Human resources management is critical in the day-to-day operation of a business. Keeping employee information up to date, tracking wage rates, benefit eligibility, and vacation time should be centralized into one department. Juggling multiple spreadsheets across different departments can be an exercise in frustration and inefficiency. By moving files spread out across different departments into one central location, a business can reduce redundancies and eliminate discrepancies.

There are many common problems that face those departments that still use traditional methods of data storage. It can be challenging for managers to trace the documents regarding a specific employee when there is a need. This information can include simple data, lie when the worker joined the company, records of disciplinary measures, personal contact information, past performance, duties and responsibilities. Due to the sensitivity and nature of the data, it becomes imperative to have a system that sufficiently supports easy tracking of the employee record whenever deemed possible.

And what about when a staff member wants a vacation. Or, let’s say they take some sick time or other paid time off. All of this can have a dramatic effect on payroll and scheduling. And taxation and other financial details do not really have a place in a stand-alone employee file management system.

By adding automation and centralization to the essential data management functions of a business, these new tools become a platform for both efficiency and interaction. In addition, they become a pleasure to use, instead of a necessary tedium. An effective software solution allows your teams to seamlessly launch employee benefit plan enrolments and to properly administer the enrolment process. It should also provide workers with a self-service portal – this is a step that will increase engagement and increase employee satisfaction. You should be able to easily track hours, schedules, benefits etc.

A good EMS gives you and your employees a single, accessible place to manage your payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance — all online, all in one beautiful dashboard. No more paperwork. No more headaches. With the click of a button, you can see how long employees are away for, whether they should be at work, what type of leave they are currently on, how much leave they are entitled to etc. It makes planning a lot easier.

One of the most obvious benefit of a good EMS is the inclusion of payroll calculations can be completed in a fraction of the time that they take to work out manually. Year-end reporting is also usually automated. Again, it should also incorporate, or integrate with, timesheet systems that record employee attendance or time worked. In this way, information about hours worked, whether collected automatically as a user or operator logs into a system, or manually entered into an electronic form, can be automatically transferred into the system. Using basic payroll data, together with data on attendance and hours worked, a good EMS can provide a wealth of reports.

What does this all mean? It means you have easy access to an in-depth analysis of staff costs for the business as a whole, across departments and even individual jobs and contracts.