Hybrid workplaces need a flexible environment to boost productivity and operational efficiency.
PRP Solutions, people management and workplace cloud solutions specialist, today announced it is providing organisations with a more systemic and centralised solution suite able to show accurate, real-time data to improve people management in an increasingly distributed work environment.
“Even though the business environment has changed dramatically since March last year, companies still want to find the best ways to unleash the power of their people,” says Kriya Govender, CEO of PRP Solutions.
“Now, more than ever, there is an awareness of how precious time has become with employees trying to balance work from home with their personal responsibilities.
“The stress caused by ongoing lockdown conditions and the third wave of infections mean business leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to ensure their employees are engaged with the company, have a unified view of their objectives, and have access to the tools and technologies to fulfil their evolving job requirements. And all the while, they are trying to ensure they meet compliance requirements and still keep the business as agile as possible to adapt to changing market requirements.”
Today’s distributed work environment means businesses must cope with an exponential increase of data points as employees access systems from their personal devices and send through timesheets, leave forms, sick leave, and other important information from various sources.
And because many legacy environments are hosted on-premises, there is no central point for team leads and managers to harness all these elements effectively and have unified sight of people’s performance and challenges to work optimally in the new normal.
Companies, therefore, need access to an intelligent, cloud-based ecosystem that integrates their digital environment and empowers teams across flexible and diverse workplaces, coupled with tools to enhance their job function.
It is as much about getting relevant information in real-time as it is about automating much of the mundane administrative tasks that keep specialists in the organisation from revitalising operational processes to be more reflective of people-driven change.
By giving managers more time to support and motivate people, the organisation can strengthen its value proposition, improve productivity, and differentiate itself from competitors regardless of the industry sector they are involved in.
"With the deadline of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) just gone and the likes of the Employment Equity Act and other regulatory frameworks combining to make ongoing compliance a resource-intensive exercise, innovative technologies that can better enable people management become vital.
It comes down to enhancing the performance of all functions in the organisation with more digitally-enabled tools to help lead the company across a wide geographic footprint with remote working going to be an integral part of processes in the future. It is especially pertinent to employee self-service functionality where significant strides will be made to encourage ownership of optimising their individual performance,” says Kriya.
Solutions approach
Honeycomb, its core people resource planning solution, provides clients with an automated people resource planning solution that eliminates manual processes and can be tailored to meet the needs of the SMB to a larger enterprise.
It integrates with HR, people management, finance, and operations to deliver a more cost-effective way of enabling people within the organisation.
When combined with existing systems, Honeycomb streamlines business processes to meet digitisation requirements. Employee data is collected, and exception reports and alerts are pushed to managers enabling agile decision-making in real-time.
Its advanced rules engine can be customised to suit any organisational requirement and can be configured to process payrolls and the complex rules for either permanent, temporary or contract employees, as well as external staffing suppliers and service providers.
Honeycomb features an Employee Toolbox that ensures compliance to company policies, health and safety requirements, and employment contracts. Employee onboarding tools allow new hires to be onboarded efficiently from anywhere and accurately with records sent directly to the HR system.
Building from this, the Buzz employee portal has been designed to keep people connected even though they might be working in different geographic locations. PRP Solutions developed this to help companies communicate with employees, facilitate location-based time and leave management, complete Covid-19 screening surveys, complete checklists, and track tasks.
Today Buzz helps eliminate time-consuming paperwork and has been expanded to help client’s better manage Covid-19 compliance with a compliant visitor management system that assists with tracking office access control, as well as the tracking and tracing of workplace contacts.
In addition to these software-driven solutions, PRP Solutions also manufactures the Bee Series employee communications devices. These link to Honeycomb, gathering real-time data on employee activity and providing a communication channel with employees. They also feature various options for biometric identification as well as touchless identification. The devices operate in standalone mode and communicate over a cellular network or Wi-Fi, making them accessible and inexpensive to deploy wherever the business has operations without requiring additional on-site infrastructure.
Furthermore, the PRP Solutions BeeKeeper Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) asset management solution assists organisations to track assets in real-time. The BeeKeeper Beacons have an active range of 100m and can be networked to provide comprehensive asset tracking across large sites. BeeKeeper integrates with Bee Series communication devices, the Buzz app, and the Honeycomb management tool to ensure companies never lose track of their high-value assets while maintaining a chain of accountability across their business footprint.
Multiple environments
PRP Solutions assists more than 100 clients across industry sectors to efficiently manage more than 160,000 employees at more than 7,000 diverse workplaces in 18 countries in Africa. Some of the verticals it operates in include petroleum, manufacturing, hospitality, security, mining, and construction.
"Given all the challenges facing companies today, people must remain engaged to fully unlock their potential wherever they may be working from. As such, digital solutions are vital to helping businesses create more value across both their physical and online environments. This is where our strengths lie as we continue to innovate and provide our clients with class-leading solutions that cater for their unique people and system management requirements while improving their overall operational efficiency using a digital environment,” concludes Kriya.
