Sage Blog

With the World Cup fast approaching many people are looking forward to watching some of the world’s best footballers in action. But with a lot of the early matches taking place during the day time and the opportunity to stream games on your computer live for the first time, there are concerns that it could create a serious drain on productivity in the workplace as well as internet bandwidth. It has been reported that two million employees in London alone are expected to tune into matches during work hours.

Planning for every eventuality

It has been well documented in the past that employee sickness levels often rise during key sporting events, so every business, regardless of size, must accept that the World Cup could potentially impact their business and contingency plans should be put in place. However, it was encouraging to see from research conducted amongst our own 800,000 customer base that only one in ten businesses (10.7%) are expecting the World Cup to lead directly to absenteeism.

Taking the appropriate steps

There are a number of measures that employers can take to ensure productivity levels remain high around the World Cup and if handled considerately firms can use the event as a great way to build morale and ensure employee satisfaction.

The Sage Omnibus conducted amongst 1,500 SMEs, showed that many small businesses are planning to adopt different working practices during the tournament. Twelve percent of SMEs will be setting up a TV in the office, 6% changing their working pattern and 2% are allowing staff to work from home during this period.

Top tips for improving staff morale during the World Cup

• Be flexible – By allowing staff to have flexibility over their hours is one way that employees are able to watch specific games. Staff may choose to start early, or finish late, to make up the hours taken or even swap shifts but as long as this has been agreed in advance the company should not suffer as a result.
• Screen games at work –  As long as the business owns a valid TV license, on-site viewing is a great way to increase staff morale.
• Allow the matches to be watched online –  Have clear procedures in place which outline the company’s stance on watching games online. By knowing in advance how many employees will be streaming live games on their computers, the firm can best monitor their bandwidth and ensure their business continues to run smoothly throughout the tournament.

No one wants to miss a rampaging run from Rooney or a dazzling goal from Terry and by taking a proactive approach, companies can enable employees to follow the tournament while maintaining productivity and boosting morale.

For loads more tips to help you manage your people check out our free guide.

Cath Sheldon, Sage Brand Marketing 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

Getting To Know Your Team

Jayne Archbold, MD Sage Accountants' Division

After starting my new role as MD for Sage Accountants’ Division on 5^th October, the first month was a challenging one in that I still had a lot to hand over in my previous role with commitments to our people and customers, so October was a tricky time trying to balance everything, be everywhere (multiple locations across the UK) and keeping my desire to throw myself into the new role with gusto. 

However I’ve lived to tell the tale.  To ensure the future success for Accountants’ Division, people for me are the most important element, if we treat our people right, they’re engaged and passionate then they will provide a great experience for our customers and in turn deliver profit for our shareholders.  So getting to know my team was the first priority on my agenda in the new role.

The first thing I did was meet individually with my direct reports, getting to know them as real people and not just the job, and sharing with them who I am as a person not just the MD.  Some were a little surprised at this.  Once I’d had some insight into my direct reports I then met with their direct reports in functional teams and I asked them some simple questions:

• What do you like about working for Accountants Division?
• What don’t you like or would make it a better place to work?

in addition to sharing with them my work experience and gave them a feel for who I am as a person.  I then repeated this with their direct reports and by mid November I’d met with virtually everyone within the business.  The information I gained from this was invaluable; it’s helped me review our business plan and reprioritise on the things that are really important to our people.

So what are the top tips for getting to know your team?

1. Be yourself

Share who you are as an individual, not just the job, ensuring people really get a feel for what you stand for, your values and beliefs and the things that are important to you, make sure you’re transparent when doing this

2. Listen

Really listen to your team, make sure you actively listen to everything, the name of their children, the dog, their fears, hopes and dreams, basically start to build a relationship by understanding the things that are important to them. People have a personal life, they may be having a bad time outside of work and this will get transmitted to colleagues and customers. 

 3. Involve

Involve people, don’t pay lip service.  Have rich and invigorating conversations.  If they’re involved then you start to build the team.

 4. Share your vision

Be clear on your own vision, and the objectives, so that people know what they’re aiming for and what to expect.   

 5. Set direction

Provide feedback, and give people the space to perform.  Be there to offer support.

 6. Role model

Make sure you’re a role model, that you demonstrate what you believe in, don’t ever ask people to do things that you’re not willing to do yourself.  This sets the foundations of how you operate

 7. Visibility

Make sure you’re visible and accessible, have a clear visible agenda, everyone should know the vision and how we’ll get there.

 8. Get to know your customers

Treat your customers as you would your people, see them as part of the team.

9. Remove

Review any barriers to achieving your vision, this means stopping doing activities that don’t form part of the plan, this might include people too, give them the opportunity to work on things but be clear about the consequences if they don’t or can’t.  

10. Celebrate success

Recognise & acknowledge people.  Thank them.  Celebrate achievements and have fun.  Positive reward generates positive behaviour.

Jayne Archbold, Managing Director Sage Accountants Division