 Okay well thank you for joining us this afternoon for Recover and Rise. My name is Cheryl Tipton, I'm here on behalf of Freedom Works who are running this systems and productivity series for you throughout November. We are going to be joined today or we have been joined already by Laura Walker from HR Fresh Solutions HR who's going to be talking about HR systems for small businesses. But before we do that, I just want to run through a couple of housekeeping points. Wait with me a minute, there we go. So that's where my system adjourned. So we're on digital HR systems today, as I say we're going to be joined by Laura Walker. We are talking next week about online stock and inventory and on productivity. So we've got two really good talks next week as well if you'd like to join us for those. The talk on Tuesday all about online stock is going to be hosted by Easy Stock so come along to that one. And on Thursday by Lisa Kerr who I can see who's with us. So if you want to give us a wave Lisa I can see you there. So Lisa is going to be hosting Thursday's session for us as well. I just want to run through, I know some of you will have seen these already and I probably sound like a broken record. Just to remind everybody that there is funding out there for small businesses, sole traders and medium businesses. And if you haven't already please hop over to the business hot house and have a look at the grant funding that they're able to offer. And also the workshops that they're able to offer. There's some really good information and some good funding on offer there. There's also low case low carbon across the South East, which is an EU funded project helping businesses become more sustainable. And Rise, which is backed by the universities in Brighton Sussex to talk to business about the capabilities. So really good connections there. So if you haven't already do go and have a look. We've also got the access to our digital champions who are offering up to a day of free advice and support. And this is an absolutely brilliant benefit of joining us on our webinars. So anybody who's joined us can access this free digital support from a whole host of digital experts from CRNs to productivity, marketing plans, e-commerce. There's all our lovely digital champions through to growth service related initiatives, all sorts of things. And all you need to do is fill in the contact form and contact coast to capital. One of the growth relationship associates will give you a quick call and have a little chat with you. And then you can access some free support. So if you are looking at the moment about a marketing plan or implementing a new CRM or thinking about HR or anything about your business, do have a look at the digital champion support that this program is offering is really good. And so without further ado, I will introduce Laura Walker, who's actually on my left, right. And either way, I'm not sure which side you are, Laura, actually. I'm glad to say Laura is going to be talking just today about HR systems for small businesses. Please do put any questions in the chat as we go along and we'll come back to them at the end of the session. And just so everybody's aware, we are recording. I hope that's okay with everybody. And the session slides are also going to be available afterwards. So over to you, Laura. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you very, very much Cheryl. It was lovely to be here. It was lovely to be asked today. So I hope that I can provide you with a bit of a whirlwind one stop around HR systems and lots of things there that people commonly ask. I'm going to share my screen now to just get into the presentation here. So here we go. So today, as I said, we're talking about digital HR systems and kind of with a subtitle about managing your team online. I am Laura Walker, and I'm pleased to be a part of the recovery rise digital accelerator series as Cheryl talked about there. I'll talk a little bit about who I am in a second. But first of all, I just wanted to sort of highlight the fact that the reason that this topic is really important along with lots of the others in the series is in the world that we live in today and in the last couple of years that we've moved towards. There are a lot more employees working from home than ever before. A lot more hybrid working. It's really really a time that digital has taken off. And one of those obvious connections with that is digital HR systems. Because of that, we've seen a flood to the market of both the existing systems that there are and new ways in which they can be utilized by companies like yourselves. But also lots of new companies out there as well. So it's a bit of a minefield. You could type in HR systems to any kind of browser search engine. You'll get hundreds of thousands of hits. So hopefully by the end of today, have a little bit more understanding of what you're looking for when you're finding it. So this is me. I am Laura. I run my own business Fresh Solutions HR. I'm based in West Sussex. Most of my clients are across West Sussex, Surrey and London. I've been a HR consultant in HR for over 20 years. And there's a little bit there around some of the sectors that I've worked in media, music, education, retail banking and fintech. And a little bit there about the kind of things that I do. I would previously have considered myself as a generalist HR person, which means that I look at anything and everything when it comes to people and organizations. But there's some of the things that I still do day to day. Something I've done throughout my 20 odd years career is implemented and designed HR systems from scratch. So if I think back to too far ago, but 20 odd years ago when I started working in personnel at the time, there were HR systems that were out there. They were relatively newer in their infancy and they were effectively employee databases that have become slightly more advanced and you could do some slightly more sophisticated skills and reports and analytics. And in the last 20 years, we've seen so many more of those systems come up. Some of them are really, really advantageous to employers now. So a little bit there about some of the work that I've done. Since 2016, I've been a freelance consultant and largely today I support startup businesses and SME organizations. So under 250 employees, but I've had corporate experience of up to thousands of employees. So a little bit of breadth of my experience there. And then there's some of my socials which are at the end as well for everyone to capture. So the focus for today's session is looking at the benefits of adopting HR software or systems in order to improve your business or your teams efficiently and effectively. I've said that to use the chat box as Cheryl has already said. Any questions that you see from any of the slides or anything you think about, please pop them in there and we'll cover them all. I know that they were at the end. A little subtext there. So we're looking at some of the benefits of using HR software to manage your teams. Some of the obvious benefits that people often think about is time saving and what we call slicker processes, up to date team information and employee benefits management. So that's what I'd say the general terms. I've certainly asked a lot of my clients and people out there who use systems and those are kind of the general things that people think of as benefits, but we'll come on to more of what they are in a second. So if we look at the detail of content a bit further here during the course of today, we're going to look at an introduction to HR systems. We're going to look at some of the jargon that goes around them. Some of you might be familiar with some of that jargon already, but there's a lot of acronyms that are used in systems. I'll try to clarify some of that. Where do I start and what do I need is a really useful point. I think that all companies should start with before they launch into trying to find a system is understanding what it is that they actually want, what these systems can offer and what they need for their businesses. We'll look at benefits. We'll talk a little bit about pricing. I've got a couple of case studies and then we'll look at some of the example systems for startups and medium sized and corporate companies. So if we look at an introduction to systems, there are, as I said there, there are hundreds of systems out there. Some of these are not suitable for startup organizations. There'd be much more corporate focus. And the reason for that is both by pricing slightly dictated, but also in terms of the sophistication of the systems. It's not difficult to understand that if you had three to five employees versus, you know, had 10,000 employees, you would need the system to process and function in a very different way. So it's about trying to find the right type of system. So what is a system? We've used this word I've managed it a few times already. Quite simply, a HR system, as I've said there, is a tool that allows HR, in people, information to be stored, processed and reported upon. It allows for systems to be automated, which is often what a lot of individuals are looking for and will come onto that. And with the right type of system and the type of investment and a HR system can really support and embed, build HR culture. I'm a big fan of HR systems, whether it be from literally even if you've got a couple of employees and thinking about what it can do, particularly in the climate where those employees may not be working with you face to face, like they might have been two years ago and you had a little office or a hub, they might be working from home. And so it's actually really difficult in those first few days and weeks and months of having employees for the first time to engage with them for them to understand what your culture is. If you're only just growing your organization and you've been a sole trader or someone like myself that works very much by themselves to suddenly then expand into more employees is a real cultural shift. And you've got to, you've got to get over what it is that you're trying to build what you do and how you do it into other people. And there's always the likelihood that that can become a little more fluid, but it can be kind of disparate. So it's really important that a system like this can really help to have all of your, your branding, it's like your website, it's your front face to your employees. So, and I have a video here and it is unfortunately not playing ball today so it will be on the slides that you'll get afterwards but there's a video down here which is about a minute and a half. But I'll capture a lot of what's here already today. So HR systems, we can see that there are three acronyms HRIS, HRCM and HRMS. And you may already know about those systems. And people often ask, well, what's the difference between these systems? Is there a difference? Are they the same thing? They are effectively one of the same, but there are some specific differences between how companies brand their systems. So what I've done is I've looked at HRIS, which is HR Information Systems, HR Management Systems, which is HRMS and HR Case Management Systems, HRCS. CM, sorry, my apologies. Sometimes it's called CS, sometimes it's CM. So there's a lot of acronyms we can see. I've made one there right in there myself. So if we first of all look at HR Information Systems, this is the traditional employee database. It's where most, if clients come to me or I ask people, what would you think of as a HR system? It's a database. And they're absolutely right. It is. It's a place where data is stored about individuals for the organisation. It can be used for record keeping. So that's the most functional way in which most companies would use it. Focus on data entry, data tracking and data information for the organisation. And that data can be any number of things, which we'll look at in a second. But essentially it's inputting information. It's tracking that. So things like leave or absence and also looking at information for the organisation. Do you want to look at how much sickness as a company you've had, your length of service? There's lots of ways as you grow. You can use that. That type of system is also commonly linked with payroll or other benefit systems. When I say other benefit systems, things like pension providers often have a landing page. You can embed that within to a system. You might link to paying over pension, other benefit schemes. There's lots of different things available, healthcare, all sorts of things. So commonly a HR IS will be linked with being able to link with some of those systems and really beneficial for startup organisations. Less than five employees is a really common type of system to embed and to use and to think about. The second is HR management systems. So this is taking what we got from the HR IS, but it tends to be more what I've said. There's a suite of applications under one system. So commonly if you think about it like a multiple amount of apps as one type of system and those different apps are almost like plugins or build on systems to create that wider management system. So you'll often use it to manage HR related procedures and processes. So commonly you'll take your data from your HR IS on let's say annual leave entitlement. You'll put that into your HMRS system and that will allow you to input, for example, how much leave a company can take and track that leave and allow employees to book the leave and authorise it, those kinds of things. A HR management system will also cover the entire employee lifecycle. Now that's something that HR IS doesn't really do. Yes, it does in a factual sense. So it will take start dates and leave dates, for example. But in terms of the life cycle, it doesn't tend to have plugins for things like performance management, talent management, training and development, whereas a management system will have more of that. Allows you to embed policies and procedures and legislation. Really important. I would always advocate having even if it's a very limited but small employee handbook employee casebook for anyone joining your organization. I speak to so many clients who don't have that from day one. It should be replicated from what your contract is. It's a definite connection. So it's really important to think about having that in a system can be really beneficial. As I said, use many of the principles of the HR IS and its data. It has interchangeable qualities, which means that you can change what is there. You can add on different modules. You can change and adapt those modules so it can interchange what it looks like. And as I said, again, quite beneficial for startups and growing SMEs. So you're starting to grow perhaps beyond that five to 10 employees or even from day one. It's still really beneficial to have with pricing. I'll come on to in a second, but there's fundamentally not too much difference between the two. And then finally HR case management systems HR CS or HR CM. So these are quite specific types of systems and there's not many of them out there on the market compared to the other two. They take all the principles of the HR IS and the HR MS. But what they use is looking at case management or content management. Now these are very well designed for companies that have again those SMEs that are getting up to those larger numbers of employees. They're ways in which you can track procedures, allow you to update lots of documents so they often have a lot of cloud space. Things like tracking case management for disciplinaries, employee queries, grievance cases. They're a really useful tool that as you get to have more employees, this system will be really beneficial to you. As I said, uses a lot of those principles of the other two and beneficial in case heavy workload. So I work in a couple of companies where that HR CS is absolutely fundamentally important to the running of our day to day. What is a sort of in the care industry, they have a lot of regular transactional issues with employees. So things like performance, disciplinaries, attendance, there's a lot of transaction that goes on and hence you want to keep track of that. So that's that type of system. So those are our three systems. I say jargon because if you punch in looking for a HR system, you'll see some are called HRS, some are just called HR system, some are called HRCM. Fundamentally, other than the HR CS, the case management, the other two are very, very similar. And you'll see when looking that certain types of system are much more one than the other. So right back at the beginning, I talked about where do you start and what do you need to know. And I think this is the really important thing I would say to any startup or SME before like anything. Usually you will be thinking very much about cost and about pricing and around time to embed any kind of new systems purchase something. It's a real investment of time and energy and of cost of course. So before getting started with looking for a type of system, I always say to people and I very much like to do a brainstorm on this or a whiteboard activity is thinking about what it is that you're actually in need of and what you're looking to achieve. There's a few square boxes on the side there. Those are all different things that many different clients or people will look for when they talk about what it is that they need. Commonly the pink box on the left that employee data is usually the first one that people talk about. And then all those others as they go through to the blue are extensions I think if you like of things that people are looking for and it really varies from organization to organization. So what are my advice? My advice is consider your stakeholders number one. So you of course as the employer are a stakeholder, but your employees are called number two stakeholder. They are the people that are going to be using this system using it day to day and thinking about what you need it for and how it will benefit them as much as you. Other stakeholders. I've worked with companies that for example have a lot of consultants, a lot of partner type organization. So things like media or it based or shared services, they will often have a lot of information they too would like to store in that system. So it might be for example, supporting with contracts or consultant contracts. It helps and supports with IR 35. If any of you have had to handle or deal with that if you deal with external workers and IR 35 documentation is a really good way to store that within a HR system. If they're not an employee but as a consultant, you can still store it on there. A lot of the systems you can set what type of entry you're inputting. So you can have category one employee category to consultant category three shared partner, whatever it is that you want to include. Then thinking about how you're going to use this system. So how is it going to be beneficial on a day to day basis on a quarterly basis? Are you going to use it to, for example, review salaries? Are you going to use it to track attendance? Is it going to support your recruitment or onboarding? There are lots of different ways and thinking about those upfront will help to know what you're looking for. Because there's no point deciding that you want a really good system to help you with onboarding and recruitment and then looking for systems that don't offer an add on recruitment module. That's just not going to help. So thinking about it upfront and your list. When you go to those companies, they'll also ask you, they'll do an exercise with you, which is just like this. And being able to provide that will be really, really useful. Thinking about other systems you want to integrate with. So if you have employees already, do you want to integrate with payroll? Depends on how you do your payroll. And we talked about that couple of weeks back, one of the other series, but thinking about if you need it to integrate with other types of systems. And then lastly, do you have a timeframe in mind? So obviously, thinking about how do you want to do this at a certain point in time? Are you thinking for 2022? Do you have people that you can actually support you in doing this? Is it just you as an individual? That would also be really important when you're going out to those providers to look for. Because some of those will include, for example, having a consultant that will support you in the implementation. Some of them won't. They'll just be a boxed product that you effectively buy, download, go on to the cloud and use. And so there's not that person other than online support, which they have, there's not a person to run this for you. So that will be really important too. So those are my top tips about what you're needing to know before you get started. If we come on to now benefits, this is probably one of the big topics that people think about. What's the benefit of having this system versus not having it? This circle here is all the different kinds of topics that I think are commonly asked about when it comes to what do you consider the benefits to be? If we look in the blue circle, their cost and efficiency is one of the first things that comes up. And I'm going to break these down in a second, but cost saving, efficiencies and slick processes always comes up as probably one of the number one reasons. Culture is another one. Culture regularly comes up and linked with wellbeing around employees feeling that there's a culture that is within the organisation to store information correctly, keep it secure, embrace of them with policies and procedures, lots of different ways. So it is creating a culture, if you like, it's about making the balance of that. So not just, in my mind, not having a culture where it's making sure you log your attendance on every minute of every day. But if you do work in an environment that you need people to log on and log off, that's really useful to culture and wellbeing. Policy and procedures, again, in the purple circles, linked to those things. It's a fundamental benefit and one really great way to store your information. Yes, you can store your policies anywhere else. Yes, you could put them on an intranet, but really an intranet is only one step away from a content management system. But then it's a better way to actually have them have them really interactive as well is something I advise companies of having a flat policy. You can just download. It's sometimes quite challenging, but how make it interactive, you know, put points of questions, highlight sections. Some of the systems are really, really good things there. And then finally, self-service and feedback and engagement are the two last areas of benefit. Self-service is that your employees can service themselves, i.e. book leave, pop up attendance, check a policy. They can self-serve without having to go to a HR department, which when you are a one-man person, if you are a sole trader, if you don't have anybody else, you don't have an outsourced HR or somebody like me to support you. That self-service is really useful. You can cut down the time and emails and transactions about things that you've decided, but actually they don't need to ask you sort of all the time about them. It's a really great way to embed them. And finally, feedback and engagement, again, really useful tool there. So let's break these down a little bit. So I've said there about the number one benefit of implementing a HR system is the time it will save you as an organisation. There is absolutely no doubt that even if you invest time into implementing a system like this, you will fundamentally save time in the long run. How will you save time? Just as I said there, having a self-service cuts down the amount of transactional time, perhaps on matters that you might not want to have lots of emails about. It cuts down the time to make decisions about processes. There are lots of ways you can implement rules into systems to allow that. It automates processes as well. So that, again, makes those processes much shorter in time. You know, if you think of an old-fashioned sense, I remember back in the days when I'd have to fill out an annual leave form, hand it to somebody in their pigeonhole. They would have to implement it in a folder, then update it, upload it to a spreadsheet, and then store that spreadsheet. It absolutely saves time in those processes. And that can add up really quickly. You know, even having five employees who have, you know, statutory entitlement of 28 days, that's already hundreds of days worth of time you've got to track in the business just for five people. Aside from sickness, other attendances, if somebody is on maternity leave or parental leave, it adds up really, really quickly. And that time can be really, really beneficial to have a system that stores that. And also save time on reminders and inputting things. You can remind employees of their annual leave entitlement. You can set a reminder that they must complete a return to work form or have an interview with somebody. Lots and lots of ways there that you can do that, which is great. The second big one for me is on the right there, access to information. 24 seven to having a system in place that you can use to have all sorts of data at your fingertips, literally wherever you are. If you're home, if you're in a hybrid work situation, if you're in a meeting and you want to pull something up, you can get that data really, really quickly. And without having to actually run sophisticated reports, perhaps either, just a really great way to focus on how you can get data. Common question I would go to a client meeting, we'd be sitting in a meeting and someone wants to know about headcount. You can literally pull up that system straight away, look at the headcount for the organization, share that, breaking it down. There's lots and lots of ways of really good. And then if you get into advanced reporting and analytics, there's ways to report on that as well. So if you're the type of organization that is starting to grow and expand and you've got more employees and you want to run reports on could be performance management, could be salaries, bonuses. We're looking at commission structure. There are lots of ways in which reporting analytics can really start to help, even as a small organization or an SME. The bottom row we're going to come on to. So the next one is security. It's not one that people talk about as often, but in line with GDPR regulations, you're required to keep your information about employees confidential and secure. So either a locked filing cabinet or a cloud based system, password protected, and actually that can really again, you know, if you've got a physical space, if you don't have a physical hub that's very large, you can't store that data, you know, on paper. And I think much more of us now work electronically and work on those systems on in cloud based software, G drive, all those kinds of things. So actually having it in a really secure place like that system as that extra layer of security also means when you get to the point of if you do have people managing other people. And I would say that even if you've got five or six employees, that can quite quickly happen. It's another way to ensure that that is sophisticated is secure. It's maintaining that data. It's a great online filing system. The security is the next one that I think is beneficial. I'm going to skip them to case management because I think this is one that even with sole trader or with larger organizations, organizations that are growing, I would say, that case management is a really, really great way to be able to store this online. Now, if I put on my HR hat for a second, which is regularly there, if I think about when I might support an organization, at least even just say it's got two employees and one of those employees is a performance issue or there's an issue perhaps with their probation, perhaps things are bringing to drawing to a close or there's a disciplinary matter, whatever it might be. There's undoubtedly going to be paperwork and process and policy involved in that. And one of the common conundrums is when I ask an employer what letter someone has been sent, they can't always find them very quickly. They can't find the emails that an employee sent. And it takes a little bit of time to actually put that information together as part of even investigation. If we want to call it that formally, but just to get the information to me or to yourself to check it. So having a system whereby you can actually manage that online that when somebody sends you a document or a letter, you can upload that very quickly to a system. It does take practice and I know that it's something people think, oh, that's really time consuming. Actually, it's not. If you've got it in your emails, how many times do you have thousands of emails you've got to scroll through, look for an attachment, search for something. Actually, even just on a regular basis, even just once in a few weeks, once a month, if you go into your email, you get all your attachments, you upload them. It's a really, really great way to manage that. And definitely when it comes to tracking things like disciplinaries, someone has a live disciplinary file. It's going to last for six months, say, you want to make a note of when it has expired, so that if there is another situation, you know that. So that's the way it's really, really useful. Again, on I put it there, manage redundancies. Over the last two years, we've seen a huge amount of organizations have had to let staff go for one reason or another, largely related to financial situations and cost. I've been able to manage a redundancy process and having that information is absolutely paramount. You cannot proceed with a redundancy consultation unless you've got that information. And so being able to have it and also being able to communicate with your employees during that time, a lot of the systems have a kind of embedded, like a social media, but more of an announcement section. You can put notices on there. You can talk through coaching and other things that are available and systems. So it's a really good way to have that. And then one of the last ones I've got there is talent management. So having rich data from employees across their entire life cycle will permit you to develop talent access there. Access to training needs and improved performance. Talent management is definitely something as you start to get to larger organizational size, you'll want to think about. It manages that end-to-end process. Again, you can put, you can manage performance. You can put training requirements. You can add on certificates. You can just look at all that talent, there's some great talent modules out there that do some really cool things for employees, allows them to manage their own talent, their own successes, see jobs, promote themselves within. There's lots and lots of stuff there. Those are the kind of headline top benefits for HR systems. So I'm going to come on now to some of the recommended types of systems. So I'm going to jump quite quickly to the types of systems, I suppose. I'm just checking there. I'm going to go back slightly. These are systems which I've thought about in respect of SMEs or start-up organizations. They're all very much focused around probably some of the top systems out there for those companies. So I haven't included some of the really big names that perhaps you might be familiar with. Commonly, people often come up with things like ADP, Cascade, People HR. Those are brilliant systems and this is not to just credit those in any way. There are so many systems out there. But in terms of start-up organizations, there are certain things that you would want to be looking for. So this is starting to give you a little bit of an idea around the type of system, perhaps some names putting out there for you to look at. So the first one I'm going to bring up is Sage HR. This actually used to be called Cake HR for people who might have known it before. It's part of the Sage group. So Sage for accounting, for example, it is linked with those products and it's their kind of HR version of a Sage product. I've put there a little bit of a headline just in pricing which I'll come on to in a second. But you're looking there at around £4 per employee per month. They do offer a free trial which is 14 days I believe for Sage, which gives you an opportunity to try out most of the system on it. It's what we call a core HR and leave management. So core HR is things like absence, attendance, a little bit of disciplinary, a little bit of tracking, employee data. We've said there are other types of leave, maternity, paternity, adoption, parental, jury service, compassionately, all those types of leave and things people would want to update, what we call that core HR. That's what they offer. It also offers a shift scheduling and time management module. So commonly it's quite used for again consultants, invoicing, you can use it, connects with your other Sage products, being able to look at 10 say if you have like a zero hours worker contracts, if you have volunteers, it allows a lot of shift scheduling. So you've got quite a hybrid work space and it's a good one to look at. And it does offer as well a performance management module, which is a good thing. It can add that on there. So that's a really good one for a more basic product. Can track expenses as well, something you haven't really talked about, but you can track that there. And they do have a recruitment and training module, which is slightly newer. It's not as advanced as some of the other systems, but it is there and it does have some really useful onboarding. I would say that if that is your main focus, I would not look at Sage, but it doesn't definitely does have recruitment and training. So why would I pick Sage? I have used Sage in fact for a couple of my clients. It's very user friendly. You literally can go on, download it. You don't really have an associated person necessarily, but they do have a lot of great FAQs and help. Very straightforward to easy to implement. You can upload things. You can input data really quickly. It's very. It's very sort of logical in how it works. You can have the option to add on modules. So there's lots of flexibility and choice with it. Some really cool features. It's got things like a company calendar. Sounds basic. I know, but a lot of systems don't offer those kinds of things. So it has a full company calendar that you can integrate with your workforce and integrates really well with Google and social media. So it's inherently will look at things like G drive, how you use those and social media. So really good one. I'm going to move now on to bamboo HR. So bamboo HR has been around a quite a long time now. A little bit more expensive at circa £5 per employee per month, but you do get some quite additional features with it. So it's again, it's a HR IS. So it's a information system, but looking to a more of a management system. They have a free trial, which is between 14 and 30 days. It has an applicant tracking system for recruitment focus. It's more sophisticated than SAGE. Really good. It's very good. If you work in recruitment, if you want to advertise on there, if you want to use it to track candidates or volunteers or store CVs, really good one. Has a good employee onboarding experience. So employee onboarding is where employees start with us and that onboarding period. And again, lots of employee information. So I'd say benefits there, recruitment focus for an entire candidate experience. So that's quite a benefit to companies. Let's add on modules than some of the others. A good concentration on the employee experience and life cycle, which SAGE doesn't have as much of. And also it's got things like performance management, salary time attendance. So a little bit more sophistication there. The final two I'm going to talk about today is number one, Breathe HR. So Breathe HR is very common and also they're quite well known in West Sussex, which is why I've mentioned them today. They run a really good partner program. I know a lot about them. So if anyone does have any questions about Breathe specifically, I'll be happy to answer them as well. They start from around 5 per employee per month. Again, lots of modules. It's in fact one of the vastest systems. So there are so many different modules you can add. Lots of tailored options as well based on companies and a lot of focus around engagement and self service. Really important one. Strong one there on the self service, I would say. Pros of this system. So one of the biggest choices of modules that said self services at the heart of it has been built around from an employee upwards. So it really focuses on what an employee will want and a full implementation program and a dedicated sales advisor. So not something that everybody offers. So hence a good benefit there. And then the final one I'm talking about today is one of the most cost effective out there on the market at the moment. It's called Zoho people. It's circa less than a pound at 83 pence per employee per month. They have a free trial, which is 30 days, which is really good. It's considered a HR management system. So it has quite a lot of options. Very report and analytical focus. So if you're a real buzz around data reports analytics, this is a good one. Good self service option as well. So benefits there. It's obviously low cost. Very easy to implement this one. Very intuitive. I found when I've used it 30 day trial and some really useful reporting tools. So there are the four companies. So sage HR bamboo HR. HR and Zoho people. Now there are lots of these companies and I've just picked four of my recommended ones for today. But there are lots out there. And there will be lots that you come across. So it's thinking about all those other important things we've talked about so far. So the last few things I'm going to talk about. Because I think it's really useful is looking at just a couple of quick case studies to for people like yourselves who have been in this situation and what have they done. So my first one is a marketing agency. Unfortunately I can't share the brand and name of this company. But I'm going to talk a little bit about their scenario. So they were a marketing agency. They had around 15 employees at the time I was working with them and about 20 consultants. And then a whole heap of partners or vendors that they worked with to do various things. So they came to me. They were seeking a HR system that would store HR data safely. Employee record information so they wanted to store payroll. Commissions was quite important to them and bonuses. And they also wanted to store partner information. That was really important to them too. They didn't have something that they could. They had a CRM system which was great. But they wanted to make sure it was implemented into that as well. So CRM is a conservation management system. Benefits that they wanted to include a self-service section for their employees. And they wanted to include attendance, project updates and document storing. And finally cost and time are really important factors for them. So what did they do? So we had a little bit of an activity around thinking about what they needed, what they wanted. And they decided to trial two systems for 14 days. And they then let their employees explore these systems. So they had a free trial. They had one logon. And it's a kind of a blank data. So they put some of their branded things on to there. And they allowed employees to look at those systems. They told them they were thinking about implementing it. They were very open about that. And they wanted them to comment and they did a little survey as well about integration and user interface. They asked them to comment on the two systems. The employees went with one of the two companies. And the employer made that choice. And they went with Breed HR. So they were paying £5 per user per month times those 15 employees because they were the only users. The partners didn't count in the same way they weren't using it. They had a four to six-week integration. So that was handing over their data, uploading it, embedding it. And then they also nominated, which I thought was a really great idea. They nominated system heroes within the organisation. So they're a very funky based marketing company. Very forward thinking, very visual. It was a really great, colourful, easy to use system they wanted to embed. So they had system heroes that were people that worked with the management to be those kind of real supporters of the system and really get, make sure it was really embedded into the culture of their company and a great product. And that was about nine months ago. They're really happy with the system. They've since gone on to add more employees. They've worked with Breed really well. And they're now looking at adding some extra options such as the onboarding and some other talent management options for them as well. So that is my first case study. My second case study was an IT company. So more of a corporate client, but they had eight employees and they had around 30 contractors. They were seeking a HR system that would store contractor data, particularly for them was IR35 submission. So that's the off payroll rules. So they wanted to make sure they could store contractor information and invoices so that they could for future reference. They also looked to install employee data for those eight employees and their bonuses. They worked, they had quite a strong bonus structure. That was really something that was important to them as well. So they looked at a couple of systems. They felt that because of the size of the organization at the moment, one of the leading individuals there worked had a financial background. They looked at implementing stage HR and that's what they chose to do. They did a full 30-day trial. They paid £4 per user per month which was £32 per month in total for those eight employees. They're just integration embedding. They had one individual in the company that was quite tech-savvy, I would say, one of their administrators and project managers and he looked after the embedding for them with one of the managers. They had a good robust communication plan because they had to deal with the contractors and they rolled out via one administrator and with myself as a HR consultant. Some of the cool features of that were that Sage HR has e-signature which is much like social media like a feed that they could announce things to contractors, useful articles stuff like that and also they wanted to have org charts on their organisational charts because they work with a number of corporate clients and it's very complex who works for who who's under what project so that was something really important to them. They found it a little more challenging to decide on a product and while Sage HR wants to go as a company they're growing very fast and very quickly even since they embedded that initial system which was in May they've now got double the amount of contractors they've got another five employees they're really expanding quite quickly so for them they're looking at an interim product that they could use for maybe a year or two and then not have a big investment and then go on to something else if you have any questions I see there might be some in the chat there but please do ask and if you've got any questions that are beyond today I'm sure we'll explain where you can get those so thanks for listening. Thank you so much Laura I've got quite a few questions actually that people have been tapping away some have come through a direct message so I'll do my best because there's quite a few here I'll do my best and then maybe you can obviously if anybody does up on the screen for a minute Laura give people a chance to scribble that down if they have problems although we do send the slides out so let's have a look at these so first of all do HR systems sync up with payroll or give your account an access to set people up on payroll so yes so some systems will integrate with your payroll it does depend very much on what system so it would depend on what payroll system you have if let's say you have a system whereby just something like Sage for example is a good example Sage will link for example to Sage HR but it will integrate with other products so it's a hard question to answer unless I know the two sides of the story but most payroll products will integrate with a HR system it's just a case of when you go out to market to look for that system making sure you make them aware of the payroll product you are presently using even if it doesn't fully integrate the thing I would say is that you can take the data from one system to another so you can take it from your HR system and drop it into your payroll a CSV file very commonly from systems and that drops straight into payroll so even if it fully doesn't integrate there are ways to embed it there's ways around it yeah ways around it following that sort of integration but slightly separate do any of the systems that you spoke about provide templates like employee contracts or handbooks because I know that's a big sort of stumbling block for some companies isn't it we need a contract or we need a handbook or we need a this or we need a that even a social media policy do any of those supply that sort of thing or is that really where you outsource to somebody lovely like you thank you so do they provide templates so some of those systems will have templates but it's unusual for them to have contract templates and there's a reason for that because a contract obviously is it's a legal document it requires a specific set of eyes on it to ensure that it is an appropriate document and is applicable to your company as well so how many things like that they will have templates of is for example things like policies they might sometimes they may sometimes have some for example policies things like social media policy they definitely might do and it does depend on the type of product so if I think about breed HR they are a really large company now they've got lots of different capacity there some as with bamboo HR so they've got internal advisors that can give advice on some of those things associated with it but if you went for sage HR they're unlikely to have those kind of templates there are other systems and ways in which templates I'm not going to do myself out of a job necessarily but there are products out there and I'll say this with a big caveat that you don't have to have someone like me to write your contract there are reputable organisations and companies out there that you can download templates of contracts what I would always advise is even if you download a template and you then play around with it a little or you write it or you change it you've inherently changed that contract so you can't go back to that company and it's also a really good idea to get someone even someone like myself or HR you don't need to have a lawyer or a solicitor but to get someone to check over it because we'll be looking at it in a very different way we see all sorts of gloriously written contracts shall we say and they're not always unfortunately accurate and not all templates will be appropriate but you can buy you can get products you can download them even things like like expert HR and stuff like that there's products out there that you instead of having a person you could have a company do those things for you and some people prefer that Yeah I think yeah it's wise words there Laura I think it's the same when you're downloading any template from the internet isn't it types and conditions cookie policy anything and everything it's always best to get it double checked because there's some weird and wonderful ones out there it is and also of course if you're it's not your expert area which it wouldn't be unless you are a HR consultancy and then you'll probably write your own is that the common the common fall down I see with companies is they got a contract online and then they issued it and they really didn't read it very well and then it refers to things that have no relevance to that company it will refer to bonus schemes that you don't have it might refer to policies that don't exist it will refer to collective redundancies that are not applicable all sorts of weird and wacky things so even though you might have read it it's always a really good idea it can cost you less than a hundred pounds to get someone to check that over and that'd be really beneficial for you in the future thank you and one last question I know you touched on it briefly in one of your case studies the situation with contractors and using freelancers and that sort of thing and I know a lot of our audience are sole traders and small businesses that might use contractors, freelancers people coming in and out of their business is there a preferred or is there a system that you would recommend that would maybe keep those details or is it a case of looking at each one of those and seeing which is the best for you it's a good question I sent them round I can't of course I can't I think one off of my head but there are there are two systems that I use that are specifically focused around contractors the people that you have sort of more than maybe 15, 20 contractors I'll put them across to Cheryl so you can put them in the email maybe but they are if you only work with contractors and you have no employees then you may not need a HR system but you might want to have one of these types of products instead and they can I just can't they go their names but yeah there are some really good systems out there and yes that is an absolutely really good way even if you haven't got employees right now to track your consultants in fact I'd fully recommend it if you don't have a full CRM system or content management system to have a system like that that can track invoicing and payments and projects and programs even using something like Trello but you can put invoicing on there as well it's just a really good way to to have it somewhere else cloud based then just in your inbox or just sat somewhere it's the hardest thing to find when someone disputes a payment such as an invoice or they suddenly come and say my accountant says I should be within IR35 and you go what now so there's lots and lots of ways really recommended to store that data particularly if you're working with lots of consultants IR35 is really what that means really simply IR35 is about the on and off payroll rules i.e. are those people should they be on your payroll or are they not classed as workers that's what their fund eventually comes down to okay it's an interesting one isn't that one topic here's a big question and I don't expect you to to so it's more your thoughts what do you think about moving the pandemic everybody's now kind of remote very back in the office stay in remote what do you think your thought what are your thoughts going forward what do you think we're going to see do you think we're going to see a complete change in the way people work or do you think it'll eventually go back to normal what are your thoughts on that being in the industry because we've all got our own little opinions haven't we but what does the industry point to I think that I think that what we've seen over the last two years with regard to the pandemic that had said and I see this some time again no one can work from home we can't do our jobs no one can possibly work from home we will fail as a business and I would say that those people who were so against it in my opinion have seen a total turnaround because they had no other choice frankly if they were a front-facing business not a retail business for example but an office that just they could have done their jobs because they realised very quickly they had to change otherwise they were going to fail what do I see going forward I don't think we'll ever see the return back to what we were if I'm totally honest I think that hybrid working has always been around but not very much in its infancy in that if we've heard the cases I work with a lot of female centric companies that are looking at things like ways of flexible working with parents not just mums but parents but I think that there's going to be a total shift towards hybrid working there is more and more momentum there is a wave it is slow but already we have seen huge changes which don't always get announced in the press very much but for example the change that from day one of employment next year you will be able to request flexible working is massive we have to currently work 26 weeks somewhere to have that right to request it they're going to fundamentally use that is literally we have never seen that in our work in lifetimes and there are changes like that that we are starting to see there are companies and there are charities lobbying the governments and lobbying other companies to make those changes and also not just to get I think people think about it as in it's just the workers getting what they want which is that everyone wants to work from home and I think it's about that it's actually getting people to see that employers need support they need financial support they need guidance they need support if we're going to do this and we're going to be that kind of culture and we're going to make that shift towards what you might have said was a more European slant traditionally it is you know the three biggest countries out there that work towards flexible working are mainly in Europe they are mainly in the north of Europe they are the Scandinavian countries they are exemplary when it comes to flexible working hybrid working and all sorts of other benefits and I think there is a real shift towards that so I don't think I'll go back to what it was and I think those employers that still insist on that I think they will actually become I think they will become isolated we've already seen massive companies right you know the likes of Google and huge big companies like Fujitsu say everyone can work from home we're going to close our offices that's huge to me they're global companies as well so I think there will be a big shift I think I agree with you Laura I think there will be a big shift people have seen the other side of the coin and you know quite brilliantly carried on working through what was the most horrendous period and now kind of why would I want to go back to that or should I go back to that so one last question and then we will let you go because your voice is probably hoarse that's okay where are good sources of information on HR for small business owners are there any kind of I know with my signpost just if somebody wanted to read up on something or find out about legislation or find out about this flexibility is there a the main portal yes so a couple of places so one of the first places which employers are often quite hesitant to go to is actually ACAS so that's the arbitration conciliation and advisory service which is where all of all the employment laws processes policies that's where they advise on employees and they have so many tools on there it's a really good way to talk about templates before ACAS have some great tools on there and resources for companies policies you can download really straightforward guidance around how you interpret a piece of legislation how you make a request how you action that request lots of info so there's an ACAS hub is a really really good one citizens advice is equally a really free good place to look for again it's all very factual up to date government focus so it does have an employer slant and the CIPD you mentioned there obviously marketing the charge institute of personal development of course has been around for a long time over a hundred years now they have again some good resources that are free and then they have some that you can you can download and you can apply for additional ones for the real good ones you have to have CIPD access so you do have to be registered unfortunately but some really good places and then I would say there's some other good companies companies like so we talked about if you don't have a system but you don't have a HR person where can you get data things like expert HR is really good people HR they're they're like kind of memberships or subscriptions that you can buy some of them are quite low cost some of them are more expensive so I'd say always look into it a bit more and then obviously again like free advice so looking for people who are in your local area like freedom of works has some really good contacts and you know consultants often anybody like myself will offer a free one-hours consultancy service really commonly there's a really good way to just ask questions and not be charged and in an hour you can ask a lot of questions and without having to have any you know any sort of funding whatsoever will put you in the right direction of course but there are lots of other ways that you can get free information and like the business hub you talked about that's a really good way to get information and then yeah probably like signing into like being part of network companies network organisations one of the things like RH Networking Cover West Sussex other networking companies loads to relevant your sector probably as well but they can give you some really some good information too Laura you've been absolutely fantastic thank you you must be absolutely horse because you've covered so much rounds in an hour I'm absolutely in awe of how much you've done just to sort of really finish to say I know that Natalie's just put in the chat they sign up for next week's webinars so again we're talking about online stock and inventory and online systems so if that interests you please do sign up and come along we will be sharing Laura's slides and we will be sharing the recordings and please do get in touch with Laura if you've got any queries questions or anything about HR she's obviously the person to go to thank you once again from Freedomworks and we look forward to seeing you all next week thanks again Laura thanks a lot everybody bye bye I know everybody bye bye