My experiences using hronline. Part 1: An overview.

By Peninsula Group Director, Alan Price

I thought it would be interesting to write a diary that would document my regular experiences using hronline, especially as I am new to using HR software supposedly designed to make my life easier.

For sometime I have wanted an alternative to noting holidays, attendance and absenteeism rather than using pen and paper, I wanted a process that was secure, a tool where I could access such information whenever and wherever I am. So when I was introduced to hronline I wondered whether it would replace my traditional method of marking holidays and absence. I decided to give hronline it a go, all I needed was a computer and a web browser, obviously these are tools most of us use daily.

The first step I needed to take when logging on to hronline was enter my username and password, this takes less than 10 seconds and I am then greeted with a user friendly interface that summarised days taken by my staff as holidays and also whether any absences has been recorded that day by management. The summary is called your dashboard, it presents you with a quick overview of your absence requests, open sickness, details of people who are late and obviously employees absent, naturally it does rely on management to input this information. As standard my managers enter the information first thing, so when I log on I’m presented with a daily summary of what is happening within my department or business.

I can also look up my own personal information such as holidays booked, any sickness and personal details such as emergency information and next of kin.

One of my favourite features of hronline is the calendar view, this provides me with a “at a glance” overview of all the days booked out as holidays whether it be by myself or my employees, it means that I can very quickly check to see what days are available, which allows me to better manage staffing resources especially during busy periods of trading, this also helps me manage staff resources and saves me money in the long term.

In my next diary entry I will look at how easy it is for both myself and employees to book holidays, I will also take a look at how various functions within hronline allows me to manage and combat absenteeism issues.