losing talent. 49% of workers consider leaving the company after two occurrences when their salary is miscalculated. 

• Saving time 

Depending on the number of employees, poorly-performing organizations may spend as many as ten days to cope with the repercussions of a single payroll mistake and fix one completely. Better performers need from two to four days to do this. 

Do you have so much time to squander? In fact, streamlining financial tasks can save managers 20% of their time, based on McKinsey’s research. 

• Enhancing data safety 

Using spreadsheets may easily lead to a security breach. 86% of data breaches are financially motivated, with personal credentials and payment details targeted the most often. 

Automated tools for payroll can boast reliable information encryption methods and increased protection. They secure access with passwords or even offer multi-factor authentication. 

• Achieving adaptability and resilience to financial challenges 

Your company can become even more flexible and resilient to any situation and financial risks with predictive analytics provided by automated software for managing staff payments. Predictive analysis is crucial for strategic HR management. It allows planning budgets more efficiently and distributing the money in full compliance with your finance and accounting tasks. 

These are only a few benefits that businesses get with payroll automation. As you can see, it’s indeed worthwhile to use a dedicated tool for automated employee hours tracking, salary and benefits calculations, tax withholdings, analytics, reporting, and so on. 

There are tons of tools for automating payroll. How to pick the best one to meet your particular demands? Read on. 

How to Select the Right Payroll Automation Software

Here’s a list of the must-follow tips that will help you decide on the most suitable payroll automation tool, based on your business requirements. 

1. Identify your payroll needs and decide on the budget 

Answers to the following questions will help you outline compulsory necessities and specify the demands you have: 

• What’s the quantity of workers in your company? 
• How fast is your business growing? 
• Do you have part-time or seasonal employees? 
• Would you like to sync payroll with other workflows? 
• Do you plan to use any custom apps and integrate them into the software? 
• Will you have only one payroll system administrator? 
• How much are you ready to invest in payroll automation? 

Evaluating the payroll software, consult your answers and make a decision in favor of the one that suits your needs the best. 

2. Scrutinize the payroll automation software features 

Does the payroll automation software allow managing contractors?  

Pay attention to the app’s functionality and some essential features: 

• Time and attendance tracking 
• Calculation of tax withholdings 
• Real-time analysis for compiling statistics 
• Reports creation 
• Instant notifications about the progress of the processing 
• Reminders about the time for paychecks, etc. 

Give due importance to typical and niche-specific features. 

3. Prioritize payroll software with broad integration capacities

What if you’ve decided to go with payroll invoice factoring for better cash flow? In this case, the factoring company collects and processes invoices. You might need to ensure you’re on the same page all the time. 

If you use factoring software, for instance, flawless integration with your payroll system is obligatory. Make sure your invoice approval workflows will be streamlined without issues and invoices will be handled accordingly. 

4. Consider payroll tools that offer robotic process automation (RPA)

RPA is a subset of hyper-automation which, in turn, appears to be one of the leading digital transformation trends. 

Payroll falls into one of the RPA use cases. Robotic process automation in payroll management guarantees high-level accuracy, boosted security, increased productivity, speedy solutions, and more. 

5. Request demos and start with free trials 

You would want to see how everything works when the chosen tool automates your payroll procedures, wouldn’t you? 

Check a product’s demo version to get a comprehensive visual explanation. Alternatively, sign up for a free trial to test it out. 

How fast can it manage processes? You’ll never know without trying. 

Ready to Automate Payroll and Manage it Seamlessly?

The future is now. The necessity to transform businesses to keep up with it makes entrepreneurs rethink their methods and adhere to automation. One of the golden rules of automating business processes is to know which tasks and processes are best automated. Payroll automation is one of them. It has gained topicality not without a good reason. Growing companies should give top priority to automated payroll solutions due to their valuable benefits demonstrated above. 

Automating workflows and business processes like payroll is a must if you aim at cost-efficient and quicker decisions. Comidor can help you with HR automation for spotless timekeeping and payroll management. 

Achieve the greatest results in managing workflows with RPA and low-code automation and head towards the future with the winning digital solutions offered at Comidor. 

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When viewing specific Personnel you can view their Personnel Schedule and basic Entitlement, which are based on the specific Region Code of Personnel. Region Codes are set in Regional Settings by System Administrators.

Skills of each individual can be added either manually or via the person’s Job Title assignment. You can search for personnel by specific skills to assist with Project Management and other business decisions.

Absences can also be managed via the Personnel unit.

Edit an Existing User as Personnel

1. Go to Packages > HR Automation > Personnel.
2. Click on an existing person. Users that have been previously added already have a Personnel record
3. To edit click on the Pencil Icon
4. Fill in the Basic Info fields:
   • First/Last Name: Personnel full name
   • Job Title, Job Activity, Job Group, Service: The Job Title list will bring also related Job Activity, Job group, and Service fields. Service holds the pre-defined Sales Rates and Costs for that specific Job Title. Job Title holds the pre-defined Job Activity, Job group, and Service if any. Service may be a different one.
   • Account & Category: These will be the related Account and Account’s Category that may be associated with the Personnel (where a type of Personnel is Customer, Partner, Contractor, etc.)
   • Branch, Office, Department: Free text fields that refer to the location information of Personnel within the Organization
   • Division: The existing Division that the person is a member of. The Division the person is in plays an important role in choosing the default timezone for the person and helping in Project Management (Project creator division is important in terms of Expenses – division’s currency – calculations)
   • Contractual Location & Location: The existing office that the person will be contracted with and the actual location that they will work in
   • Specialty & Education: You can select from a list for these fields or add new options
   • Region Code: The Regional Settings which will be applied will give a standard Schedule (working hours and public holidays setup) and a maximum Entitlement (Absence types entitlement) for this person
   • Resource Manager & Manager: A person can have a resource manage and a line manager. See the scenarios below:
     • Whether a person will participate in a Project, by approving the Project’s booking request (Resource Manager)
     • Whether a person will take an Absence in a specific date range (Manager)
     • A general application or request made by a person (Manager)
     • Tasks performed by a person (Manager)

If a person’s Resource Manager field is left blank their line manager will be responsible for approving their participation in a Project.

5. Complete the Contact info and Personal Details:
   • Phone, Email, and Website
   • Address, City, County, Postcode, Country
   • Date of birth, Interests, Social Media accounts
6. Fill in the Employment/Working assignment information:
   • Adjusted hire date can be used to note the date an offer was accepted by the person for example and the contract start date is the date the person starts working; these will play an important role in conditional entitlements
   • Withdrawal Date, Contract end dates
7. Picture: Click to upload an image or delete a previously uploaded image
8. Select the Save button or cancel

Manage Personnel

1. Go to Packages > HR Automation > Personnel
2. Click on a person you wish to manage
3. On Summary – you will see Personnel Basic Info, Contact, and Organizational/Working details. For example, view the length of service for an Active Person. Vacation, Sickness Entitlements and Days taken are also viewable. Attachments can be uploaded directly from your Desktop or attach a File URL. Click on a file that has been uploaded to Open it (downloading and previewing of current and previous versions are available). You can rename or delete any file.

1. Click on Form Answers to see all responses or complete a new response in a Survey that has been created
   • Select the survey, the editor from the user’s drop-down menu and the access rights of the response i.e. private, public, internal
   • Select the desired Save option (refer to Quick Reference Guide)
2. Click on the Comment Icon to make a comment about a specific person. Users with access to the personnel record will receive a Notification. Comments can be added using the simple or enriched HTML Editor (Open editor). Users can click on refresh to see new comments or click on show more or show less as required
3. Click on Tags to add a new Tag to the person and you can also mark the tag as a private, group, internal or public. You can also manage existing tags. Adding tags to Personnel will help in the grouping, filtering and finding them. Saved filters and tags of grouped Personnel will assist with sending group emails to them
4. Click on Links to add a new Link between the person and another object e.g. a Project, an Event, etc
5. Click on the Actions Icon of Personnel to:
   • Delete – to delete the person. A pop-up confirmation box appears
   • Print – to print the current Personnel View (Summary, Schedule, Absences, etc)
   • Notify – to send a Notification to specific groups, users or external recipients via email ( if you have connected your email in the system)
   • Link with – to add a new Link between the person and another object e.g. a Project, an Event, etc
   • Merge Contact, to merge the person with another Contact
   • Convert to candidate – to convert a person back to a candidate

Schedule of Personnel

Click on the Schedule tab of Personnel in order to:

• Check the Working Schedule that has been automatically added to Personnel, provided that Regional Settings have been applied to them on “Region Code” when creating a person. You can click on the previous year(s) to check the Work hours Schedule(s)
• Click on the Pencil Icon to adjust the Working Schedule and save it

You can prepare the Schedule for a person up to a year in advance from the Actions Icon by selecting Copy Schedule. In the pop-up window choose which year you want to copy the schedule and press Save. Previously created schedules can be found in the Schedule tab of Personnel. Copy Schedule for each person is available from the Personnel unit’s Actions Icon.

Skills of Personnel

• Click on the Summary tab to navigate to the “Job Title” field and add for this person the Skills that have been associated with that Job Title. Click on the [Add Skills] option to do this
• Press the Skills tab of Personnel in order to
  • Check Skills that have been added automatically that are associated with the person’s Job Title
  • Click on a Skill and then click the Pencil Icon
    • Adjust the information, such as Skill, Grade, Certification, Certification Date, Certification Authority. You can upload certification document and add a short description
    • Select the desired Save option (refer to Quick Reference Guide)

• • You can add additional (previously created) skills to that specific person
    • Click on the + icon to add a new skill
    • Select a skill from the list, add the Grade, Certification details (if any) and a short Description
    • Select the desired Save option (refer to Quick Reference Guide)

You can multi-check Skills from a person’s skills to delete them.

Absences and Entitlement of Personnel

1. Go to Packages > HR Automation > Personnel
2. Click on a person to check their Absences or set up their Entitlement
3. Click on the Entitlements created tab of Personnel in order to check any added Entitlement(s) for this person
   • The first time you edit a new person you will see that no entitlement has been created. To set this up:
     • Go to Packages > HR Automation >  Personnel, click on the Absence Management option and select Entitlement Setup in the Unit Title bar
     • In Entitlement Setup, select Functional Group, Division, and Group in the Organizational Chart to see Personnel that is/are a member(s). If you know the name of the person you need to create Entitlement for you can use the search function. Then click display results
     • In the Table below you will see:

A. Previous Year Entitlement for Absences type “Sickness”
B. Previous Year Entitlement for Absences type “Vacancy”
C. Previous Year Remaining Days from Entitlement of Absences of type “Vacancy”
D. Standard Entitlement for Absences type “Vacancy” for current Year
E. Calculated Entitlement that sums up Previous Year Remaining Days (C) + Standard Entitlement for this Year (D)

The calculated entitlement number will be added to the person when the Create Entitlement button is clicked.

To see data in the Entitlement Setup table, you first need to create the Regional Settings Schedule for a Region and then have applied that “Region Code” to the Person. Also, the Contract Start Date is needed.

1. • When you next view a person, you will see that entitlements have been set for them. At this point, you can:
     • Add extra Entitlement for this person. Click on the + Icon, type the number of days, select the Entitlement type (Basic setup, Credit, Overtime, Sickness) and add a description. Add the valid from date, decide whether this Entitlement can be used on Carry Over and click the checkbox. Click on Save or Save and New to proceed.
     • Alternatively, you can select and delete the Entitlements

2. Click on Absences in the left panel to check Absences for the person. You will see all approved absences by Leave type with information about their duration and scheduling

Manage multiple Personnel

You can check or manage multiple Personnel at the same time.

1. Go to Packages > HR Automation > Personnel
2. Select multiple Personnel and perform the following actions:
   • Delete: to delete. A confirmation box will appear
   • Link with: to add a new Link between this Personnel and any other Comidor object e.g. a Project, an Event, etc
   • Tag: add or apply multiple Tags to selected Personnel. Tags can be marked as a private, group, or internal. Press OK to proceed
   • Email a Survey: send a previously created Survey to the person(s) email (note: you will need access to this feature to perform this action)
     1. Select the Sender Email Address from the email addresses you have connected to your account
     2. Add the sender name that will be viewed in the sent e-mail
     3. Choose the previously created Survey from the list
     4. Supervisor, Admin 1 & 2 are automatically taken from the Survey-Process
     5. Put the Subject that will be shown in the Subject line of the Email
     6. Load a specific <Email Template> from your Mailbox or write your message in the <HTML Editor>
     7. Finally, click on Send to send the Email with the Survey
   • Change Status: Change Personnel Status e.g. active, inactive, retired, etc
   • Copy Schedule: Copy a previously defined Personnel Schedule to a future year

3. Choose to view specific Personnel and click on the Actions Icon to:
   • Export: to export either all Personnel or the current page you are viewing in a .xls file
   • Print: to print the current page with Personnel you are viewing. A new tab will open in your browser. Please, follow the browser’s printing procedure
   • Skills Per Person
   • Overtime to Holidays
   • Copy Schedule for every Personnel

Multiple Personnel Skills

You can manage or search for Personnel based on their Skills.

Go to Packages > HR Automation > Personnel.

Search by Skills

1. Click the Search by skills option to search and find specific Personnel, based on Personnel Name, Title, and other advanced criteria
2. On the left side there is an advanced criteria panel in which you can:
   • Search Personnel based on the Name or Service
   • Select Functional Group that Personnel is/are a member of
   • Division that Personnel is/are member(s) of
   • Choose to view Users only
   • Select a Period (From-To) to identify Personnel that have not been booked
   • Select a specific Service and/or Job Title from the list
   • Specify the Cost Min and Max of this person or Job Title and also choose whether this Cost is External or Internal.
   • Select Status of Personnel
   • Click on the + Icon to add a desired skill. A pop-up appears where you can fill in the previously added skill, the minimum grade and any certification with its authority (if any). Click on Save to proceed. You can continue adding different skills and combine them to find a specific resource to use

Results are displayed on the right side of the screen. Choose to see the results in a different Order (by Name, Cost-Ext, Cost-Int), ascending or descending. You can Quickly add a Task to that specific person.

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