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From the Editor

We have decided to now publish the Softech Newsletter via email so that we can more easily reach our growing customer and user list which now numbers over 300.

We hope that this form of newsletter better serves the Softech user base.

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HRplus Anywhere is now a fully Balance Scorecard Compliant Application.

Within the past few years the Balanced Scorecard has become a key tool for managing and implementing strategy in organisations worldwide.

Using the Balance Scorecard Functional Standards for compliant applications as designated by the Balance Scorecard Collective, we are pleased to announce that HRplus Anywhere is now fully compliant with these standards.

Essentially it means that the MBO/Performance Management module in HRplus which already included documentation and communication of objectives, measures and targets, and initiatives aligned with strategy, now also incorporates perspective (financial, customer, internal, and learning), with measures and targets being seperated into two distinct items.

Users will now be able to capture the benefit of the Balanced Scorecard Management System.

Managing HR in HRplus.

Outside of multi-lingual capability, POWERPay (the payroll section of HRplus Anywhere) is one of the most powerful payrolls not only in the Caribbean but on the planet and can hold its own with any one of the large software companies like SAP, Oracle, or ADP. However in the case of HRplus, we have had some catching up to do. With the additions made to HRplus in this update, managing the HR function is now more powerful and much easier with your HRplus application, and we feel we are well on the way to closing this gap. The improvements made directly impact on the issues of Recruitment, Turnover, Retention, and Talent management and makes the process of managing these HR processes very seamless. Over 60 Key HR reports have been added for managers to easily retrieve the metrics associated with managing these functions.

Enhancements have been done in Competency Modelling, Performance Management, Management By Objectives/Balanced Scorecard, Succession Planning and the Training and Development modules in particular, so as to accomodate more best practice HR management.

You can download a powerpoint presentation from our website which walks you through an approach of how you can better manage your HR challenges in HRplus. 

HRplus Anywhere version 4.7 on the way

At the end of July 2007, Softech will be releasing the latest upgrade to its HRplus Anywhere product. Although not a new version, this is a major upgrade as it brings the application up to date with the latest HR best practices. Many new features have been added to the existing product. Among the improvements you can expect are the following:

1. Greater ease of use. Several enhancements have been made throughout the application including improved navigation in all HR modules, directory searches on all list windows, additional filters in all search windows, and partial text searches when searching for employees.

2. Improvements in linking records. The method of selecting records when adding or deleting detail records to master records has been made significantly easier throughout. You will now be able to select several detail records via checklist at the same time.

3. Improved HR Processes. Several modules have been enhanced to provide better HR management support.

• They include competency management - competency levels, details, required training have been added to the competency management framework.
• Jobs can now be flagged at critical levels to the organisation and many analytical reports are now available using this parameter. For example you can now list critical jobs for which there are no potential successor candidates or you can view turnover statistics by critical job level.
• Key employees can be identified.
• Job attributes have been combined into a simple to use window. These attributes now include valid date ranges to allow for adding current/future date validity and required competencies/training interventions.
• Standards of performance have now been added to job tasks and can be directly retrieved whilst doing performance management.
• Keyword support has been added to many areas so as to enhance filtering when doing searches
• Balance scorecard perspectives and themes have been added to the Management by Objectives/Performance Management System.
• You can now select job tasks by default as an option in generating an employee's performance appraisal review document.
• You can now create succession charts by critical job level throughout your organisation. Development of employees has been made easier.
• Supervisors/Managers can now report on the impact of training interventions on employees performance
• Many reports have been added including Business Intelligence reports which generate key performance indicators from your HR data. These allow you to easily see how HR issues have affected Business Performance or to provide red flag alerts to potential issues.
• We will be introducing our new reporting engine in this release for the payroll module. All the payroll reports will now be printable from a java based reporting tool. Over the next few months the HR reports will be gradually released.
• There are many more items which will be detailed in the release notes which will be accompanied by screenshots of changes and new functionality.

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Sixty new metric reports in ART in new update for HR and managers.

1. Accidents by Department
2. Average Salary by Job
3. Average Years of Service by Job
4. Average Years of Service by Department
5. Best Recruiters by New Hires Performance
6. Competency Gap - Weighted Competency (Required vs Rated) by Employee
7. Cost per Hire (Average by Department)
8. Disciplinary Incidents by Department over 2 Years
9. Employees enrolled by Benefit as a % of total eligible by Department
10. Grievances by Department over 2 Yrs
11. Grievances resolved by Department over 2 Yrs
12. Grievances unresolved Aging – under 30 days, 30-60 Days, 60 – 90 Days, Over 90 Days
13. Headcount – Net Change by Month range by Department
14. Headcount by Location
15. Headcount by Status
16. Headcount by Type
17. Injury Leave by Department
18. Jobs where age of employee is over X years
19. Key Positions with more than two candidates for succession
20. Key Positions with no candidates for succession
21. Key Positions with candidates ready for succession
22. Lateness by Department
23. Leave Absence Rate by Department
24. Leave - Non Vacation Used by Department
25. Leave – Unused Vacation by Department
26. Performance Summary organisation wide
27. Performance by employees in EAP
28. Performance by Employee over comparative years
29. Performance by Insurers (re Health Plan)
30. Performance by Job Group
31. Performance by Key Jobs
32. Performance by employees who were trained over the last 2 years
33. Performance by employees hired over the last 2 years
34. Performance – No of employees who have deteriorated by department
35. Performance – No of employees who have improved by department
36. Promotion Rate
37. Property Benefits by Department by Property Type and Value
38. Requisitions by Critical Job Levels
39. Requisitions by Status (Approved, Pending, Unapproved) by Department
40. Retiring employees in critical jobs within the next X years
41. Retiring employees in the next X years
42. Satisfaction levels by Job by department
43. Satisfaction levels by Performance by Job
44. Span of Control by Department
45. Time to Hire by Job
46. Training Costs/No of employees (Average) by Department
47. Training Costs by Department
48. Training Performance – No of employees whose performance has improved over the total number of employees trained by department
49. Transfers by Department
50. Turnover – High Performers
51. Turnover – Annual by Department
52. Turnover – By Exit Interview reason
53. Turnover – By Manager
54. Turnover – By Performance
55. Turnover – By Type (Voluntary/Involuntary )
56. Turnover – By hard to replace employees
57. Turnover – By Key Positions
58. Turnover – By Key Individuals
59. Turnover – By rate of new hires
60. Turnover – Years of Service

Except for the Servoy licences for the new reporting engine, the upgrade is free to all customers on version 4 who have a valid maintenance agreement. For those of you who do not have the IT resources to install the upgrade, you can order installation via the helpdesk.

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HELP DESK Usage

The new online help desk which was introduced a few months ago has proven to be an invaluable tool in improving our customer service initiatives. However many of our users do not indicate if a solution suggested has solved their problems. The resultant effect is that we spend lots of time trying to determine this. In order to address this problem we will be automatically closing tickets after five days of posting a solution and no response is received from users. 

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What comes next? Version 5.0 in 2008.

HRplus Anywhere version 5.0 will be a painless upgrade. It will be mainly a tools upgrade with some improvements to the application interface. The database structure will remain intact but the database will be upgraded to Sybase SQL Anywhere 10 and Oracle 11g.

The front end will only have a few cosmetic changes - pretty icons, tab panels, and so on. But its basic structure will remain the same. However, we upgrade from Coldfusion 4 to Coldfusion 8. All the reports will be in Servoy at that time. 

Orgcharts will be fully integrated into all modules of HRplus in the version 5.0 release as we seek to improve visualisation of your HR data. Softech is partnering with Ingentis Softwareentwicklung GmbH (www.ingentis.com) of Germany to bring this functionality to the application. This will be an optional but highly recommended add-on.

Another new feature of HRplus 5.0 will be an integrated E-Learning System. E-Learning systems help bridge the competency gap for your employees. This will be an optional add-on.

We also have available an optional BI tool integrated into the environment. 

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Software Technology Limited
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Phone: 868 622 6900
Fax: 868 628 6179