Sage Blog

Hi I’m Lucy and I am a solicitor in the legal team here at Sage.  I thought I would use this post to share some of my thoughts about language with you…

Lucy Cook, Sage Legal Team

Sage is all about passion.  I am passionate about language and more specifically about plain English.  I advocate saying what we mean.  Did you know that in Roman times, notaries (one of the predecessors of modern day solicitors) were paid by the line of text that they drafted?  The law profession has found it difficult to shake off its reputation for being long-winded and hard to understand.  At times this reputation is completely justifiable – have you read the deeds of your house recently?  Here in the Sage legal team we try to do things differently, have a look at the blog terms and conditions for an example of our handiwork!

We all need the right tools to do our job.  Here are some of the tools in my personal ‘language toolbox’:

• A saw – to cut through the jargon.  As a profession, lawyers are renowned for using jargon which is difficult (if not, impossible) for non-lawyers to understand.  Any piece of writing which is incomprehensible to its intended audience is a failure on any level.
• A ladder – to see the bigger picture.  Climb up to the top, look out and you might spy an actual reader out there!  Look up from time to time, it does you (and your writing) the world of good especially when it helps you to remember that the words you are writing will actually be read by a real human being!
• Spirit level – to keep it balanced.  What is the sense of creating a one-sided document?  It will only make the process longer (and more painful) because of the inevitable rounds of negotiation.  It’s unlikely that a heavily biased document will reflect the values of you or your business.
• Pliers – to pick out archaic language.  ‘Theretofore’, ‘notwithstanding’, ‘hereinafter’ – pluck them out and chuck them out!
• Magnifying glass – attention to detail is everything and the magnifying glass helps me review, review and review.  Nothing is more frustrating than spotting a typo when your carefully crafted document has already gone to print.  That said, when it’s approaching home time and I have been working on the same clause for what feels like hours, I hand the magnifying glass to a colleague.  We all suffer from word-blindness from time to time and sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can make that all important difference.
• A scrap book – I know that for the sake of the metaphor, this one should be sacrificed but to me its importance outweighs the integrity of the metaphor!  While you won’t find an actual physical saw, ladder, spirit level or a magnifying glass in my desk drawer there is a real scrap book in there.  I paste in cuttings which catch my attention.  It might be the disclaimer on a bottle of bubble bath or some competition terms on the back of my morning cereal box.  When I am in need of some inspiration, I flick through for ideas.

Of course, I write from the perspective of a lawyer but to my mind the above points all apply (to some extent) universally.  We can all use language as a valuable tool in our quest to wow our customers and partners.

I would love to hear from you about which tools you would select for your own language toolbox.  All together now – can we fix it?  Yes we can!

Lucy Cook, Sage Legal Team

Paul Tooth, Sage HR and Payroll

One of the most positive outcomes of the recession is that the importance of cultivating and retaining talent has become too large for organisations to ignore. In today’s knowledge economy, a business is only as good as its people and reliance on the feature-set of their products and services is not enough. Firms must invest in their people by engaging their workforce and developing their skills sets if they are to maximise corporate performance.

Technology: HR’s right-hand man?

HR departments are embracing technologies that will enable them to become more streamlined and respond quickly to new opportunities. Scalable software that can manage the employee lifecycle and carefully track the talent, knowledge and career development of their workforce, not only helps remove the administrative burden for HR but ultimately increases motivation and commitment amongst the workforce by letting employees know that the business cares about their development. Indeed, with businesses beginning to look beyond short term survival, it’s those companies that provide clear progression and talent management that are seen as good places to work and are most likely to succeed.

HR software

HR software was traditionally considered to be a tool used by HR departments to reduce cumbersome administration; and in that role it has never failed to deliver. Holding core data on employees, software not only helps HR teams to automate processes and carry out tasks quickly and more efficiently, but also enables more proactive decision making through better access to accurate and real time information. The time and efficiency savings this gives the HR function are indisputable. Yet with HR technology rapidly evolving to meet the requirements of today’s diverse and flexible workforce, these benefits do not end there.

Talent Management

HR software has advanced to store vital information around the knowledge, critical skills sets, leadership qualities and career development paths within an organisation’s workforce. This escalates a business’s knowledge of its talent pool and can help an organisation to more accurately forecast and plan how its total operation will perform based on the resources and expertise that can be consolidated from across the company.

Looking forward

Many organisations are focusing their efforts toward re-evaluating HR processes and making the necessary software investments to reduce administration, become more streamlined and cultivate talent. Making these changes today will not only improve competitiveness and provide the operational clarity required to maximise corporate performance, but will also help to retain talented employees and prepare the organisation to exploit future economic growth.

Top tips for implementing HR software

• Understand what the business needs and ensure that this is documented and understood by any potential supplier
• Be pragmatic about the role that software will play within the business. Needs evolve and change in line with the system itself, as users realise the capabilities and functionalities it has. It’s important to have a core system in place but ensure that there is scope to extend or refresh it in any way
• Phasing implementations in the right way is critical to ensuring that the foundations are in place to allow the system to evolve as the business needs it to
• Knowledge transfer is key. It’s important that vendors provide refresher courses to maintain a broad knowledge and understanding of the system across the workforce
• Customisation of an HR system can prove beneficial, but needs to be carefully considered.

Paul Tooth, General Manager, Sage HR and Payroll

What’s best for you? Payroll software or outsourcing your payroll

At some time, all businesses, whatever their size, have posed this question and tried to deal with the reality of the answer.

Many businesses feel that the right option is to invest in payroll software and staff to manage the payroll in house, but many others feel that the better option is to outsource their payroll.

What are the key considerations?

Time:  Does your business have the time and expertise to take their focus away from their business so that they can deal with payroll weekly or monthly?  Payroll is a task that has natural peaks and troughs throughout the month – will filling this role internally be cost effective for your business?

Reliability: It goes without saying that your staff will require payment on time, every time.  The payroll must be accurate and must be processed when it is due regardless of holiday, sickness or any other unforeseen circumstances

Confidentiality: Payroll is probably the most sensitive subject within a business – an indiscretion can cause huge upset – can the organization be sure that sensitive information is kept confidential?

Flexibility: Changes may need to be made to payroll at any time – will the in house resource always be available to make last minute changes?

Cost: Last but by no means least, cost is a major consideration for businesses when considering outsourcing.  While it may be advantageous to have in house staff available ‘on tap’ as it were, there are costs involved in staffing this role, eg holiday/absence cover, on going training (payroll is an area that is guaranteed to have annual changes – and that’s before whoever is sitting in No 11 decides to be imaginative (remember the computer incentive scheme!), not forgetting the cost of the payroll software, support and annual updates.

We know that different customers have different needs, which is why we offer both payroll outsourcing and payroll software, so take your time to work out what solution suits you and your business the best.

Alison Godwin, Sage Outsource