Don’t get stuck in your own Groundhog Day: 4 easy changes to re-energise your business

Over in the US, February 2nd is officially Groundhog Day. Where, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a groundhog named Phil determines if winter will continue for six more weeks or if spring will arrive early. This is all based on whether the groundhog sees his shadow.

While this is hardly pertinent for us in Australia, the 1993 Hollywood film starring Bill Murray has deeper relevance for everyone. Murray, of course, plays a super bored, super arrogant weatherman who ends up stuck in Punxsutawney, reliving February 2nd ad nauseum. That is, until he changes his ways, by way of self-awareness and self-growth.

So, in honour of Groundhog Day, the film, and all the business owners and managers out there who feel stuck in your own Groundhog Day, here are 4 easy ways to re-energise your business and escape from the drudgery of doing the same things over and over again.

Change the way you manage HR

As an owner or manager of a small business, the time you, or one of your employees spends on routine HR paperwork can be considerable. It’s a full-time job staying up-to-date with workplace regulations, and tracking and reporting on the required data in the right way.

Using manual systems, everything from recruitment to onboarding, day-to-day people management takes a huge amount time. And all of this comes with a lengthy paper trail.

Changing to HR automation can help you dramatically reduce the time you spend on HR tasks, freeing up admin staff to work on value-creating or income generating initiatives instead. Of course, by streamlining business processes, you make your business more efficient too.

Change the way you create rosters

Having a structured and well-organised roster is critical to any successful business, particularly when you’re managing a mix of casual, part-time and full-time shift workers.

But in 2017, you need to forget about confining your roster to a spreadsheet and pinning it up in the staff lunchroom. Instead of manually writing up rosters and spending countless hours making updates to accommodate staff flexibility requests, you can automate it all online.

Using more effective methods to create and share rosters enables your business to be more efficient, while providing staff with better information. You’ll also gain valuable insights into their performance on the job. Something you certainly can’t get out of your spreadsheet!

Change the way you process payroll

If you’re still using a manual payroll system, it can be hard to know that you’re paying your employees correctly, accounting for any applicable penalty rates, overtime or leave requests.

In fact, it’s all too common for employers to underpay employees or breach award conditions simply because they were not aware of the entitlements. Yet ignorance never serves as a good defence in these types of cases.

Plus, manual systems are prone to human error. Manually reconciling time and attendance records, calculating pays, taxes, superannuation, and having it all double-checked is certainly not the best use of your time when there are purpose-built programs to do it for you. Error free.

Change the way you keep records

In Australia, you must keep detailed time and wages records for seven years. This includes everything from employee details, such as their name and commencement date, to pay rates, and hours of work, including any penalty rates or loading paid for overtime.

While you can keep all this information in manila folders in a bank of filing cabinets, changing to an automated system gives you much more control. This includes a full audit trail, allowing you to easily check that you are keeping appropriate records and complying with all relevant government regulations.

Plus, with all your HR documents at your fingertips in the cloud, you’ll always be able to put your hands on the right HR records when you really need them.

Make the change

On this Groundhog Day, re-energise your business by escaping from the drudgery of manual processes.

Of course, you can’t beat Employment Hero for automating your HR, payroll and record keeping. Rather than using manual processes and spreadsheets to manage employee data and HR tasks, you can use our all-in-one HR, Payroll and Benefits platform. It not only saves you time and money, but it also helps you minimise risk.

So, on this Groundhog Day, make a change for the better by starting a trial of Employment Hero.