In this technological age, it’s often mindblowing how much cloud-based tools and software can help businesses operate faster, more effectively and more cheaply. From managing sales databases and automating communication-based on customer activity, to invoicing and billing, there’s very little that technology cannot do to make companies perform better.
Of course, this technology comes at a price and if you’re a large business, the cost is worth it. The big boys know that spending thousands of pounds each month on marketing, sales, and finance tools will potentially reap rewards ten times that amount.
But for SMEs, the decision isn’t quite so straightforward. The returns can’t quite justify the expense so they soldier on, without the automation.
In the HR and internal communications field, Workday* has long been a leader for large businesses. According to its website, its Human Capital Management tool enables businesses to “easily plan, recruit, and nurture talent, and provide the training your people need to lead using just one system. Workday* HCM provides complete visibility into your global workforce and a better user experience, so you can keep your people engaged and help them grow.” Sounds good. And for a typical spend of £800,000 per year, it’s all yours. Fantastic if you’re a big business.
If you’re an SME, it’s only fair that you should have access to similar tools without it breaking the bank. According to some of our customers, StaffCircle provides just that. It’s Workday* for SMEs.
Mobility
Workday*’s technology works across mobile, tablet and desktop. This allows staff wherever they are and whatever they’re doing to stay informed and on track.
StaffCircle was built with remote workforces and non-desk-based businesses in mind. Customers are provided with their own branded Workforce App and unlike the usual web intranets which require users to log on to consume news, communication is pushed directly to employees, contractors and partners using a multichannel approach. This means SMS (text message), Email and InApp Alerts. StaffCircle does not need to be installed like regular smartphone apps so engagement and reach levels will be far higher. Available on iPhone, Android, iPad, Android Tablet, Windows Laptop, Apple Mac, StaffCircle provides one of the most accessible business tools on the market.
Agility
Workday* prides itself on supplying an agile system that can respond quickly to new regulations, changes in the workforce, or opening a new location.
With Staffcircle, you can do that too. In a crisis, when your internal IT network is non-operational, StaffCircle can still operate even if the WiFi network is no longer functioning, instead of utilising the GSM 3G/4G network.
Delivering important, critical or time-sensitive alerts to your desk and non-desk based workforce can be challenging. Especially in distributed work environments where workers do not carry company communication devices. StaffCircle’s built-in alerting system enables you to reach up to 100% of your workforce with two-way messaging very quickly.
If you need to create new teams for a period of time, you can set these up on Staffcircle very easily. What’s more, each team will have its own @address and folder on the platform so activity posts can be delivered to that group.
Security
Workday* takes security seriously and provides protections that it says traditional software vendors can’t. It builds and continually updates rigorous safeguards into every product to ensure the highest security and maximum uptime.
As StaffCircle sits outside the corporate network, we offer unparalleled accessibility without compromising IT Network security. All information on StaffCircle is encrypted in transit and at rest and we provide a sophisticated security model which can support single sign-on.
Empowerment and engagement
A key part of Workday*’s HCM tool is to empower all employees with a consistent, engaging, and social experience across all devices. Insight on the health of the organization is available to execs in real-time to help them see how to improve engagement.
With StaffCircle, employee engagement is delivered via the following:
Personalised communication – sending each employee the right information at the right time.
Social Advocacy – allow employees to share Company content on their social networks and award them for doing so.
The ability to capture and analyse employee happiness to spot engagement issues early on. Sentiment controls are built into the system and can be set in anonymous mode.
On-brand communication and clearly spelt out mission and values to ensure the culture is always in-line with the business as a whole.
The ability to digitize every document means that staff can access files on the move thereby feeling a part of the company even if they’re offsite.
Personalisation
By capturing valuable data on performance and people, Workday* lets you help your people to progress towards the next level in their career with objectives, performance management and training. You can see who is performing well and who needs help. You can also compare learning and development investments with performance and promotion rates to see what’s working.
With StaffCircle, all employee activities are automatically logged to their own timeline showing a complete 360-degree view of their engagement and progression. Items such as sentiment, article likes and feedback as well as training modules finished, awards received and objectives completed all combine to give you the full picture of the person.
Resourcing
The Workday* system lets you plan your entire workforce, including contingent employees.
StaffCircle – the Workday* for SMEs – also does this. You can create work forms and assign them as tasks to individuals or teams on an ad-hoc or recurring basis and monitor their progress.
By digitizing the forms or progress reports and making them available to access on employees’ devices, worksheets can be completed easily and can include image upload and digital signatures. This keeps everyone up to date.
Employee performance and development
At Workday*, employees and managers can collaborate on career goals and development and staff are empowered to build connections, seek guidance, and design their career path. All aspects of learning and training are covered with built-in, actionable reporting.
At Staffcircle, the same rules apply and everything is documented in real-time on the mobile app. You can see how your team is performing against their objectives, get insights from each team member and manage work better.
It’s simple to create and manage bespoke training programmes for your employees, including video content, and all are accessible via the mobile app.
To incentivize good performance, our awards management feature allows leaders to easily create bonus schemes for all departments.
Recruitment and onboarding
Costly if not done properly, recruitment and onboarding are done to a high standard with Workday*. It lets you search both externally and internally to fill positions and retain employees and nurture candidates through the hiring process.
At StaffCircle, this is also achievable. As you’re able to monitor sentiment, resourcing and employee performance, you can start succession planning ahead of time, managing sudden gaps in teams. Plus, as the app gives each employee its own dashboard, new starters are onboarded quickly and effectively to the brand values, required training and performance expectations.
Absence management
It’s just as important to monitor staff when they’re absent. Workday* lets you easily track and analyse your team’s time-off requests and spot trends.
The same applies with StaffCircle. You can also automate the process of requesting a holiday or notifying your manager of sickness which frees up your HR and Admin for other tasks.
Pricing and speed of implementation
According to Forbes, Workday* has a 3-year minimum contract for all clients starting at $100-200 per employee per year. This amounts to a typical fee for its clients of £800,000 per year. And due to the sheer size of the task at hand, it can take up to 8 months to implement.
For StaffCircle, deployment time is 6 weeks. We recognise that SMEs need to move quickly. And licensing costs come in at an average of £25,000 per year.
If you’re looking for a Workday* for SMEs – a smarter, faster, lower cost of ownership, call us on +44 203 900 3443 to find out more.
*Workday is trademark of Workday, Inc.
