A primary sale of shares occurs when a company sells an ownership stake in itself to investors, and then uses the proceeds from that sale to operate the business. A secondary sale, however, is not about raising capital to finance the organization. Instead, it’s usually an opportunity for companies to enable existing investors to buy and sell from one another. It can also initiate a chance for an employee share buyback. In this latter event, instead of the company selling shares to outside investors, the company buys shares back from those employees that hold vested stock options.

The benefit of secondary sales like these are two-fold. First, they enable employees to actually make money off of their share options. Start-ups commonly entice top talent on board by promising shares as a significant portion of the benefits package. These shares are meant to offset what can be a higher risk and smaller salary than what a well-established company might offer.

But shares are a long game. At early-stage start-ups, this reward approach can delay an employee’s financial gain for years, depending on when a liquidity event like a sale or IPO happens. Instead, secondary sales offer the opportunity for employees to gain money before one of those liquidity events takes place. 

And the secondary sale isn’t just for a company’s original employees; it also benefits people who joined the company at a more mature stage. After all, just because a person didn’t get in on day one doesn’t mean their shares are worthless. For example, an employee who was granted €3,000 worth of shares in 2020 – a full five years after Personio’s inception – now has shares valued at €44,000, courtesy of our latest funding round. 

And shares play an important role in Personio’s reward philosophy. While some early-stage companies do use stock to offset lower salaries, we combine ours with competitive market salaries and a significant, long-term growth upside potential. As our people continue to help build and grow our company, the value of their shares grows in tandem.

Ross Seychell, who has led Personio’s People, Workplace, and IT team as Chief People Officer since November 2020, is a big proponent of this sale. “We strongly believe that all employees should benefit, as joint owners and investors, from the long-term success of the company they work at. So it was an easy decision to include shares as part of our overall compensation package.”

It’s a philosophy that stems directly from the top. Co-founder and CEO Hanno Renner says, “It is because [of our employees] that the business is successful, not just the founders. We need an opportunity to make sure everyone who has a positive impact on the business benefits from it.” In addition, stock options create a balanced, far-sighted approach to reward. As Ross puts it, “Our competitive salary offerings provide a ‘right now’ component of compensation, while stock options speak to the longer-term growth potential, alongside the existing value in the equity we grant our people.” 

And while it’s easy to talk about this aspect of compensation, making it actually happen takes a lot more work. Given this, it should come as no surprise that this secondary sale was a massive team effort between the CEO Office, People & Workplace, Finance, Legal, and beyond.

Ann-Sophie, Reward Partner at Personio

Ann-Sophie, Reward Partner based in our Dublin office, was a significant contributor to bringing the sale to life. “We worked on eligibility checks, calculating individual buyback offers, supporting current and former employees with questions, preparing contractual documents, and so much more.”

How did Ann-So and the team ensure a smooth buyback experience for all participants involved? To start, she says, “Planning in enough time for aligning with stakeholders and clarifying all the details was key.” These details ranged from the time frame for the buyback, including taking accounting, payroll and other dependencies into account; to the portion of grant, buyback price, and more about the offer itself; to the tool, compliance, and accounting set-up.

“Next came the hard part! We’d done the planning, now it was time to bring all of it to life. We reviewed all shareholder grants based on eligibility, distinguished the number of shares that could be exercised, calculated the offers based on buyback and strike prices…it’s a long but important list.” But that’s not even the most important aspect, according to Ann-So. “With so many numbers and dependencies to juggle, adding in numerous double checks into our workflow was critical. Our actions throughout the buyback process can have a far-reaching impact on our colleague – now, more than ever, is the time to be extremely diligent.”  

With the plan in place, the team started preparing the communication and supporting resources. “We stepped into the mindset of the shareholder, thinking through what they would need from us. What do they need to know? What reminders would be helpful? What questions will they have? Creating a knowledge base for the user to turn to with any questions helped to solve a lot of problems before they even began.” Staying in that mindset, they then tested each step of the buyback process. “This gave us a good feeling for the user experience and helped us double check that everything was in place as planned.” 

And then the real fun began! “Once the window opened and shareholders had access, the main focus became supporting any queries, helping with personal consultations, and ensuring compliance – including that agreements were signed within the given timeframe, that all necessary data was available, et cetera.” Part two of that “real fun” was everything that happened after the buyback. This involved consolidating all of the buyback asks and preparing the data in the appropriate manner for the internal teams that would process it, like Payroll and Accounting. According to Ann-So, “Conducting a buyback is definitely not a one-person show! It’s a team effort, and every single Personio involved played a critical role in making ours a success.” 

The team effort was just one more example of Personios living out our core values and operating principles of #Teamspirit and #Ownership. And if you’re looking for a company that values its employees and actively works to help them benefit from its success, Personio might be the right place for you! We’re hiring for multiple teams and in all offices, so head to our careers page and apply today. 

Der Beitrag How Our Employees Share in the Success of Personio’s Hypergrowth erschien zuerst auf Personio.

Clearly, the stakes are high. In this post, we’ll dive into one important metric that you should be tracking if you want to keep an eye on engagement within your organisation: your eNPS.

Make way for more progressive HR practices with Personio today.

What Is eNPS?

Your Employee Net Promoter Score, or eNPS, is a simple metric that reflects how likely your employees are to recommend your company as a workplace. This gives you a general idea of their level of engagement, commitment and overall happiness at work.

Calculating Your eNPS

To calculate your organisation’s eNPS, you’ll need to send your employees a very simple survey with just one question:
‘On a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend [your company] to your friends or family as a place to work?’

You’ll then separate your employees’ responses into the following categories:

• Promoters: Those who give the company a score of 9 or 10.
• Detractors: Those who give the company a score from 1 to 6.
• Passives: Those who give the company a score of 7 or 8

Next, you’ll do a simple calculation, subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Passives aren’t counted in the calculation.

eNPS Benchmarking and Ranges

Because of the way it’s calculated, your eNPS score will be a whole number between -100 and 100. The higher the number, the better your eNPS.

Let’s consider some of the ranges of eNPS:

• -100 – Your organisation is in serious trouble, as you have a vast majority of detractors.
• -50 – Detractors still make up the majority of your organisation.
• 0 – If your score is 0, it helps to identify how many passive answers you had.
• 30 – This should be seen as the minimum standard for a successful eNPS.
• 50 – Your organisation is looking relatively healthy.
• 100 – Your organisation is in top shape.

Ideally, your eNPS should not slip below 30. But, every organisation and every industry is different, so you may need to benchmark it against similar companies.

eNPS Calculation Examples

Here are some examples of an eNPS calculation to help you understand how it works:

Example 1

Let’s imagine you run a company with 100 employees and want to work out your eNPS. You run a survey, and get the following results:

• 60 people give a rating of 9 or 10 (promoters)
• 20 people give a rating of 7 or 8 (passives)
• 20 people give a rating of 6 or below (detractors)

To work out your eNPS, you can discount the passives from your calculation. You’re then left with 60% promoters and 20% detractors. When you subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters, you get an eNPS of 40.

Example 2

For our second example, let’s say you want to improve employee engagement at a larger company, with 2000 employees. You send out an eNPS survey and find that you have 600 promoters (30%) and 800 detractors (40%). The remaining 30% of your employees are passive, and therefore not counted in the calculation.

To calculate your eNPS, you subtract the percentage of detractors (40) from the percentage of promoters (30). This gives you an eNPS of -10. Since this is a negative number, it tells you that you have more detractors than promoters in your organisation.

Three Top Benefits of Tracking eNPS

Here are some of the advantages of tracking eNPS for your organisation:

• It’s easy for everyone: An eNPS survey is easy for managers to send out, and quick and easy for employees to complete. This means you’ll likely get a higher participation rate than you would with other types of surveys.
• It’s simple to track: An eNPS survey gives you just one number instead of lots of complicated figures, making it an easy metric to track and compare over time.
• It’s cost-effective: You can work out your eNPS easily, without having to spend time thinking up lots of questions. This means there’s no big commitment needed in terms of time or money.

Three Key Limitations of eNPS

eNPS does also come with some limitations. For example:

• It’s just a metric: All your eNPS can do is give you an idea of how your employees are feeling — it can’t actually help you to improve engagement. Tracking eNPS is only useful if you’re also willing to put in the work to resolve any problems.
• It doesn’t provide qualitative data: eNPS doesn’t give you any insights into why your employees have rated your organisation in a particular way. You might want to couple your eNPS with other, more qualitative surveys at different points in the year.
• It doesn’t tell you everything: For example, many employees may be perfectly content at work, but not excited about it, putting them in the ‘passive’ category. A low eNPS doesn’t necessarily mean disaster — it just means you should do further analysis to find out what’s going wrong.

5 Key Ways to Improve Your eNPS Tracking

Here are a few tips for getting the most out of your eNPS tracking:

1. Measure Regularly and Consistently

While eNPS is a useful metric to track, one survey alone doesn’t actually tell you very much. What’s more useful is to track and compare your eNPS over time. By doing this at regular intervals such as every quarter, you can determine which events might have affected your score. Track your eNPS regularly and communicate it across your organisation!

2. Include a Follow-Up Question (But Only One)

eNPS can’t tell you why employees have given your organisation a particular score — unless you add a follow-up question. This question should be brief and open-ended, so employees can freely explain their reasoning. For example, you could include one of the below questions:

• What was the main reason for the score you gave?
• What is one thing that we could improve on as an organisation?
• What would hold you back from recommending [company] to a friend?

To make sure your eNPS survey is still quick and easy to complete, it’s best to stick to just one follow-up question. Hold back on creating more work for respondents.

3. Ensure Anonymity (And Make This Clear To Employees)

If you want your employees to answer your eNPS survey honestly, you need to make sure they know it’s completely anonymous. If employees think their names will be attached to the score they give, they may give a higher rating than they really feel the company deserves, which could skew your results and be even more detrimental to your culture.

4. Be Honest and Communicate Results

For best results, you should be honest with your employees about the results of your eNPS survey — even if they reflect poorly on you. This shows people that you’re willing to listen to employee feedback and committed to improving.

5. Send Reminders

Since eNPS surveys are quick and easy to complete, they typically get a higher response rate than other surveys, even without reminders. However, your notification could still catch an employee at a bad time, so it’s a good idea to send a quick reminder over email or Slack to maximise your responses.

Alternatives To Tracking eNPS

If you want to get more in-depth information about how your employees are experiencing the workplace, you might want to consider sending out regular employee engagement surveys in addition to calculating your eNPS. These allow you to dig deeper into your employees’ engagement, satisfaction and alignment with the company’s goals and values.

Another option is to send out regular pulse polls, which are shorter surveys of about 5–15 questions. These allow managers to get a quick snapshot of an organisation, without employees having to spend a long time filling out a questionnaire. You can always dive in deeper with a more detailed survey if a pulse poll reveals something interesting.

eNPS FAQs

Still have questions about eNPS? Here are the answers to a few FAQs:

What Does eNPS Stand For?

eNPS stands for Employee Net Promoter Score.

What Is the Difference Between eNPS and NPS?

NPS stands for Net Promoter Score, and is a measure of customer loyalty and engagement. eNPS is different in that it measures the loyalty and engagement of employees, rather than customers.

What Is a Good eNPS Score?

eNPS scores vary widely based on factors including location, industry and company size, so what counts as a ‘good’ score will depend on your organisation. As a general rule, the higher your score, the better. A score above zero shows that you have more promoters than detractors in your organisation.

What Is the Formula For Calculating eNPS?

The formula for calculating eNPS can be expressed as:
percentage of promoters (%) – percentage of detractors (%) = eNPS

Why Is eNPS Important?

Your eNPS gives you a quick read on how engaged and enthusiastic your employees are at work. It’s most useful when measured over time, as it can provide valuable insights into how organisational changes or new policies have affected morale within your workforce.

Dive Into Detailed Analytics With Personio

When you’re tracking any workplace metric, you need a way of accurately measuring data, creating reports, and sharing the results — and Personio can help.

Personio’s analytics features allow you to analyse data from HR reports at a glance, and drill down into the details when you need to. This means you can make confident, data-backed decisions that drive your business forwards, without having to wrestle with unwieldy Excel docs and complex datasets.

Book a demo or start your free trial today to find out more.

Der Beitrag The Complete Guide to Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) erschien zuerst auf Personio.

As valuable as these people are to your organisation, not all of them can be classified as ‘high potential’ or ‘HIPO’ employees. In this article, we’ll explore what HIPO employees are, and how you can recognise, develop and retain them starting today.

Try our performance review template for free today.

What Are High Potential (HIPO) Employees?

A high potential (HIPO) employee is someone with the drive, ability and motivation to rise to a senior level within a company and succeed once they get there. HIPO employees achieve results in their current roles and show a hunger for more responsibility. They are quick thinkers who are able to take initiative and possess the soft skills that make them well-suited to join the next generation of leaders.

Exactly how a HIPO employee is defined may be different in each organisation, but there are certain characteristics that they generally share. A study from the Harvard Business Review identified three key markers of high potential employees for employers to look out for:

• Ability: HIPO employees have the skills, knowledge and competencies needed for a leadership role, or the ability to develop them. They have a high IQ and can easily pick up new knowledge and apply it to their work. They show vision, creativity and imagination.
• Social skills: High potential employees also have the social skills needed to manage both themselves and others. This includes the ability to handle pressure and deal with adversity. They conduct themselves with dignity and integrity and are able to develop and maintain positive, constructive relationships with their colleagues.
• Drive: HIPO employees have the necessary work ethic, motivation and ambition to excel in their roles and move up the corporate ladder. They may be willing to deal with personal hardship in order to advance their career.

High Potential Vs. High Performance: What’s the Difference?

A high potential employee is by definition a high performer, but not all high performers are high potential employees. People can be very good at their jobs, but not have the leadership skills, motivation or mindset needed to move up.

Companies often mistake high-performance employees for high-potential employees, which can be a costly mistake. Even when someone is excellent at their job, they don’t necessarily have the very different capabilities needed to lead a team.

For example, a top performer in a company’s sales department might not have the necessary skills to motivate and manage a sales team. If they were promoted to a management role, they may struggle despite their strong performance as a salesperson.

How Can You Identify High Potential Employees?

Identifying the people in your organisation who have high leadership potential can be beneficial to both parties. From the employer’s perspective, you’ll be able to focus on developing your HIPO employees so that they’re ready to take on a leadership role when the time comes.

And the employees themselves will be able to see that their unique skills and drive are valued by their employer, which can help with retention.

Here are some of the key characteristics to look for when identifying talent with high potential for growth:

• They’re keen to take on leadership opportunities: A HIPO employee will jump at the chance to take on a leadership role such as managing a project, even when this is outside of their usual duties.
• They’re invested in the company’s values and future: HIPO employees don’t just work for their paycheque: they’re strongly invested in the company’s mission and want to see it succeed.
• They perform well under pressure: One of the biggest strengths shared by high potential employees is their ability to remain calm and achieve results under pressure. This is part of what makes them suited to leadership roles.
• They’re good at working autonomously: HIPO employees are able to use their initiative and don’t need a lot of direction. However, they are also good communicators who work well with others.
• They’re emotionally intelligent: HIPO employees tend to have a high ‘emotional quotient’ (EQ), which refers to their ability to regulate their emotions, communicate with others and effectively resolve conflicts.
• They’re keen to develop and learn new skills: High potential employees take on opportunities to learn, as they know this could potentially help them to advance in their career.
• They take constructive feedback on board: HIPO employees are keen to improve and develop their skills so that they can move forwards. This means they are receptive to feedback, and their job performance is likely to improve after receiving it.

Three Strategies to Develop Your HIPO Employees

Just because an employee has high potential, that doesn’t mean they would be ready to step into a leadership role tomorrow.

Companies that put time and resources into developing their HIPO employees can ensure that they’re prepared for leadership when the time is right for a promotion.

1. Start With a Skills Assessment

Assessments that measure the soft skills an employee has can help you to determine any areas where a HIPO employee needs to improve. Having this information ahead of time helps you to avoid them starting a leadership role only to realise they’re missing an important attribute. These assessments can also highlight any areas that the employee is already proficient in so that they can focus on sharing those skills with their team.

2. Offer (the Right) Training and Development

While certain leadership skills might come naturally to HIPO employees, they can still benefit from training that specifically prepares them for a managerial or leadership role. Putting together a high potential employee programme that includes highly targeted training can help you ensure your HIPO employees are prepared when a promotion comes up.

3. Provide Opportunities for Job Shadowing

Managers should encourage their high potential employees to network extensively so that they can learn as much as possible about the different areas of the business. Organising job shadows or inviting HIPO employees to sit in on meetings with business leaders can help them to prepare for the practical aspects of a leadership role.

Do You Need a High Potential Employee Programme?

A high potential employee programme is a structured programme designed to identify and develop those employees who have high potential for growth. These programmes can help you to get the best use out of your ‘rising star’ talent by delivering targeted training that prepares them for leadership.

You can HIPO development programmes to give your HIPO employees a clear progression plan so that they can clearly understand what they need to do to move up the ladder. Setting up a HIPO employee programme can help you build a pipeline of highly-skilled, dedicated and knowledgeable leaders who are ready to tackle high-impact challenges.

While these programmes are valuable, it’s worth noting that they can also be very expensive, and not every organisation needs them. However, if you’re a large organisation and feel that you’re at risk of losing your HIPO employees to your competitors, having such a programme in place can be a powerful retention tool.

How To Retain Your High Potential Employees

High potential employees can generate impressive results for a business, and once you’ve identified them, it’s important to do what you can to make sure they stick with your organisation.

Here are a few things you can do to retain your HIPO employees:

• Give them more responsibility: HIPO employees crave responsibility, and are more likely to stay in roles that allow them to take on a leadership role, even unofficially. This can also provide them with valuable experience that will help them as they move up in their career.
• Provide coaching and feedback: HIPO employees tend to respond favourably to feedback since they’re keen to improve and continue learning new skills. Set aside time to provide your HIPO employees with coaching, mentorship and regular, constructive feedback, so they can see that you take their career progression seriously.
• Tell them they’re HIPOs: In general, high potential employees have the self-awareness to realise that they’re outperforming their peers, and their drive and ambition mean they are keen to get ahead. Letting them know that you recognise their potential and are willing to help them develop shows them that you value them, and makes them less likely to seek roles with more responsibility elsewhere.

Drive and Track Employee Performance With Personio

If you want to build your leadership pipeline by developing your high potential employees, you need to be able to track their progress. Personio allows you to streamline your performance reviews by creating standardised feedback forms that level the playing field by removing bias and ambiguity. You can define and track both qualitative and quantitative targets for each employee, giving them a clear idea of whether or not they’re meeting their career goals.

Plus, everything’s automated so you don’t need to think about it: managers and employees will be automatically prompted to complete their reviews at the end of each performance cycle, and they can then schedule individual feedback calls, without any time-consuming back-and-forth from HR.

To learn more about this and Personio’s many other features, book your free, personalised web demo today.

Der Beitrag How to Identify, Develop and Retain Your High Potential (HIPO) Employees erschien zuerst auf Personio.

Il finanziamento aggiuntivo proviene dall’attuale investitore  Greenoaks, che ha così ulteriormente dimostrato il proprio sostegno all’ambizione di Personio di digitalizzare i processi HR nelle piccole e medie imprese di tutta Europa.  L’investimento premia l’eccezionale recente performance di Personio, che ha ottenuto una crescita sostenuta anno su anno, abilitando inoltre ulteriori opportunità di espansione, e riconosce il valore dei servizi di Personio alle PMI anche in tempi di congiuntura economica incerta.

I fondi andranno a sostenere l’ulteriore sviluppo della People Workflow Automation, la vision di Personio in materia di automatizzazione dei processi HR in più dipartimenti e con strumenti traversali alle organizzazioni. Progressi significativi sono stati compiuti per sviluppare ulteriormente un sistema HR che continua a produrre efficienze che vanno a migliorare il business già oggi pur essendo progettato per il futuro. A oggi, un miliardo di aggiornamenti di dati sono stati propagati automaticamente in tutta la base di clienti di Personio, sostituendo molte attività manuali e time consuming. 

Recentemente Personio ha annunciato l’acquisizione di  Back, una soluzione di employee experience che automatizza i processi chiave legati alla gestione del personale. Il team di Back detiene un’esperienza significativa nello sviluppo di flussi di lavoro che integrano sistemi frammentati e offre un servizio specifico di ticketing e di knowledge management che aumenta l’efficienza dei team delle risorse umane.

I clienti di Personio possono inoltre utilizzare oltre 100 app e API integrate nonché nuove funzionalità di automazione e monitoraggio del flusso di lavoro sviluppate da Personio per ridurre lo sforzo manuale in attività come ricerca, selezione e onboarding, analisi dei dati e time tracking. L’insieme di queste integrazioni migliorano le operazioni lungo tutto il ciclo di vita aziendale dei dipendenti e consentono ai team delle risorse umane di concentrarsi su attività più strategiche, riducendo i costi e contribuendo alle prestazioni aziendali complessive.

Neil Mehta, Fondatore e Managing Partner di Greenoaks Capital, ha dichiarato: “La piattaforma di Personio è diventata uno strumento indispensabile per le piccole e medie imprese europee che si stanno riprendendo dalle sfide della pandemia. Oggi più che mai le PMI affronteranno future incertezze economiche, in questo contesto la soluzione Personio ha un ruolo più che mai rilevante nell’aiutare i clienti a rendere i processi HR più efficienti e resilienti, a beneficio di dipendenti e datori di lavoro. In considerazione della rapida crescita, del modello di business sostenibile e di una leadership con pochi eguali, riteniamo che Personio sia tra le migliori aziende SaaS al mondo. Siamo entusiasti di collaborare ancora una volta con Hanno e con il suo team e non vediamo l’ora di continuare il nostro viaggio per molti anni a venire“.

Hanno Renner, co-fondatore e CEO di Personio, commenta: “I nostri clienti sono la ragione per cui esistiamo e creare valore per loro è la nostra priorità. Questi sviluppi renderanno concreto il framework People Workflow Automation e consentiranno ai clienti di automatizzare i flussi di lavoro in base agli eventi tipici del ciclo di vita dei dipendenti in azienda, come, ad esempio, promozioni, cambi di posizione o richieste di ferie. Continuando a perseguire questa strategia, prevediamo di proseguire nella traiettoria di forte crescita, accelerando ulteriormente nel 2022 e nel 2023, e continuando a fornire ai clienti un servizio di alta qualità destinato a migliorare l’efficienza delle loro attività“.

Più di 6.000 imprese per un totale di oltre 500.000 dipendenti hanno automatizzato i processi HR con Personio. Appartengono a diversi settori le aziende che utilizzano Personio, tra cui società tecnologiche come Empatica e Sixth Sense, affermati attori di mercato come Engel & Völkers, Kampaay, Credimi e altri ancora. Mentre Personio si rivolge a clienti con un numero di dipendenti che va da 10 a 2.000, vede la crescita maggiore provenire da aziende con un organico da 200 a 2.000 dipendenti, le quali apprezzano la configurabilità del sistema e l’ampiezza delle sue funzionalità.

Personio continua a far crescere il suo People Operating System per soddisfare esigenze legate all’intero ciclo di vita aziendale dei dipendenti. A inizio 2022, Personio ha infatti lanciato la soluzione  Performance & Sviluppo, che consente alle organizzazioni di sviluppare le competenze dei dipendenti, premiandoli in modo equo e massimizzando le prestazioni complessive dell’azienda.

Lo scorso maggio l’azienda ha anche annunciato l’apertura di due nuove sedi a Berlino e a Barcellona.

Informazioni su Personio

Personio è il People Operating System per le piccole e medie imprese da 10 a 2.000 dipendenti. La società ha uffici a Monaco di Baviera, Madrid, Londra, Dublino e Amsterdam e la sua missione è di ottimizzare l’efficienza e la trasparenza dei processi HR per consentire alle direzioni del personale di concentrarsi sulle risorse più preziose di un’azienda: le persone. Personio persegue l’obiettivo offrendo un software HR all-in-one che include la gestione delle risorse umane, il recruiting e il payroll e che consente alle risorse umane di “andare oltre le risorse umane”. Grazie alla tecnologia People Workflow Automation, Personio aiuta i suoi oltre 6.000 clienti in tutta Europa a evitare ritardi e a concentrarsi sulle opportunità.

A giugno 2022, Personio ha ricevuto un finanziamento di serie E da 200 milioni di dollari, che ha permesso alla società di raggiungere una valutazione di 8,5 miliardi di dollari.

Per ulteriori informazioni www.personio.it.

Informazioni su Greenoaks

Fondata nel 2012, Greenoaks è una società di investimento globale che si concentra su investimenti a lungo termine in aziende tecnologiche in tutto il mondo. La società sostiene i generational founders nelle fasi iniziali del loro percorso imprenditoriale, costruendo partnership che durano per decenni.

Greenoaks è stato pioniere di investimenti in società che definiscono la propria categoria come Discord, Brex e Airtable negli Stati Uniti; Coupang in Corea del Sud; e Kavak in America Latina.

Contatti stampa:

Engauge
Mara Cappelletti
Tel: +39 3358317620
E-Mail: mara.cappelletti@engauge.it

Davide Angotta
Tel: +39 3351808668
E-Mail: davide.angotta@engauge.it

Der Beitrag Personio ottiene un secondo finanziamento di serie E da 200 milioni di dollari per procedere nell’espansione e nello sviluppo della sua visione del software HR. erschien zuerst auf Personio.

This brings Personio’s total capital raised through our Series E to $470 million, leading to a valuation of $8.5 billion. But, let’s talk a bit more about what that means for our customers…

Turbocharging People Workflow Automation

Maybe you have heard about People Workflow Automation before. In short, it’s designed to unlock the productive potential of European SMEs, by turning manual and cumbersome processes into automated workflows that get all your apps ‘talking’.

Our latest round of funding will help us continue to make our vision for the future of HR software a reality. That way, your organisation never misses out on their next great hire, getting the best out of your team or keeping your most important data secure.

Hanno Renner, Personio’s CEO and Co-Founder, puts it best:

“Our customers are the reason we exist and creating value for them is our first priority. We decided to raise the additional capital because we saw so many more ways to invest in our product that will increase the value we can provide.

He continued: “Those expansions will all be embedded into People Workflow Automation, which allows customers to automate workflows based on events in the employee life cycle, from promotions and location changes to holiday requests.”

Right now, our customers can now use over 100 integrated apps and APIs as well as new workflow automation and monitoring capabilities. This will significantly reduce the administrative work that goes into areas like hiring, data analysis and time tracking.

Together these features will improve operations across the employee life cycle and allow HR teams to focus on more strategic tasks, reducing costs and helping to create efficient businesses.

We’re About to Maximise Your Employee Experience

Recently, at our very own H.U.G Digital 2022, Personio announced the acquisition of Back, an employee experience solution that automates key people processes.

As part of Personio, Back’s team now brings significant experience in developing workflows across multiple fragmented systems, along with a mastery of ticketing and knowledge management service to boost the efficiency of HR teams.

Learn more about our recent acquisition.

A Look At The Road Ahead

Over 6,000 companies with more than 500,000 employees have automated their people processes with Personio. This round of funding will help us continue to serve customers, help new ones and build a product that optimises every stage of the employee life cycle.

This is especially critical in times of uncertainty. Personio can help add value by automating processes, centralising data and driving efficiency across organisations. Personio gives teams the fundamentals they need to succeed in any context.

Finally, let’s turn to Neil Mehta, Founder and Managing Partner of Greenoaks Capital, for his take:

“Personio’s product has become an indispensable tool for Europe’s small and medium-sized businesses as they’ve bounced back from the challenges of the pandemic.”

He continued: “As SMEs face the possibility of economic uncertainty ahead, Personio is a more critical platform than ever, helping customers make their HR and payroll processes more efficient and resilient while delighting employees and employers alike.”

As the People Operating System for small and medium-sized companies with 10 to 2,000 employees, this latest round is a testament to our commitment to helping SMEs find time to make time for what matters – their employees.

Der Beitrag Series E Extension: $200M and an $8.5B Valuation To Further Enable Better Organisations erschien zuerst auf Personio.

Den befintliga investeraren Greenoaks ledde rundan, vilket visar på ytterligare stöd för Personios ambition att digitalisera personalprocesser för europeiska små och medelstora företag. Investeringen följer Personios exceptionella senaste resultat, inklusive fortsatt tillväxt från år till år, ytterligare expansionsmöjligheter och erkännandet av värdet av Personios tjänster till små och medelstora företag även i osäkra ekonomiska tider.

Medlen kommer att driva utvecklingen av People Workflow Automation, Personios vision att automatisera personalprocesser över en organisations olika avdelningar och verktyg. Betydande framsteg har gjorts för att vidareutveckla ett HR-system som fortsätter att ge affärsförbättrande effektivitet idag samtidigt som det är konstruerat för framtiden. Hittills har redan en miljard datauppdateringar automatiserats över Personios kundbas, vilket ersätter tidskrävande manuella uppgifter för kunderna.

Nyligen annonserade Personio uppköpet av Back, employee experience-lösning som automatiserar medarbetarprocesserna för nyckelpersoner. Backs team tillför erfarenhet inom automatiserade processer, som sträcker sig över fragmenterade system och ticketing, knowledge management och arbetsflöden som ökar effektiviteten för HR-team. 

Dessutom kan Personios kunder nu använda över 100 integrerade appar och API:er samt nya arbetsflödesautomatiserings- och övervakningsfunktioner utvecklade av Personio för att minska den manuella ansträngningen i uppgifter som uthyrning, dataanalys och tidsspårning. Tillsammans förbättrar dessa verksamheten över de anställdas livscykel och tillåter HR-team att fokusera på mer strategiska uppgifter, vilket minskar kostnader och bidrar till att skapa effektiva företag. 

– Personios produkt har blivit ett oumbärligt verktyg för Europas små och medelstora företag när de återvänder till vardagen och lämnar pandemins utmaningar. Eftersom små och medelstora företag står inför möjligheten av ekonomisk osäkerhet framöver är Personio en viktigare plattform än någonsin som hjälper kunder att göra sina HR- och löneprocesser mer effektiva och motståndskraftiga samtidigt som de gläder både anställda och arbetsgivare. Vi tror att Personio är bland de bästa SaaS-företagen i världen, med snabb tillväxt, en hållbar affärsmodell och exceptionellt ledarskap. Vi är glada över att återigen samarbeta med Hanno och hans team, och ser fram emot att fortsätta vår resa i många år framöver, säger Neil Mehta, grundare och managing partner för Greenoaks Capital.

​​– Våra kunder är anledningen till att vi finns och att skapa värde för dem är vår prioritet. Vi bestämde oss för att skaffa ytterligare kapital eftersom vi såg så många fler sätt att investera i vår produkt som kommer att öka värdet vi kan ge. Dessa expansioner kommer alla att vara inbäddade i People Workflow Automation, som gör det möjligt för kunder att automatisera arbetsflöden baserat på händelser i de anställdas livscykel, från befordran och förflyttning till semesterförfrågningar. Genom att fortsätta fokusera på denna strategi förväntar vi oss att fortsätta vår starka tillväxtbana och accelerera in i 2022 och 2023, samtidigt som vi ger kunderna en fantastisk service som förbättrar effektiviteten i deras företag, säger Hanno Renner, medgrundare och vd för Personio.

– Personios framgång är nu helt klart global med en lansering i Norden, Nederländerna, Italien och Storbritannien som servar lokala kunder och visar att Personio är ett globalt företag. Vi har blivit särskilt imponerade av hur snabbt Personio anammas av små och medelstora företag, eftersom det löser så många olika saker för dessa företag och kommer att fortsätta att göra det när man lägger till nya produkter, säger Michiel Kotting, partner på Northzone.

Över 6 000 företag med mer än 500 000 anställda har automatiserat sina personalprocesser med Personio. Företag från en mängd olika sektorer använder Personio, inklusive teknikföretag som Spendesk och ABOUT YOU, etablerade medelstora aktörer som Engel & Völkers samt icke-statliga organisationer och offentliga organisationer som Viva Con Agua och Diana Award. Medan Personio kan betjäna kunder med 10 till 2 000 anställda, ser man den största tillväxten från företag med 200 till 2 000 anställda och som värdesätter systemets konfigurerbarhet och funktionsdjup.

Personio fortsätter att utveckla sitt kärnoperativsystem för personal för att täcka ytterligare aspekter av de anställdas livscykel. Tidigt 2022 lanserade Personio sin nya Performance & Development-lösning, som ger organisationer möjlighet att bättre utveckla sina medarbetare, belöna dem rättvist och maximera den totala prestandan.

Om Personio

Personio är ett People Operating System för små och medelstora företag med 10-2 000 anställda. Från kontor i München, Madrid, London, Dublin och Amsterdam driver Personio sin mission att göra HR-processerna så transparenta och effektiva som möjligt, så att HR-avdelningen kan fokusera på det som betyder mest: människorna. 

Personio erbjuder en allt-i-ett HR-mjukvara som inkluderar medarbetare, rekrytering och löner, vilket gör att HR kan gå längre än HR. Tack vare People Workflow Automation-teknik hjälper Personio mer än 6 000 kunder över hela Europa att minska förseningar och frigöra möjligheter.

I juni 2022 tog Personio in ytterligare 2 miljarder kronor i sin andra serie E-runda, vilket värderar företaget till 8,5 miljarder dollar.

Om Greenoaks:

Greenoaks grundades 2012 och är ett globalt värdepappersföretag som gör koncentrerade, långsiktiga investeringar i teknikbaserade företag runt om i världen. Företaget investerar tidigt i grundares resor och bygger partnerskap som varar i årtionden. Greenoaks har lett investeringar i kategoridefinierande företag som Discord, Brex och Airtable i USA; Coupang i Sydkorea; och Kavak i Latinamerika.

Der Beitrag Personio tar in 2 miljarder kronor i sin andra serie E-runda för att vidareutveckla sin vision för HR-programvara erschien zuerst auf Personio.

Existing investor Greenoaks led the round, demonstrating further support of Personio’s ambition to digitise people processes for small and mid-sized businesses across Europe. The investment follows Personio’s exceptional recent performance, including sustained year on year growth, additional expansion opportunities, and recognises the value of Personio’s services to SMEs even in uncertain economic times.

The funds will turbocharge the development of People Workflow Automation, Personio’s vision to automate people processes across an organisation’s multiple departments and tools. Significant progress has been made to further develop an HR system that continues to provide business enhancing efficiencies today while being engineered for the future. So far a billion data updates have been automated across Personio’s customer base already, replacing time consuming manual tasks for customers. 

Most recently Personio announced the acquisition of Back, an employee experience solution that automates key people processes. Back’s team brings significant experience in developing workflows that span fragmented systems, along with a specific ticketing and knowledge management service that boosts efficiency for HR teams.   

Customers can now use over 100 integrated apps and APIs as well as new workflow automation and monitoring capabilities developed by Personio to reduce manual effort in tasks such as hiring, data analysis and time tracking. Together these improve operations across the employee lifecycle and allow HR teams to focus on more strategic tasks, reducing costs and helping to create efficient businesses. 

Neil Mehta, Founder and Managing Partner of Greenoaks Capital: “Personio’s product has become an indispensable tool for Europe’s small and medium-sized businesses as they’ve bounced back from the challenges of the pandemic. As SMEs face the possibility of economic uncertainty ahead, Personio is a more critical platform than ever, helping customers make their HR and payroll processes more efficient and resilient while delighting employees and employers alike. We believe Personio is among the best SaaS companies in the world, with rapid growth, a sustainable business model, and exceptional leadership. We are thrilled to once again partner with Hanno and his team, and look forward to continuing our journey for many years to come.”

Hanno Renner, Co-Founder and CEO of Personio: “Our customers are the reason we exist and creating value for them is our first priority. We decided to raise the additional capital because we saw so many more ways to invest in our product that will increase the value we can provide. Those expansions will all be embedded into People Workflow Automation, which allows customers to automate workflows based on events in the employee lifecycle, from promotions and location changes to holiday requests. By continuing to focus on this strategy we expect to continue our strong growth trajectory and accelerate into 2022 and 2023, while providing customers with a great service that enhances the efficiency of their businesses.”

Over 6,000 companies with more than 500,000 employees have automated their people processes with Personio. Businesses from a wide variety of sectors use Personio, including tech companies such as Spendesk and ABOUT YOU, established mid-market players like Engel & Völkers as well as NGOs and public sector organisations such as Viva Con Agua and the Diana Award. While Personio is able to serve customers with 10 to 2,000 employees, it sees the biggest growth coming from companies between 200 to 2,000 employees which value the system’s configurability and feature depth.

Personio continues to grow its core people operating system to cover additional aspects of the employee lifecycle. Early in 2022, Personio launched its new Performance & Development solution, which empowers organisations to better develop their people, reward them fairly, and maximise overall performance. In May, the company also announced the opening of new offices in Berlin and Barcelona.

-ENDS-

About Personio:

Personio is the People Operating System for small and medium-sized companies with 10 to 2,000 employees. Based in Munich, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, London, Dublin and Amsterdam, Personio’s mission is to make HR processes as transparent and efficient as possible so HR can focus on what matters most: people. Personio does that by offering an all-in-one HR software that includes human resources management, recruiting and payroll, enabling HR to go beyond HR. Thanks to People Workflow Automation technology Personio helps more than 6,000 customers across Europe to remove delays and realise opportunities. 

In June 2022, Personio raised an additional $200m through the second closing of its Series E funding round, at a valuation of $8.5bn.

About Greenoaks:

Founded in 2012, Greenoaks is a global investment firm that makes concentrated, long-term investments in technology-enabled businesses around the world. The firm invests behind generational founders early in their journeys, building partnerships that endure for decades. Greenoaks has led investments in category-defining companies such as Discord, Brex, and Airtable in the US; Coupang in South Korea; and Kavak in Latin America.

Press enquiries:

Personio GmbH
Matthew Tubbs
Senior Communications Manager
Tel: + 44 (0)7788163261
E-Mail: press@personio.de

UK & Ireland – Firstlight Group 
Rosie Stafford
Tel: + 44 (0)7769618500
E-Mail: personioteam@firstlightgroup.io

Der Beitrag Personio raises $200M in second Series E to drive expansion and further its vision for HR software erschien zuerst auf Personio.

What does your typical workday look like?

I start the day by going through Slack messages and emails while eating my breakfast. I then have a daily standup with my team where we share what we are working on for the day. Every day is different, so I might be writing code for a feature I’ve been working on, testing or reviewing code from a teammate, investigating a problem our team has faced, ensuring a release goes to plan, or taking part in a programming pairing session with a teammate.

Throughout the day I keep in regular contact with my team, whether that be a tech call with the other engineers to discuss a task we’re working on, doing some planning, or sharing something we have learned from a project. It’s always important to take a casual coffee break with some colleagues to re-energize, too!

Enjoying an Escape Boat team event.

How is your team structured?

On my team we have a Product Manager, an Engineering Manager, a Designer, a Product Expert, a Lead Frontend Engineer, a Senior Backend Engineer, and myself, a Backend Engineer. We also have a new team member joining very soon, and hopefully more to come! We all work closely together and often talk through our tasks together to get feedback. And as a wider team we often discuss and plan our work to get different perspectives from people in other roles.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

My favorite part is getting to work with such a talented group of people! I feel very lucky to work at Personio as the standard is so high. I feel like I am always learning from those around me, and they push me to want to become a better engineer myself. It’s a really encouraging and supportive environment to work in.

What challenge or problem are you focused on solving right now?

I’ve recently been working on refactoring part of our application, improving the Personio product by allowing it to get data in a more efficient way, ultimately making the user experience a bit nicer. It’s what I love doing most: using my engineering skills to improve the Personio product for the end-user. 

What convinced you to join Personio? 

The main thing I was looking for in a new role was somewhere that I could learn a lot and improve as an engineer. Personio was definitely the right choice! Alongside working with really talented colleagues, the work itself is really interesting and challenging, so there is always something new to learn.

How would you describe the team culture at Personio?

There’s a really open and collaborative culture here, and everyone is willing to help each other and discuss any problems. I feel that everyone’s opinion is treated with importance in Personio, meaning that no one is left behind. As a result, there is a great feeling of team spirit and ownership. 

It’s a really fun atmosphere to work in, from the small chats with teammates to big team events. A great example is our All Company Culture Week, where Personios from all offices are flown to Munich for a week of celebrations and learning.

Playing tennis with the team!

What would you tell someone who is thinking about joining the Personio engineering team?

DO IT! You will not regret it. After working at Personio for almost a year, I feel like I have learned so much and improved a lot as an engineer already. It’s a fun place to work, where every day you focus on solving problems for customers. It’s a company that really lives out our values of #SocialResponsibility and #CustomerEmpathy, and also allows you to work closely with great colleagues. What’s not to love?

Want to join Personio’s Product, Design, and Engineering team? Check out our open positions here – we’re hiring!

Der Beitrag #TechABreak with Stephen, Backend Engineer at Personio erschien zuerst auf Personio.

But as much as this gives us freedom and flexibility, it can also stop us from ever disconnecting from our work. Constantly being available and blending our personal and work lives can mean we’re never allowing ourselves to step away and properly recharge. 

It’s no surprise, then, that recent studies have shown that employees’ stress levels are increasing dramatically. According to the World Health Organization, workers are experiencing excessive and unmanageable stress from growing demands and shifts in working environments. This is naturally leading to an uptick in mental health struggles and, ultimately, burnout.

Work-life balance is a term we’re all familiar with – and never has it been more important than right now. It specifically addresses the issues we’ve mentioned above: how to strike the balance between constant connection to work, and disconnecting to recharge and enjoy life outside of work. But we know it’s easier said than done, and the responsibility rests with both the employer and the employee. Today we’ve focused on a few strategies that employees can use to take more control of your own work-life balance, right now. While these can also be easier said than done, we believe that taking even one small step in the right direction is worth the effort.

1. Manage Your Time

A popular way to better manage your time at work is to create blocks in your calendar. These can be event-specific, like a blocker to finish that lingering project or to prep for your next meeting. But they can also be proactive spacers, like 30 minutes each morning to take care of emails or an hour once per week for those ad hoc topics that always manage to crop up.

These calendar blockers allow you to set specific focus time and prevent others from filling your calendar. Having some proactively-blocked extra minutes in the day can give you the time and space you need to deal with unexpected tasks or projects that might otherwise spin your day out of control. 

You can also use time-management apps such as Todoist. They work like to-do lists with a built-in time management function. This way you can keep track of what needs to be done and how much time you should plan to spend on it. 

2. Say “No”

This tip goes along with managing your time. Managing your capacity – and saying “no” to things you don’t have time for – is a key component of battling a too-large workload. Saying “yes” to something that you know you don’t have time for isn’t helpful to anyone, including yourself. If you do not have capacity, you do not have capacity.

But being realistic with your time is only the first step. The second, equally important aspect, is communicating your capacity. If you don’t have any, communicate that with your teammates, manager, and stakeholders so everyone is on the same page. Together you can consider a few solutions, like using freelancers to lighten the load or aligning with your manager and team on which topics to prioritize. This prioritization can help you say “no” to things lower on the list, and has the added bonus of helping ensure that you’re spending your time on what matters most. 

3. Actively Detach From Work

No matter if you work in the office, at home, or from a coffee shop around the corner, setting specific stop and start times can help you actively detach when your working time is up. This can be difficult to do when working from home (when your home office is literally right there) or if you have work email or chat apps on your phone. Setting and adhering to a firm stop time means no more reading emails or checking Slack “just in case” until your next work start. Even if you work flexible hours and are stopping work at 5:00pm to spend time with family and picking it back up again at 9:00pm, detaching from work means actively not working between your stop and start times. 

When we are constantly thinking about work in our off hours, we deprive our minds – and bodies – of the opportunity to relax and recharge. One way to avoid this is by setting habits that help you get in and out of the work mindset. For example, designate a spot in your home that is only for work. When you leave that spot, leave the work also. If that’s not an option (or even if it is!), turning off chat and email notifications is an easy way to help yourself detach in your off hours. 

Forming a post-work habit, like taking a walk or reading a book, can also cue your brain to switch out of working mode. Or, if you’re feeling fancy, put on a work outfit even if you’re working from home. Changing out of it into your comfy home clothes can be another way to switch into your off hours mindset!

4. Schedule Time for Physical Activity

We all know we should, but most of us don’t do it enough. Taking the time to move and exercise your body is a key way to manage stress and reduce its effects on your mental and physical wellbeing. Giving yourself time for a morning run or afternoon stretch break might remove some “productivity time” from your calendar, but the energy refresh you’ll get from taking an active break will leave you better able to tackle your next task when you return.

5. Ask for Help

Last, but certainly not least: ask for help! Stress can make us feel isolated and alone, but the truth is that we all experience stressful times – often on a regular basis. Reaching out to all the resources available to you, from your teammates and manager to workplace help and mental health experts, is just like reaching out to a healthcare provider if you break a bone: smart and necessary. Besides, prevention is always better than treatment. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, try asking for help sooner rather than later. 

At Personio we focus on providing a best-in-class people experience, including making sure each one of our team members is enabled and empowered to create a healthy work-life balance. We also provide several wellbeing benefits like gym subsidies, 28 days of vacation, and mental health resources. In addition, PersonioFlex allows our people to create their own flexible balance of in-office and remote work, adapted to each employee’s individual needs. In 2021, PersonioFlex even won Remote Work Initiative of the Year from the UK Company Culture Awards.

If you want to work at a place that values work-life balance, join us! Check out the open positions on our careers page and apply today at personio.com/careers. 

Der Beitrag Battling Burnout: Building an Effective Work-Life Balance erschien zuerst auf Personio.

Missed it? In this article, we compiled the most pressing topics from the presentations, key moments from riveting discussions and the most inspiring food for thought from various workshops and talks.

Want to check out what you missed at H.U.G? Take a look at our free content library.

How HR Can Respond to the Labour Market ‘Storm’

Although workshops, panels and keynote speeches at H.U.G Digital 2022 fanned out into a wide variety of topics, one narrative dominated  – the dramatic change our labour market is currently undergoing. The fact is that qualified employees are fast becoming a scarce commodity.

Various presentations sketched out the labour market of the future while shedding light on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Concepts like new forms of working emerged, while challenges were made to what we currently think of as the ‘norm’ (like the permanent employee model potentially losing importance). 

Above all, what came up time and again was the change in values and new expectations among employees. Did you know, for example, that 65% of employees want employers to focus more on their personal wellbeing?

So the key question for the new age of HR is: How do companies position themselves in the future to attract and retain talent and remain successful in the long-term? The answer to this question revolves around employees, who should be the centre of all your HR activities. 

Gain “Attraction Plus”: How to attract and retain employees post-pandemic.

Insight 1: Winning Top Talent Has Changed Forever

Diversity, inclusion, culture and the ability to reflect on our unconscious biases are now important HR topics because they influence your success with talent attraction. 

Employer Branding Has a Key Role to Play

“The new capitalism is talentism,” says Katarina Berg, Chief Human Resources Officer at Spotify. Considering that 62% of all companies are currently struggling to hire the best candidates, this reinforces one thing: if you want to attract talent, you have to go beyond traditional employer branding activities. 

She adds: “A lack of diversity in a company, for example, shows a lack of creativity, so for creative companies like Spotify, this is an important issue to attract talent.”

Diversity, Inclusion and Culture Are Drivers of Talent Acquisition

Of course, diversity is not just an issue of ‘branding’. Diversity is a driver of innovation and a crisis preparation, explains Tijen Onaran, founder of Global Digital Women. Diversity is an increasingly important requirement for employees when choosing their employer. As they can now choose any employer, it belongs at the top of the HR agenda.

In a world where employees feel increasingly disconnected, companies also need a strong culture that provides identity, belonging and meaning in order to attract and retain employees. 

“HR managers and executives should use the time of change to transform the corporate culture and shape values in a new and inclusive way”, adds Asif Sadiq, Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Warner Bros. Discovery International. 

Successful Recruiting Involves Improving Your People Experience

Hiring itself also needs more innovative thinking, says Asif: “Employers expect applicants to know everything about the company – but what about the other way around? Companies should try to get to know candidates on a human level and improve the candidate experience in the application process.”

Technology plays a decisive role here. It makes processes quicker and allows HR to concentrate more on working with candidates. Involving candidates, for example when they select suitable interview times on Calendly, also increases the speed of recruiting – and at the same time puts applicants on an equal footing.

Tip: In this article, Personio’s  Kálmán Györy reveals how he went about filling critical positions 40% faster.

People experience is becoming more critical. And, the topic of employee experience was absolutely everywhere at H.U.G Digital. So, we had our own announcement to make: To improve communication and interaction between employees and people teams, Personio has acquired the people experience platform Back. Find out how this will help your employees by reading this article.

Insight 2: Don’t Overlook Common Hybrid Work Issues

Think you’ve got your hybrid work strategy totally figured out? Then hold on tight, because the fact that a wave of widespread difficulties experienced by HR was discussed in detail at H.U.G Digital 2022:

What Does Fair Remuneration Look Like?

Salaries are usually set higher in big and expensive cities. So how do you ensure fair pay when some employees are now working remotely – one perhaps from expensive Zurich, the next perhaps inexpensively in the countryside? New ways of thinking and innovative salary bands are vital here. 

Employee benefits also need to be revised and adapted to hybrid office strategies. Benefits such as the canteen, which can only be used on-site, are becoming less important. At the same time, things like wellbeing benefits that support employees in the challenging world of hybrid work are becoming more important.

How Can We Make Performance Management More Fair?

This is where another prejudice comes into play, namely proximity bias. This is the concept that employees who are more visible are considered to be better performers. Therefore, those who are in the office more often might be favoured over remote colleagues in performance conversations.

The so-called “halo effect” also plays into the hands of office workers: those who have once achieved an outstanding performance are automatically placed in the “performer” category later on. HR and managers need to be aware of this when making both performance and salary decisions.

What does equitable performance management look like? Download the guide now.

How Do You Safeguard Your Culture in a Hybrid Environment?

Hybrid working models are necessary, but if they are implemented poorly, they can wreak havoc with corporate culture, especially when it’s unclear how often you’re really supposed to be in the office. HR’s job is to communicate expectations clearly and transparently.

In a culture where not everyone is in the office every day, many encounters also fall away, such as random conversations at the coffee machine or a joke from a colleague in a meeting. 

However, these random moments of connection or serendipity can also be deliberately created. How about playing a game of “trivia” with your teammates every now and then for ten minutes. This is possible from an online call, in-office or a mix of both.

Insight 3: Upskilling and Reskilling Are Essential

And now for some good news – you don’t have to turn your entire recruiting process inside out to approach the shortage of skilled workers. There is another way, as Boom’s Chief People Officer Sophie Theen describes at H.U.G Digital. 

For example, you can identify critical skill gaps by constantly measuring KPIs with the help of targeted performance development among your own employees. HR can then build a pipeline for important positions and keep valuable talent on board.

Let’s take a manager as an example. This is not about putting them on a leadership course, but creating the right environment for their development and facilitating new learning formats for them. Suitable ones may include:

• Coaching to develop in-demand skills
• Reverse coaching to pass on own knowledge
• Peer coaching by colleagues
• Self-study

Develop your employees now with seamless performance management from Personio.

Closely related to this is the strategy of reskilling. At DATEV, for example, a programme has been developed with which virtually every employee can develop into a “junior software engineer” in 12 to 18 months. 

Here, too, a mixture of different formats is used, including:

• An agile approach to learning packages
• Learning coaches who accompany and motivate
• Learning teams as well as self-directed learning

The side effect: not only are skill gaps effectively closed, the reskilling programme also has a positive impact on employee motivation and loyalty. In other words, it’s a win-win.

5 Key Takeaways From H.U.G Digital 2022

Key Takeaway 1: To ensure long-term success, companies must meet the expectations of their employees. Therefore, HR  truly needs the time to take care of strategic tasks that boost employee recruitment and retention.

Key Takeaway 2: HR must create an awareness of and space for diversity – this also applies to recruiting. According to the similarity principle, we like to work with people who are similar to us. But it leads to innovation blocks if all employees think alike.

Key Takeaway 3: In recruiting, speed plays an increasingly important role – as does a positive experience for the applicant in the process.

Key Takeaway 4: Watch out for “hidden” hybrid work challenges. HR must now look at re-evaluating salary bands and benefits and ensuring fair performance reviews – whether an employee is remote, hybrid or office-based.

Key Takeaway 5: It is not only through an adapted recruiting strategy that skill gaps can be eliminated. New, important opportunities arise through the proactive development of talent and targeted reskilling.

Der Beitrag 3 Groundbreaking HR Insights From H.U.G Digital 2022 erschien zuerst auf Personio.

In this article, we’ll offer a concrete definition of an HR portal, what they typically include and how they work, as well as some best practices that can help boost employee engagement and productivity. Let’s get into it!

Skip to the good part by booking a demo to see Personio’s solution in action.

What is an HR Portal?

An HR portal, short for a human resources portal, is an internal gateway designed to help your employees find critical organisational information. It can house a wide variety of data and resources, from documentation and employee data to absences, headcount and even birthdays across your company.

The goal of having an HR portal is to reduce the administrative burden on your HR team. It offers the opportunity for employees to ‘self-serve’ their own information (find and provide exactly what they need). At the same time, it maintains a critical layer of transparency and visibility across your organisation.

When you think of an HR portal, think of instant access. Access not only for your HR team but for every employee at your company — everyone has what they need, in an instant, without having to email, message or call multiple colleagues.

How Does An HR Portal Work?

An HR portal is an employee-facing extension of your human resources information system (HRIS) or HR software. From within it, HR teams have the opportunity to manage critical organisational information, while also assigning tasks to relevant employees, keeping tabs on various reports and also making sure that important information is always visible.

In that sense, your HR portal is where worlds collide — it’s where employees and your HR team “meet”.

Are HR Portals Secure?

An HR portal is inherently designed to be secure. Most times, employees will be required to sign in to their HR portal, so they can only access critical organisational information if they have the proper credentials.

Ideally, this should be looped into your organisation’s overall IT infrastructure, and incorporate a single sign-on (SSO) and two-factor authentication process to ensure maximum security.

Amazing data security is table stakes at Personio. Click here to learn more.

Three Critical Benefits of HR Portals

When we think of how HR portals benefit organisations, we can categorise these benefits into three key camps:

• Transparency
• Efficiency
• Accountability

Let’s have a look at examples of each…

HR Portals and Transparency

HR portals help create a sustainable layer of transparency across your company.

Let’s take employee benefits as an example. Prior to having an HR portal, an employee may need to send a message to HR, who then prints off a binder full of information and then manually send those documents to the employee. That’s a lot of steps for something that should be easy. And, a lot of work for something an employee wants to know immediately.

If you have an HR portal, you can simply link all of your benefits materials from that portal. An employee can log in, click a button that says “Our Benefits” and can then be transported to a third-party page that houses all of your relevant information. If they have more inquiries, they can then email you directly — if they even need to do that at all.

This also means your HR team can make updates to this page, and only this page so that it is always up to date. No second-guessing about the accuracy of the information, and no convoluted processes that only serve to frustrate members of your organisation.

HR Portals and Efficiency

One of the major benefits of implementing an HR portal is the opportunity for efficiency through employee self-service.

This means that employees can make changes to their data, and HR can approve them, without missed messages, emails or HR teams having to do nothing but follow up for weeks. Things like last names, addresses, titles and more.

At the same time, an HR portal also makes life easier for employees (and doesn’t just saddle them with extra work). A great HR portal can do things like offering an org chart, for quick visualization of your entire company — making it easy for employees to get in touch with one another.

It can also show employees when they have open requests, like a vacation request, or when their colleagues are out for the day. Things like these help employees know when to reach out to people when they are available, so they can spend less time guessing and more time getting their best work done.

HR Portals and Accountability

For an HR team, the best part about an HR portal is a heightened sense of accountability and ownership across your organisation.

A great HR portal should have a ‘tasks and reminders’ feature, where an HR team can assign employees to complete certain tasks (and have them be reminded automatically).

Especially during critical phases like onboarding, or during a massive team-wide policy change, this can be a complete game-changer. Employees are expected to complete their tasks or be consistently reminded of them.

Your HR portal should be a one-stop shop for not only your HR team but your employees, too. They should come to work, log on, find what’s expected of them and understand that they are expedited to complete it. Everyone benefits!

Do You Need An HR Portal?

The better question might be: Why don’t you have one already? This is especially true if you have an HR software already in place, you should expect a great HR portal that helps boost your company’s transparency and productivity.

But, to really help illustrate our point, let’s ask some common questions:

• Do you need help keeping track and updating employee information?
• Could you use a better way of managing tasks during onboarding or offboarding?
• Would you like employees to have visibility on your latest policies or procedures?
• Do you think employees could use more transparency?
• Could you use more time for strategic projects and spend less on admin work?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you not only need an HR portal, but you need one that is up to the task of serving your entire organisation. That goes hand in hand with great HR software, too.

A great HR system can be a game-changer for your org. Read our article on them today.

Four HR Portal Best Practices

We’ve collected some best practices that you should be including in your HR portal:

1. Onboarding

All relevant onboarding tasks should be routed through your HR portal. This helps set a strong expectation, from day one, that employees should be regularly interfacing with your HR portal as a single source of truth.

It also gives them a very clear place to complete their most important onboarding tasks as they get to know your company (you should also group these tasks in phases: the first day, first week, first month, etc.)

2. Requests

Even the best HR portal can’t answer every question. While you want to make sure you have as many resources as possible for employees to answer their own questions, you should also include a request link.

This could be linked to a company email or a third-party page that offers contact procedures, but if employees have additional questions you should make it easy for them to reach out.

3. Shortcuts

Think about the kind of questions your HR team gets every day. Are they often related to your company’s benefits, policies, overarching goals or internal processes? A great HR portal should make full use of shortcuts.

These are links that direct to specific resources you have that answer some of the most common questions your team receives. Think about the top questions you get, and answer them from the very beginning.

4. Snapshots

An HR portal can also be a great place for employees to see your company at a glance. Showcase how many active employees you have and how many are onboarding this month.

This also gives the chance for employees to look around the organisation, find out who works where and even to reach out to new people joining your organisation.

How’s Your HR Portal Holding Up?

Is your HR portal the best it can be, or does it even exist at all? Of all the best practices we listed above, Personio can help with all of them.

Our all-in-one HRIS includes employee portals to assign tasks, offers easy access to resources and increased transparency when it comes to things like team-wide absences, birthdays, policies and more. Speak with an expert today to see how we can give your portal a well-deserved boost.

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Ready to talk compliance? Personio is versed in all things data protection and compliance.

What Is a Health and Safety Management System?

A health and safety management system is a framework, set of guidelines or tool that helps those responsible manage health and safety in the workplace methodically. It’s also sometimes known as a safety management system and may include multiple policies and procedures designed to reduce accidents, incidents, illness and danger to employees.

A Brief History of Health and Safety Management

A report by the HSE states that in 2020/21, an estimated 1.7 million workers in Great Britain were suffering from an illness that they believed was caused or made worse by work. Interestingly, the nature of injuries has changed over time.

For example, as the incidence of musculoskeletal disorders has declined since the 1990s, stress, depression and anxiety have skyrocketed.

When you put current illness into a historical context, workers today have an easy time of it. But In 2020/21, 142 workers were still killed at work in Great Britain including 88 employees and 54 self-employed workers. That’s not good enough.

Any preventable employee death is unforgivable. And that alone is why it’s worth having a health and safety management system in place.

Health and Safety Management System Examples

What should you include in your health and safety management system? There’s no exhaustive list of things that must be included, but be sure to cover some of the following:

• Risk assessments
• Hazards in the workplace
• Accidents and incidents
• Safety training

To guide the creation of a formal health and safety management system, you probably want to take a look at standards that already exist. For example, ISO 45001:2018 specifies requirements for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system so that companies can provide safe and healthy workplaces by preventing illness and injury, and by improving OH&S.

You might also want to consider looking at ISO 9001:2015. This standard relates to the requirements for a quality management system which is designed to meet regulatory requirements while improving customer satisfaction.

If your company has been in business for any significant length of time you’ll probably have standards, procedures, processes or codes that you already use. If these relate to an individual’s safety or health, include them in your system, too.

Depending on which sector your company operates in, there may also be relevant frameworks that must be included in your S&H management system. For example, if you’re in the transport industry you might want to consider legislation relating to vehicles at work, driver competence and driver recruitment. Knowledge workers might need to think about human factors such as training and competence including general advice on successful health and safety management, HSG65 (1997).

H&S guidelines can also be very industry-specific, like their guidance on the selection and training of offshore installation managers for crisis management or the nuclear directorate technical assessment guide.

Do You Need Safety and Health Management?

In a word, yes. It’s the right thing to do. Officially, though, a formal management system is not required by law.

There are legal reasons for having health and safety management systems. People have the basic human right to be safe at work, and it’s important to manage this effectively. There’s also a moral obligation to take care of your employees.

But what does health and safety law actually require? A short guide to health and safety regulation by the HSE says that while the act is important, these duties are qualified in the Act by the principle of ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’. In other words, they explain, “an employer does not have to take measures to avoid or reduce the risk if they are technically impossible or if the time, trouble or cost of the measures would be grossly disproportionate to the risk.”

Officially, the act says, “‘…it shall be the duty of every employer to prepare and as often as may be appropriate revise a written statement of his general policy with respect to the health and safety at work of his employees and the organisation and arrangements for the time being in force for carrying out that policy, and to bring the statement and any revision of it to the notice of all of his employees…”

Why Is it Important to Have a Safety Management System?

A health and safety management system will help you identify risks and hazards in the workplace and work towards preventing incidents in future.

If they do occur, a system will also help you know how to respond appropriately, how to report and track incidents and how to work towards preventing future incidents from taking place by considering what went wrong and ensuring it doesn’t happen again.

In today’s knowledge economy where many businesses succeed or fail on the way they treat their employees, a safety management system can also help you promote a positive health and safety culture which is an important aspect of a positive workplace and corporate culture.

If relevant or appropriate, your safety management system can also include references to other policies or guidance you have in place relating to mental health at work, occupational health and stress leave. You might also want to consider referring to issues like absenteeism or bullying at work.

What are the Stages of a Health and Safety Management System?

A good health and safety management system should be set up as best as possible, depending on the size of your business. If you’re a small company, you might not need an onerous or formal framework. But larger companies do need a formalised and comprehensive management system.

Regardless of your size, though, you do need to make sure that safety and health management systems are put in place, monitored, maintained and improved over time. These are the four stages of any health and safety management system:

• Prepare and plan – Make sure you know who does what, when and how when it comes to health and safety arrangements, monitoring performance and emergency response planning.
• Organise or make things happen – Put the plan into action. Make sure people have the resources they need. Share information about health and safety with the relevant people and get advice, if required.
• Check things – Is your health and safety plan working? At this stage, you must do inspections and audits, investigate incidents or accidents (as well as near misses) and keep an eye out for new hazards.
• Take action – Make sure your records are accurate and the systems are suitable and sufficient. If they aren’t, then you’ll need to make changes in line with industry standards and best practice.

Or, in short:

• Plan
• Do
• Act
• Check

Regardless of how you follow these four steps, the key elements of a successful H&S program include getting buy-in from management and commitment from employees.

It’s also important to make sure you have done an appropriate workplace analysis, considered how to prevent or control existing and new hazards, and ensured that employees, supervisors and managers are appropriately trained.

How Do You Implement a Health and Safety Management System?

Once you’ve created a system, it’s time to set it up. Start by looking at the risks facing your employees, how likely they are to happen and how disruptive any incidents might be.

Then it’s time to look at the costs (financial, human and other) and look at how well you can manage these risks.

To make sure your business is organised and capable of taking care of your employees’ health and safety you need to have the right controls in place, make people aware of the need to cooperate and communicate and be confident that they are capable of doing their work safely.

Are You Ready to Put More Systems in Place?

If you’re at the stage where you need more formal processes and systems (not just Health and Safety Management Systems) but don’t have the time to handle it all, it might be time to talk to Personio about HR systems.

Speak with an expert today to learn more about what this could mean for your business, both in terms of saving your team time while allowing productivity to skyrocket.

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This article will explain all the benefits of a bonus scheme, what a discretionary bonus is, and various types of work bonuses. So if you’re a leader looking for the right bonus scheme for your organisation, we recommend reading on.

Download our guide to getting the best performance out of your employees today.

What is a Bonus Scheme?

A bonus scheme is a form of reward in an amount of money that you, as an employer, give to your employee on top of their standard paycheque. This sum of money is usually awarded for a specific reason, such as hitting an objective, or seasonally, like a Christmas bonus.

Bonus schemes are typically structured as one of the following:

• Individual bonus scheme: Focuses solely on the single employee and their targets— if the employee meets the goals set, they receive a bonus.
• Team bonus scheme: Rewards the team that succeeds in hitting their goals. Team bonus schemes offer great encouragement to an entire team and can foster positive team spirit. It can also encourage healthy competition between teams.
• Company-wide bonus scheme: Encompass all teams and employees. They usually serve as a focal point for everyone by stating the most critical goal the company wants to accomplish. Company-wide bonuses don’t have to be performance-based ( as is the case for a Christmas bonus).

On top of this general structure, bonus schemes can involve a combination of any of those mentioned above. So an employee might have their bonus scheme tied to both their personal performance and their team’s performance, too.

What is a Discretionary Bonus?

Businesses operating in the United Kingdom need to be mindful of two main types of bonus schemes: discretionary schemes and contractual bonuses.

A contractual bonus is a bonus scheme that has certain requirements that need to be met.. This is typically written out in an employment contract, so the employee in question immediately knows what they need to do to receive their bonus and when it will get paid out. If targets are met, the employer is bound to granting that bonus.

A discretionary bonus has no contractual obligation. A manager or business owner can pay the bonus at any time and in any amount. Since it’s not written in the employment contract, employees can only hope to receive a discretionary bonus, but they have no idea when it will happen and the final amount (all of this may vary).

Even though discretionary bonuses have no contractual obligation, business leaders should still provide a structure. An employee will be more satisfied and work toward their goals due to the transparency. So, set the right expectations regarding discretionary bonuses with your employees to motivate them accordingly.

Three Key Types of Bonus Schemes

There are three main types of bonus schemes:

• Individual performance bonus schemes: Involve the individual’s performance. Bonuses here can be non-discretionary (contractual) or discretionary.
• Range bonus schemes: The range refers to the level of the bonus scheme — whether on the individual, team, department or company level.
• Payment bonus schemes: These can either be monetary (cash rewards), or non-cash rewards like recognition (employee of the month) and in-kind rewards (free yoga sessions, paid trips, vouchers, gift cards, etc.)

Five Examples of Bonuses at Work

Bonuses work best when they are simple, tangible and understandable. Here are five of the most popular bonuses used in modern organisations:

• A percentage of employee salary
• A flat payment (lump-sum payment)
• A percentage of sales
• A commission
• A share option

The point of a work bonus isn’t for an employee to sit and read the bonus scheme for hours, trying to understand it. By keeping it simple, you chart a clearer path between employee motivation, performance and rewarding that great performance.

The Benefits of a Discretionary Bonus and Bonus Schemes

Think of a bonus scheme, like a discretionary bonus, as a big perk for joining and staying at your company. After all, if your top performers know they will get rewarded for the great work they do, they will want to stay longer and work even harder.

Some of the core benefits of implementing a bonus scheme include:

• Talent Attraction – Bonuses can bring more applicants to your job adverts and, subsequently, into your company.
• Motivation – Whether an individual, team or organisational bonus, bonuses can lead to a more motivated workforce.

Do Bonus Schemes Generally Work?

Bonus schemes work and don’t work, it all depends on how you choose to analyse them. According to SHRM, bonus schemes work, but you need to be careful about implementing them and the expectations (and motivation) they set.

For example, if discretionary bonuses are solely focused on cash, you might incentivize employees only to seek work that will get them the bonus.

You should balance this out with recognition bonuses and the ones that have an internal gratification for the employee (internal vs external motivation).

The Big World of Discretionary Bonuses

Bonus schemes and discretionary bonuses can be good for your bonus, but only if you approach them with a high level of intent. You need to know what you want to motivate and how you want to motivate your workforce.

That may require a larger conversation around the topic of goals, performance and your total reward strategy in your company. After all, a bonus without purpose may simply be throwing money out the window – without having any effect on your workforce.

To gain the time back to focus on the quality of performance conversations, Personio’s Performance and Development feature helps automate performance cycles, track goals and even facilitate bonus payouts based on those goals.

If you want to harness the power of bonuses, you need to start from a place of transparency and focus on your performance processes. Speak to one of our experts today on how Personio can help unlock the true potential of your workforce (and more).

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As a group of diverse colleagues, we aspire to embrace uniqueness and educate each other on individual needs to create a safe space where everyone can belong. This is the vision that our employee-led Diversity Committee uses to focus and direct our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts at Personio. Within the Diversity Committee, our various Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) – like Womxn in Tech and Accessibility – represent traditionally marginalized groups within society.

The LGBTQ+ community is one of these marginalized groups, which is reason enough to recognize Pride in the office. But we also celebrate Pride at Personio to help foster meaningful connections, education, and collaboration:

Connection: Celebrating Pride helps people to build their terminology and have more meaningful conversations with each other.
Education: Acknowledging the LGBTQ+ community, especially during Pride, helps people to find resources and information more easily and gives them a safe space to be curious.
Collaboration: Giving the stage to members and allies of this community empowers people to share their own stories and experiences, helping to highlight current inequities or prejudices at work and how we can take positive action together.

We celebrate to remember where we’ve come from, but also as a reminder that we still have a long way to go. If you’re interested in learning more about the history of Pride Month and the significance of the Stonewall Riots, read our blog here.

So what do we have planned to help bring more connection, education, and collaboration to Personio in the next few months? As always, our core values will provide the foundation, starting out with #Fun as we join local Pride parades near our seven offices across Europe. We’ll also be organizing ways to support local charities (#SocialResponsibility) and, to live out our values of #CustomerEmpathy, #Transparency, and #Teamspirit, we’ll host Ask Me Anything sessions for our Personios with internal and external speakers.

But, our efforts won’t end in August like the parades. We continue all year round as we educate our employees and recognize LGBTQ+ awareness days throughout the year. And as we focus on our DE&I vision of embracing uniqueness, educating around individual needs, and creating a safe space where everyone can belong, we’re just getting started! 

Do you want to celebrate Pride and bring the LGBTQ+ community together with us? Then come join our team! We’re hiring now – head to the careers page today to see our open roles.

Happy Pride!

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As important as creating equal opportunities at your organisation is on a human level, it’s also essential for retention, collaboration and success. As a recent McKinsey study highlighted, employees in inclusive workplaces are 47% more likely to stay, 90% more likely to help colleagues and seven times more likely to consider their company to be high-performing.

So, where can we start to ensure that everyone gets the opportunities they deserve at work? We spoke to Loretta Eidam, Personio’s Head of Product, Design & Engineering Operations, who shares how to start building more diverse leadership throughout your organisation. 

1. Recognise the Value of Diverse Leaders

For Holly Smith, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Specialist at Personio, the importance of a diverse employee base cannot be overstated: “Across all teams, it enables creativity, more innovation and better decision-making.”

There have been countless examples of mistakes made when people do not design with a lens on accessibility and inclusivity in mind. From car safety to soap dispensers, a lack of diversity can quite often lead to poor product design for traditionally underrepresented groups.

As Loretta explains, when you design a product, you are solving a problem for a customer. Effective problem-solving requires understanding from different perspectives: “Our perspectives are influenced by our experiences and culture, so when you have a team rich in diversity by gender, personalities, cultures, beliefs and experiences, the better your chance at solving that problem for your customer.”

2. ‘Diversify’ How You Interview Leaders 

If you’re not sure where to start to help diversity thrive at your organisation, take a look at your recruitment, says Loretta. “This includes everything from minimising biases during screening to having broad representation in interviews to ensuring interview questions and case studies reference names and companies from different cultures.”

Holly explains some practical ways to approach this: “At Personio, we train everyone on how to recognise unconscious biases and how to interrupt them.” Even your applicant sourcing software can help here: “We use sourcing jams (organised networking) and Boolean strings (search methods for particular attributes such as specific pronouns) to get more diverse candidates in our funnel.”

An even more simple way to help candidates experience a greater mix of employees during their hiring process? Let them meet: “Personio enables candidates to meet five other Personios, so they can understand their team and our culture.” 

3. Build Benefits That Support All Parents

For Loretta, recruitment is just the beginning: “We ultimately need to be a workplace where diversity can thrive.  We do this by creating an environment where everyone has the opportunity to succeed once they have joined.” 

A first step here may be looking at how parents are supported. Personio recently reviewed and relaunched a new benefits program called PersonioCares to make parental leave and other types of leave more equitable to support work/life balance for all employees. 

For example, this is how we’ve made sure that all our employees in the UK who are parents are supported, regardless of their gender or whether it’s a birth or adoption:

4. Make Your Promotion Process Transparent

Once you’ve looked at your recruitment process, it may be time to consider how your internal processes may be hindering greater diversity. Holly suggests to set solid foundations within your team by defining a fair process for internal promotions, potentially with clearer performance management to make goals more transparent.

She advises to communicate this process clearly to your team and ensure that you stay connected with each individual regularly to help them understand their strengths and weaknesses. “Your role as a leader is to understand individual needs and create opportunities to allow each person to develop their skill sets so that when a position becomes available, everyone has an equitable chance.”

5. Create a Diverse Mentorship Program

As affinity bias (gravitating towards similar people) is a common occurrence at work, Holly says that it is important that we as HR leaders help to empower diverse mentors. “This will increase the likelihood that your employees have someone they can identify with and has had similar experiences to them.” 

This in turn, can help to support all employees to navigate both the workplace and their career. For example, some studies have shown that mentees are five times more likely to get promoted than those without a mentor, while 25% of those who took part in a mentorship programme had a salary increase, compared to 5% of those who did not. 

Looking to install a mentorship program? Make a shortlist of people to approach in your organisation and find 5-10 volunteers who you think would make great mentors.

6. Remove Compulsory Holidays

Throughout her career, Loretta has worked in Australia, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, England and Germany: “It has really broadened my perspective to see what is important for each culture.” And one of the best examples of this is observed holidays.

“Recognising and celebrating different holidays such as Lunar New Year or Diwali in the way we celebrate Christmas shows equality and embraces diversity.” Loretta has seen leaders give teams flexibility to choose which holidays they want to take off work for celebration, rather than observing one local tradition.

Just a few months ago, Personio embraced this company-wide. Holly explains: “We amended our annual leave policy to allow people to take 28 days as they wish, so they can celebrate the moments that matter most to them, removing the compulsory Christmas leave.” Personio’s Diversity Committee has also helped to build a global holiday calendar so our employees can learn more about our 69 different nationalities’ holidays.

7. Offer Allyship Training to Leaders

Creating psychological safety at work is no easy feat, but Loretta shares: “A very wise person once told me, assume positive intent.” She explains that being part of a diverse workplace means that “people are constantly navigating and learning about others that may have similarities as well as differences.”

So, what can leaders do to support these learnings? “They can foster an environment of trust where we seek to learn from and teach one another. Biases are often just unconscious ways that we try to interpret the world around us.” 

“It’s important here for leaders to help their team understand the very real world implications that victims of prejudice can experience: Sometimes, it can be difficult to disassociate negative experiences from prior prejudice and we need to be cognisant of that to build an inclusive workplace.”

At an organisational level, training can be key here. Holly shares: “We have recently launched a workshop which enables leaders to come together across the organisation to recognise their privilege and give them the tools to be positive allies in the workplace.” The workshop looks at individual, team and structural changes that have the power to influence the creation of a more inclusive workplace.

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Address potential issues with transparent performance processes thanks to Personio.

What Is an Employee Grievance?

An employee grievance consists of when an employee raises a formal complaint about a violation of workplace policy, contract terms, bullying in the workplace or any issue serious enough to lodge a formalised complaint.

The grievance at work process typically consists of a complaints procedure (usually via their boss or HR) to talk about injustice in the workplace. This can be a real injustice or something they believe is unfair, whether the company perceives it like that or not.

When an employee accuses you, their boss, the company or anyone else in the working context of violating their rights or treating them unfairly, you need to take this seriously.

What Are the Types of Grievances at Work?

Typically, four types of grievances in the workplace are raised by employees:

• Complaints about unsatisfactory working conditions
• Concerns or disputes relating to payment or benefits
• Frustration with too much work
• Feeling unhappy due to bullying, harassment, discrimination in the workplace or other factors.

1. Working Conditions

Employees have the right to work in safe environments. This is enshrined in Health and Safety (H&S) law in the UK. As the quote below from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the UK authority on all things H&S-related describes, employers have a duty of care to their employees.

2. Payment or Benefits

In most circumstances relating to payment, UK law is very clear about minimum payment requirements, including when an employee is sick (Statutory Sick Pay and Long-Term Sick Pay), their employment is terminated (Severance Pay), they take a vacation (Holiday Pay), have or adopt a child (Maternity Pay), or are made redundant (Redundancy Pay).

When it comes to pay-related grievances, it’s wise to be properly informed about relevant local laws, and review the employee’s contract. Then follow the grievance procedures we outline below.

3. Overwork

Before Brexit, the UK followed the EU Working Time Directive which regulated how much time employees could work in a week, which paid holidays and rest periods they were entitled to and how night workers were protected. While these may be changed in due course, it’s still a good idea to follow best practices.

But, if an employee feels like they are working too long or too hard, they may end up raising a formal grievance with your company. You may already have a flexible working policy in place, be open to agile working styles and hybrid working locations, realise that employees might need to take stress leave sometimes and do various other things to ensure a good work-life balance.

When this situation becomes chronic or harmful to an employee’s mental health at work, then they may feel it necessary to raise a formal grievance.

4. Unhappiness

When employees are unhappy due to workplace bullying or harassment or discrimination (including indirect discrimination) it’s high time to address it.

Ideally, you won’t have to wait until an employee makes a grievance at work. Hopefully, you’ll notice signs of absenteeism, a higher attrition rate or even burnout before formal grievances come up.

But if you don’t, an employee grievance about happiness-related issues may be the wake-up call you may need! A healthy corporate culture knows that employee wellbeing is critical to retaining talent.

Four Examples of Grievances at Work

Here are a few examples of grievances at work that must be handled sensitively…

1. Working Conditions

An employee shouldn’t have to work in an uncomfortable, unsafe or unhealthy environment. They also need the right tools to do their job and shouldn’t have to work when they’re sick or injured. If your company violates any of these rights, expect to have a grievance raised.

2. Payment or Benefits

An employee might feel that you haven’t paid them on time, or enough. This is a legitimate grievance. Employees can also make a case for inequality if they’re paid less due to race, gender or other protected characteristics. If you haven’t paid them the benefits to which they are entitled, they are well within their rights to raise a grievance.

3. Overwork

An employee can expect to work the hours and do the tasks they were employed to do. If this varies, they may legitimately raise a complaint. Bear in mind that issues may arise over promotions, who is allocated certain projects, changes in deadlines or responsibilities and times when employees are expected to do tasks they can’t complete in the time allowed. All of these can be the subject of disputes.

4. Unhappiness

If an employee feels harassed, this is a valid cause for complaint. A variety of other issues can cause employee dissatisfaction, though. Everything from poor communication about workplace changes to external factors. Hopefully, your employee listening processes will pick these up before an employee feels the need to raise a grievance about these issues.

How Should HR Address Employee Grievances?

HR has a pivotal role to play when it comes to grievances at work. If an employee begins to go down the path of filing a grievance, HR should come in immediately to have an informal chat with that employee. If they can’t resolve the issue, the formal process needs to begin.

Keep in mind: Employees may feel incredibly anxious to have to file a grievance, so be empathetic. It’s even why, in the UK, workers have protection for reporting wrongdoing in the workplace (also known as whistleblowing).

The UK government website gov.uk says that, by law, all employers must set out a grievance procedure and share it in writing with all employees.

It must contain info about who someone with a work grievance must contact and how to get hold of them. Your grievance procedure or policy should also state:

• That there can be a grievance hearing
• The length of time for each stage of the process
• Who to contact if the normal contact is actually listed in the grievance
• How employees can appeal a decision and
• Include a reminder that they can have someone with them during meetings
• What happens if a grievance is raised while they’re in the middle of a disciplinary hearing or procedure.

What Does the Grievance Procedure Look Like?

While it’s up to your specific organisation to decide exactly how to deal with grievances, here is a loose outline you can follow:

• Outline Options
• Formalise the Grievance
• Respond
• Host a Meeting
• Decide On Outcomes
• Take Next Steps

Let’s break each down in a bit more detail…

Outline Options

It helps to start by chatting through the issue with the employee. Hear them out, help to see if you can come to a resolution immediately, but f it’s a very serious issue (like sexual harassment or whistleblowing), then a formal grievance is in order.

It’s worth noting that even if an employee decides not to raise a formal grievance after their initial chat, it’s still a good idea to document it in some way for future reference. Over time, it might be possible to identify a pattern – either with a specific employee or if multiple employees raise similar concerns – which needs to be considered seriously and addressed.

Make sure your employees know you’ll deal with the complaint fairly and consistently, that you’ll investigate it thoroughly, give everyone a chance to have their say before a decision is made, take action as soon as possible and allow the employee to appeal against the outcome.

Formalise the Grievance

For when an initial chat simply isn’t enough. When an employee raises a formal grievance they should put it in writing. They must include details about the grievance, evidence (if available) and a statement about what they want the employer to do about it.

Respond

It’s critical to keep written records of what happens during the work grievance process. These must include what the grievance was about, any decisions or actions that were taken as a result and whether the employee appeals the grievance outcome (if they disagree with the process or result).

Don’t forget to keep all their personal information confidential during the employee grievance process and avoid making any judgements or assumptions about people. It’s also important to be sensitive to the needs and circumstances of the person who raised the grievance.

Although this process can often be quite challenging and upsetting, keep talking to the employee and keep looking after their mental health! It’s also important to remain vigilant and treat the matter seriously. For example, if they’re reporting a crime, make sure you alert the appropriate authorities (e.g. the police or the National Business Crime Centre, in the case of cybercrime). You may also need to issue the accused with a written warning if the accusation proves to be true.

Host a Meeting

Ideally, your HR team should hold a meeting within 5 working days. The employer is responsible for making sure this meeting is fair, that they consider information from all sides and that the company investigates to see if a similar grievance process has happened before.

Be sure to keep a confidential record of the meeting, evidence and decisions. During this meeting, the employee who raised the grievance should explain what happened and share any evidence. The employer will listen and ask questions.

They should also give context and discuss how it can be resolved while remaining impartial. Make sure you give copies of the meeting notes to the employer and take any next steps within the timelines your grievance procedures have stated.

Decide On Outcomes

Once the meeting has taken place, you might need to investigate what happened so you can make a fair decision. You might also need to set up another grievance meeting to follow up on any investigations.

Then it’s time to decide, based on the findings and what you have done about similar cases in the past (if applicable), what is fair and reasonable. You might decide that no further action is required – make sure you speak with the employee who raised the complaint privately if this is the case.

If you do need to take action, make sure the employee knows what steps will be taken, when, and what (if anything) they need to do during this stage.

Don’t forget that employees have the right to raise an appeal if they think this process didn’t resolve the issue or if any part of the process was wrong or unfair.

Take Next Steps

No matter what happened during the grievance procedure you must take notes and keep a written record of every stage of the process. Don’t forget to keep these confidential and only for as long as necessary, in line with relevant data privacy laws.

Keep A Clean Record of Everything with Personio

As an all-in-one HRIS, Personio offers your HR team the ability to securely store employee data, records, documents and more – all from one single source of truth. Book a demo today to see how it works, and how to keep your data secure (and compliant) with Personio.

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In this post, we’ll offer a look into how holiday request forms work while providing a request form template that your team can start using today. We’ll also share some pros and cons of using a form like this, so you can decide whether it’s the best solution for your organisation.

Manage annual leave automatically from Personio’s all-in-one HRIS.

What Is a Holiday Request Form?

A holiday request form is a simple form that employees fill out when they want to take some of their annual leave. They might fill it out either on paper or online. Usually, the form will include fields for them to note the days or hours they’re requesting off work, as well as personal details like their name and job title.

This form is then passed on to their supervisor or line manager, who will approve or deny the request accordingly. Depending on your organisation, a holiday request form might also be called a holiday form or an annual leave request form.

Why Do Companies Use Holiday Request Forms?

Holiday request forms can help companies to formalise the process of requesting types of leave, making it easier for employees to understand the information they need to provide.

They also help managers to keep track of leave requests, and create a record of requests that have been approved or denied. They can be particularly helpful when more than one employee requests leave for the same dates, as managers can quickly see who put their request in first.

Managers usually transfer the information included on a request form to a virtual or physical calendar once they’ve approved a request so that they can keep track of everyone’s holidays. Here, a digital absence management solution can plug many of those gaps.

How Do Holiday Request Forms Work?

The exact format of a holiday request form varies from company to company. Usually, the form will ask employees to fill in certain information about themselves such as their:

• Name
• Department
• Job title

They may also need to note how much annual leave they have left to take during the current leave year (or if they are using carried over annual leave).

Then, employees will input the dates they want to take as a holiday, and pass the form on to the manager who’s in charge of approving it. The manager will either accept or deny the request. Usually, there’s a space on the form for the manager to note their approval.

Holiday Request Form Template

Below you’ll find a basic template for a request form that you can use for your organisation. If you choose to use it, your employees will have to fill in their details at the top, and details about the leave they’re requesting below. Once it’s been submitted, managers can sign in the ‘manager authorisation’ column to signal their approval of the request.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using a Holiday Request Form?

A form is just one way of managing leave requests, and it comes with certain advantages and disadvantages.

Holiday Request Form Advantages

Here are some of the main advantages of using a form to manage absences:

• Standardises the process of requesting time off: If you don’t have the right HR systems in place for employees to request leave, things can quickly get messy. Employees might email the wrong person, and managers might forget to make a note of leave they’ve approved if they’re asked in person. When you use a form, you ensure that everyone knows exactly what they’re expected to do when they want to request leave.
• Gathers relevant information in one place: By using a holiday request form, you can ensure that all employees know exactly what information they need to provide to go on holiday. For managers, it’s easy to make a decision on whether to approve or deny a leave request when they can clearly see information such as the dates requested and the employee’s leave balance in one place.
• Cuts down on (some) back and forth: Without a form of some kind, employees might forget to include information in their requests such as the exact dates they’re requesting. There might also be confusion as to whether the dates they provide are inclusive, for example. When you have a form that everyone knows how to use, the process should be relatively straightforward.

Holiday Request Form Disadvantages

Forms like these also come with some disadvantages. For example:

• Time-consuming process for everyone: With a holiday request form, an employee who wants to request leave has to find the form and fill it out, and find out who needs to approve their request. Managers then need to cross-check the dates requested against existing staff holidays or other conflicts. They then have to fill in their part of the form and let the employee know their leave is approved — without forgetting to add this new leave period to their calendar. This can be a time-consuming process for everyone involved, especially if managers have to revert to employees to check up on details or to let them know that a particular date isn’t available.
• Difficult to track absences: To properly track leave requests, managers need to manually add each employee’s holiday dates to a calendar, which can be time-consuming — and even lead to manual errors. For example, a manager might accidentally approve leave for too many employees at the same time. Managers also have to manually figure out how much leave each employee has left to take, taking into account any leave carried over from the previous year.
• Not a digital solution: Even if your employees fill in and submit holiday request forms online, the process is still reliant on manual checks and data entry. With a truly digital solution, however, you can automate parts of the process to eliminate wasted time and avoid mistakes. Managers and employees can also see a clear, transparent picture of their colleagues’ upcoming leave, which helps teams to plan ahead for maximum efficiency.

Do You Need a Holiday Request Form?

While a request form is definitely a step up from managing leave requests through post-it notes and informal emails, it’s no substitute for a fully-featured absence management platform.

Using a tool like Personio, employees can see their leave balance, check when their colleagues are on holiday and easily send leave requests from their desktop or mobile. Requests are automatically sent to the right manager for approval — and managers can approve them at the click of a button.

Holiday days are automatically deducted from an employee’s balance once they’re approved, and everyone has visibility as to who will be away each week. HR departments can keep clean, accurate records of leave with no need for manual data entry.

Take Control of Absence Management With Personio

A holiday request form is a useful stop-gap for growing companies that need to formalise their processes. But after a certain point, most companies will need to move to a digital absence management solution that helps them to stop wasting time on manual processes and focus on growth instead.

Interested to learn how Personio could help your business? Book a personalised demo with one of our experts today.

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All your particulars in one place: Employee data storage with Personio.

What Are Wage or Salary Deductions?

Employers are able to make deductions from wages, via an employee’s paycheque, to put toward taxes, benefits or court orders. Typically, wage or salary deductions can be sorted into two unique categories: voluntary and involuntary deductions.

Voluntary deductions from wages are where an employee chooses to give a part of their wage “back” to the company (as is the case for a workplace pension).

Involuntary deductions, on the other hand, are when an employee does not directly consent (or need to consent) to having their salary deducted. This could cover things like child maintenance or relevant court orders.

What are Statutory Deductions?

Statutory deductions are mandates from the government that employees need to pay, usually for government programmes and services.

They can include the following:

• Pay-as-you-earn income tax
• National Insurance
• Student and postgraduate loans
• Workplace pensions

The employee always needs to receive a relevant provision stating the purpose of the deduction. The following are used as relevant provisions:

• Substandard quality of work
• Damaging a company’s property or losing it
• Personal use of company assets

When Are Employers Able To Make Deductions From Wages?

The National Minimum Wage is the lowest rate that the employer can pay their employees. It’s defined by the law and the National Minimum Wage is for people under the age of 23 and interns, while the National Living Wage is for people above 23 years of age.

The rates for both change every year and the 2022 minimum wages are:

• National Living Wage— £9.50
• National Minimum Wage, age 21-22— £9.18
• National Minimum Wage, age 18-20— £6.83
• National Minimum Wage for those under 18 and apprentices— £4.81

However, there are some exceptions when it comes to wage deductions, such as:

• Tax insurance
• Repaying loans
• Buying shares and stocks
• Contribution for pensions
• Overpayments

The 4 Most Common Deductions from Wages in the UK

The following four are the most common wage deductions in the UK…

1. Pensions

The first and most common deduction from wages is for a pension fund. In this scenario, you have employees who have enrolled in your workplace pension fund that you set up. The payments are usually automated to deduct wages from the employee.

The employee either makes a net pay arrangement (before tax is calculated) or relief at source arrangement (after the tax is calculated).

2. Court Orders

There are cases of court orders that make deductions directly from the employee’s wages. The deduction comes after the wage has been taxed and after the NIC payment. Courts orders usually happen when the individual has outstanding payments toward a certain case.

This type of deduction can either be a specific amount or a percentage of the employee’s wage.

3. Student Loans

Students at universities in the UK can get government-funded loans for their studies. They process the loans through The Student Loans Company (SLC) and after the payments are due, HMRC collects them.

Students usually start repaying their loans as soon as their income threshold crosses a certain point and once they leave their courses. There are four different repayment plans (plans 1, 2, 4 and postgraduate loans).

The income thresholds are the following:

• Plan 1— £20,195 a year
• Plan 2— £27,295 a year
• Plan 4— £25,375 a year
• Postgraduate loans— £21,000 a year

Once the threshold has been met, the deduction will be around 9% of the employee’s income for plans 1, 2, and 4 and 6% for the postgraduate loans.

4. Child Maintenance

Last but not least, the most common deduction from wages in the UK is for Child Maintenance Services. The Child Support Agency (CSA) usually asks for deductions from the employee’s account. On top of that, they can ask the employee to provide information about the employer and the employee must give that information.

How Much Can You Deduct?

There’s no fixed amount when it comes to deducting employee wages. However, you can’t deduct their monthly to a level that’s lower than the National Minimum Wage or the National Living Wage.

If you work in the retail industry or in a restaurant, then there’s a deduction limit.

In short, employers can’t deduct more than 10% of the employee’s gross wage to cover any shortfalls in the till. However, if the employee leaves the company, then the employer is allowed to deduct the full amount from your last paycheque.

When are Wage Deductions Not Allowed?

In general, employers are not allowed to make a wage deduction. But there are some exceptions to this rule such as:

• When it’s required by the law, such as in cases of income tax, student loan payment plans and National Insurance
• If you have a contract with your employees where it’s stated that you can make wage deductions
• If the employee agrees to have their wage deducted in written form
• In case there’s a statutory payment due
• When the employee hasn’t worked because they participated in a strike
• If the employee has a court order that states that their wage needs to be deducted by either a per cent or a flat rate.
• When the employer made an overpayment of wages for the employee in the previous period

Even in the above-mentioned cases, your employer should let you know when they’re going to make a pay deduction so that you can prepare for it.

Deductions From Wages Starts With Accurate Data

Whenever it comes to deductions from wages in the UK, it is imperative that you’re working with only the most accurate employee data. That’s why you need a single source of truth that is up to the challenge. May we introduce you to Personio?

As an all-in-one HRIS, Personio can house all your employee data, particulars, contracts and much more. HR can keep track of all changes, ensuring only the cleanest and most reliable data – speak with an expert and book a demo of your own today.

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