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Engaging Your Workforce Using Hieroglyphics?
There’s an old adage: It’s not the Ants that will get you. It’s the Elephants! =- Translation: Don’t sweat the small stuff. That’s NOT true in Uluru (aka Yulara) the heart of Australia’s outback!
Uluru 2020
Black Flies. Not just a few annoying little buggers, but hundreds, thousands of them! They surrounded us as soon as our plane landed. Swirling around your head, in your eyes, nose, and mouth (if you’re not careful). And in 113° heat.
Fortunately, we came prepared. A few weeks before we left I read a short paragraph in one of my travel books about these pests. The easiest way to fight off the flies was to bring along a wide-brimmed safari hat with roll-down mosquito netting to cover your entire face and neck. A quick google search/order and my worries were solved.
That was a lifesaver! It saved us from 4 days of misery in Uluru (the Red Centre). We ran to the airport – the plane was small, with no dock. In fact, the airport had both outside and indoor toilets.
Having just finished an amazing four-day stay in a suite (a free upgrade) with a butler named Matthew at the Crowne Plaza in Melbourne, Uluru brought us back to reality.
We ran to the resort shuttle and the first items we unpacked were our hats. Our resort (the only lodging in the area) was a series of buildings so the hats became needed attire each time we left our room.
A full four days were planned: cocktails with an indigenous didgeridoo player followed by dinner outdoors with local fare, (temp. finally dropped to the mid-90s) and a stargazer to describe all the constellations in the Southern Hemisphere; the following day was breakfast at daybreak overlooking Uluru (“the rock”) and a tour of the prehistoric carvings around it; a tour of Kata Tuta with a Grade 5 hike thru the Kata Tuta hills, a quick ride at a local camel farm.
Walking around Uluru gave us a peek into how the indigenous people lived many years ago. Inside the caves were carvings in the stone which told a story of how they lived. Almost like hieroglyphics.
You think you understand what it means, but then you take another look. Do you really get the message? Almost like trying to engage your workforce with outdated tools, language, and communication. Do the employees really understand what you are trying to say? Does it resonate enough to show them they are appreciated? Or does it send them the opposite message? That your company is living in the past with outdated tools and software and is due for a much-needed upgrade?
Saying you appreciate employees but denying them functions like online access to pay vouchers, W2s, PTO balances, electronic new hire onboarding, online benefits enrollment, and other Human Resource and Human Capital Management system functions paints a different picture. It’s like the drawings we saw etched into the caves n Uluru. You need an upgrade!
Investing in technology and your people will help them succeed! The more you engage them and help them succeed, the better it is for your bottom line.
A user-friendly, well-implemented HCM (Human Capital Management) system is a tool today’s younger workforce has come to expect, not just request, And they want mobile access from their smartphones. Without these tools, you can rest assured they will keep on looking for a better offer.
Do you really want to invest time and money in recruiting, onboarding, and training staff only to have them leave two months down the road? Your time is too valuable for that!
Many times we hear an employer tell us, what about our older workers? Many have been here for years! They don’t like change – they won’t use the system!
Training and support custom-tailored to your organization by a vendor who cares should be able to offer proven techniques to solve that problem. Your vendor should offer ways to encourage and drive older workers to embrace the new system.
Complex tasks such as New Hire forms and Benefits Enrollment can be consolidated into a series of workflows with a checklist for each task that shows employees and managers where everybody is in the process.
About The Author —
Barb Schnoll is a Subject Matter Consultant in Payroll, Time Labor Management, HR, and HCM systems. Her prior history also includes many years of business-to-business consulting, sales, implementation, and training in technology. She has seen payroll evolve from writing checks, paying taxes, and producing W2s to a full-fledged, cloud-based HCM system offering mobile access from smartphones to employees and new hires.
In her spare time, she loves traveling, motorcycling, and new this summer, discovering the endless trails of UTVs.
She has represented The Benefit Companies for 20 years.
Connect & Simplify™ partners with UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group) to offer best-in-class Payroll Software, Kronos Time Clocks, HR, and HCM solutions.
Call Barb at 262-207-1999 ext. 217 and visit www.connectandsimplify.com