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White Papers

Every second counts: Carval Computing (November 2008)    
The purpose of this white paper is to look at the reasons why people implement a computerised time & attendance system and to try to understand the benefits that can be gained. There are a number of reasons why people monitor working time and these include the following: legislative reasons – Working Time Directive and health & safety; absence management – sickness, holidays and other types; and to calculate payroll – paid hours, sick pay and holiday pay. The use of a computerised system to automate this process provides the following benefits.
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Guide to HR outsourcing: NorthgateArinso (November 2008)    
Today’s business climate is more competitive than ever before. Globalisation, the onset of new technology and the unpredictable economic climate are just some of the challenges facing companies. In the battle to maintain a competitive edge in an increasingly crowded marketplace, organisations need to ensure that all their business functions are viable, cost-effective and live up to best practice. As more companies recognise the value of concentrating on their core competencies to maintain their competitive edge, outsourcing non-core functions becomes a serious option. Organisations of all sizes are now looking to gain benefits from this business practice. Although some basic outsourcing models have been around for many years in various forms (eg, outsourcing recruitment processes to agencies or outsourcing payroll operations) true HR outsourcing came to the forefront of business activity in the early 1990s in the US.
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Guide to human capital management: NorthgateArinso (November 2008)    
Human capital management (HCM) is about adding value to your business through people. And since people are often considered to be intangibles, it’s about making the people contribution tangible – a source of value rather than a cost to be reduced. In recent years, literally thousands of pages have been published about HCM, ranging from ‘letters to the editor’ in the HR press to weighty academic papers. Most people would therefore be forgiven for finding the subject sometimes confusing and often overwhelming. So what is human capital management? As this guide explains, it’s about adding value to your business through people. And since people are often considered to be intangibles, it’s about making the people contribution tangible, a source of value rather than a cost to be reduced. Once we can attribute value to people, we can start to understand better how to recruit, develop and retain them in ways that make a difference to bottom-line business performance.
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Lean and green: when going green makes smart business sense: COA (October 2008)    
Whatever their moral responsibility towards reducing their impact on the environment, businesses will soon have little choice about implementing ‘greener’ practices. As the Government continues to roll out new mandates on sustainability, many sizeable contracts are now being awarded only to firms that have demonstrable eco-credentials. The problem is that, when money is tight as it is for many organisations in the current climate, investing in ‘green solutions’ feels like a luxury they can ill afford. This doesn’t mean that they should risk putting sustainability initiatives on hold; rather, they need to think laterally when putting together the business case, as green initiatives can also make smart business sense. The good news is that initiatives to reduce a company’s carbon footprint can also have demonstrable and quickly realised financial benefits, dovetailing very neatly with internal strategies to cut costs, heighten efficiencies and grow profitability as trading conditions become tougher. By considering both goals together, organisations can double the benefits, thereby standing a better chance of securing the budget they need.
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Integrated talent management: Oracle (July 2008)    
Although the need for talent management is critical, many organisations flounder when it comes to effectively leveraging a state-of-the-art technology solution. The primary difficulty lies in sharply diminished business benefits when organisations fail to take advantage of talent solutions that integrate fully with the core HR system of record and with each other. As a result, organisations often miss a decided competitive advantage when it comes to areas such as user adoption, the optimal use of technology and employee development, which is so critical in the talent shortage. Often this failure stems from poor strategic planning and – as statistics show – selecting niche or siloed solutions a-la-carte. An integrated approach is ideal for the forward-thinking organisation expanding its talent management scope or for an organisation exploring talent management for the first time. Real-time integration that optimises all aspects of talent management can best be achieved with a solution from the same vendor that provides the core HR system.
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Recruitment technology: going global: Bond (April 2008)    
IT recruitment technology must respond to the needs of the modern global economy and help organisations leverage the opportunities which exist from expanding into foreign territories and utilising the skilled international workforce. Indeed, the globalisation of the business world provides both opportunities and threats to the recruitment sector. Ensuring suitable capacity, solution scalability and the ability to recognise and manage CVs in foreign languages are all technology challenges which large organisations need to address and overcome if they are to expand globally. This paper explains how recruitment technology is adapting to meet the needs of global expansion and developing to satisfy the requirements of businesses worldwide. When an organisation seeks to deploy a globalised recruitment system, it faces three immediate challenges.
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Am I bothered? Delivering success in an apathetic world: Logica (December 07)    
‘Am I bothered’, or to quote more accurately ‘Am I bovvered’, is the wellknown catchphrase of Lauren, from the BBC’s BAFTA award-winning Catherine Tate show. Whilst the character of Lauren is fictional, she has traits that are easily recognised in many young, and not so young, people. And whilst her character is intended to be a caricature of teenagers, aspects of her behaviour are not always that far removed from some of those we employ. ‘Are you disrespecting me?’ is Lauren’s standard retort to any challenge. It is her reaction to the feeling that any criticism, feedback or even comment is an affront to her as an individual. Attempts to clarify the situation are met with the ‘Am I bovvered?’ line, repeated ad nauseam, to help extricate herself from the unwanted confrontation, and cover for her inadequacies in communication and self-awareness. But are our staff really like that? After all, Lauren is a parody, with characteristics emphasised for effect.
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Capturing payroll and HR data in a distributed business: TeamSpirit (Nov 2007)    
This paper examines the particular challenges when capturing payroll and HR data in businesses that have a large number of remote operating locations, typically in the retail, leisure or service sectors. The use of new internet-based technologies to substantially ease this task is discussed. The entry of variable data to a payroll system has always been a potentially time-consuming task. Variable data includes items such as hours worked, holidays and sickness, as well as monetary values such as attendance bonus and commission. HR also has an interest in this data for analysing absenteeism and ensuring Working Time Regulations are monitored. With large distributed businesses, this task gets more problematic. Examples include the retail and leisure sectors where it is not uncommon for a head-office payroll function to require data from several hundred remote locations across the UK.
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Pre-packaged HR analytics: COA Solutions (August 2007)    
Since the mid-70s the market valuations of listed companies have become increasingly detached from their underlying net assets. It seems that the value of large enterprises can no longer be measured purely in terms of physical assets or indeed using traditional financial measures of performance. So what accounts for this difference in valuation and why are physical assets less important? Part of the answer lies in the significant structural changes that have taken place in Western economies over the last four decades, especially the decline in their industrial bases in favour of service industries. As such, businesses in the West are now less dependent on factories and more dependent on people. In the knowledge-based economies that have emerged, it seems that relationships, people, ‘know-how’ and intellectual property are more critical to value creation.
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The role of HR in managing workforce CO2 emissions: Vizual (April 2007)    
There is hardly a boardroom in the country that hasn’t at least discussed reducing its CO2 emissions in the last year. But relatively few companies are able to measure and manage their environmental impact successfully. Here we examine the issues and reveal how HR has a role to play in managing your business’ carbon footprint. Scarcely a day goes by when we fail to be bombarded in the media by news of climate change. Indeed the impact of CO2 emissions on our environment, weather patterns, biodiversity and on humanitarian issues is already tangible. It is, however, sometimes quite difficult to see how this relates to individual choices we make in our lifestyles and, for our businesses, what corporate strategies and business management processes we should follow to reduce and manage our CO2 emissions. This paper examines why businesses cannot afford not to appraise and manage their CO2 emissions. Ignoring the stark warning of the climate change these emissions bring poses a serious threat to commerce in both the short term – from loss of company market share and business value – and in the longer term – from loss of overall market.
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HR outsourcing: top 10 tips for success: MidlandHR (November 2006)    
There are risks associated with outsourcing any element of an organisation’s operation. These can include incorrectly defining the requirement or not selecting the right supplier. These risks are amplified when the elements being outsourced are the human resources and payroll functions. Both of these directly affect the organisation’s employees and these are widely quoted as being any company’s greatest assets. The following steps will enable any organisation outsourcing human resources or payroll to achieve a successful result and mitigate the risks.
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Common errors in employer annual returns: Software for People (April 2006)    
HMRC has issued, to all payroll software developers, a list of the most common errors on returns submitted for 2004/05 – all of which are rejected (or forcibly changed) by SfP World Service as part of year-end processing. With effect from the 2005/06 returns, HMRC’s penalty for failure to file online will be calculated on the number of P14s sent as part of the employer annual return. Some employers with a single PAYE scheme, prior to the introduction of electronic filing, used to submit two or more batches of P14s, each with its own P35, all bearing the same PAYE reference. This practice is no longer permitted. From 2005/06, employers continuing to do this will be treated as not having made a complete return when the first batch of P14s is received – and a non-filing penalty will be imposed.
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HR outsourcing: transforming the HR delivery model: Logica (March 2006)    
Key business drivers for organisational change, such as the need to improve services whilst increasing efficiency and lowering costs, are driving chief executives and HR directors to review existing HR operations to identify ways to improve working practices in order to optimise the value HR delivers to the business. An increasingly common solution to this problem is to use an HR shared service centre to deliver HR services. However, an increasing number of businesses are looking to outsource services, fully or in part, in order to achieve greater cost savings and deliver improved services. The introduction of an HR shared service centre involves large-scale business change which will impact all aspects of the organisation. Consequently significant investment and commitment is required to transform the HR delivery model within the organisation.
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Meeting the Pay and HRM Framework Agreement deadline: MidlandHR (Nov 05)    
Higher education (HE) institutions around the UK are racing to achieve the August 2006 Pay and HRM Framework Agreement deadline. One of a number of pay reforms across the public sector, the Framework Agreement sets out to radically reform HE pay through the introduction of a common national framework. This includes assimilation to a single pay spine. The agreement sets out to address the differences between institutions, bringing together both pre-1992 universities and post-1992 universities and higher institutions. It also provides an ideal environment to proactively manage equal pay for work of equal value discrepancies. Whilst the Framework Agreement was developed in partnership between employers and trade unions and includes an illustrated pay model, there is provision for variants to be determined through partnership locally with recognised trade unions.
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