South Yorkshire Housing Association (SYHA) Case Study - ASR’s Flexible HR & Self Service Software Enables Leading Housing Association To Meet All Their HR Needs

Flexible HR Software

South Yorkshire Housing Association (SYHA) is a charitable non - profit making organisation, controlled by a Board of Management. The Association has a Senior Management Team comprising of a Chief Executive and four Directors.

SYHA started life in 1972 with sponsorship and financial support from Shelter, the campaign for the Homeless. In 1975 the Association became 'registered' and since then its work has been financed by Local Councils, Central Government (through the Housing Corporation), and more recently, by Local Health Authorities and Social Services. SYHA’s head office which is located in Sheffield is well placed to contribute to the city region developing around Sheffield and across the regional boundaries of the North and North Midlands.

Employer of Choice

Human resources continues to be one of SYHA major success stories, being one of the three associations short-listed as the National Employer of Choice for the prestigious National Housing Federation’s In Business for Neighbourhood’s awards.

SYHA’s HR function includes a team of 9 based at their Head Office in Sheffield, servicing 1 other office and 30 other sites across the Yorkshire region.

HR Manager, Hilary Hughes was the prime mover behind the introduction of a new HR system in 2003. Starting with SYHA in 1999, the role of HR Manager was Hilary’s first taste of HR management and since starting at SYHA Hilary has completed a CIPD Masters degree. Prior to her role with SYHA Hilary helped companies strive for business excellence, improving their HR practices and helping them achieve IIP status.

When Hilary started as HR Manager for SYHA the HR function was using an Access database. Although there had been considerable development on the Access database, Hilary realised its limitations. Increasing demands for information by the Directors and managers could not be met and the database could not provide the tangible data required to run any successful organisation.

Like all Housing Associations, SYHA have to abide by the guidelines and regulations drawn up by various regulatory bodies. KPI’s and benchmarking have to be reported on a quarterly and annual basis. Therefore, the lack of reporting functionality and flexibility were the key drivers that led to Hilary and her team to realise the need to procure a comprehensive HR software solution.

Housing Association Marketplace

The Housing Association marketplace is unique in that many of the housing associations within a certain geographical location meet regularly to benchmark, share best practice and ideas with each other. It was at one of the meetings that Hilary requested some advice from the other members in choosing an HR software system and an idea of what needed to be included in a tender document. One of the HR Managers from Connect Housing was using ASR’s software solution and had being doing so for a number of years.

Very happy with ASR and their HR software solution the HR Manager from Connect Housing suggested that Hilary visit his office to have a look at their HR system operating in a live environment. Hilary was extremely impressed with the system and it gave her a good idea of the type of HR software solution that she was looking for.

As a result of seeing ASR’s HR software operating in a live environment and the glowing report that she received from the HR Manager from Connect Housing, ASR were invited in, along with two other HR software suppliers to complete the tender and demonstrate their software to SYHA’s project team.

Comprehensive Procurement Process

After evaluating all of the HR software suppliers tenders, demonstrations and customer references, SYHA decided that ASR and their HR software solution was the best one for them. SYHA purchased ASR’s HR, Training and Self-Service software running on a MS SQL server across Citrix.

Hilary comments: “From the first time I saw ASR’s HR software at Connect Housing Association it always stood out, particularly in terms of its reporting capabilities, flexibility, stability of the product and the fact that the HR system could evolve with needs of SYHA.

“Also, the fact that ASR has a depth of experience in providing HR & Payroll solutions to other Housing Associations giving us confidence that ASR really understood our needs and requirements and offered the functionality to match.

Hilary continues, “Key experience in the Housing Association marketplace should not be underestimated and ASR definitely, ticked all the boxes. So much so that another Housing Association also bought ASR’s HR software solution soon after us.

“The ability to report on any field within the system means that any report requested by the Directors can be provided to them immediately, supplying them with the data that they need to make informed decisions on moving our organisation forward.”

ASR has been providing SYHA’s HR software solution for over 4 years now and the system has evolved significantly, thanks to the flexibility of ASR’s products.

Self-service Software

After attending a number of ASR’s training courses Shaun Lacey has become SYHA HR software product champion, spearheading a number of database projects. Utilising the functionality and tools within ASR’s Self-service software, Shaun has set  up email links that notify Line Managers and Payroll when a temporary contract is about to expire; providing employees who have been off sick with an email reminder to complete their absence statement and reminding employees with company cars that their insurance is due to expire. All of which have helped to generate a number of efficiencies that now benefit the whole of SYHA.

Shaun comments: “ASR’s self-service training course was particularly beneficial as it allowed me to come back to the office and not only design new screens, but to load them onto our corporate intranet. I was also able to design the screens in a way that ensured that we achieved consistent branding using our corporate colours and logo.”

Shaun continues: “All managers across all our offices and sites now accesses ASR’s self-service module. The initial roll out has not included full access immediately, as we want to adopt a phased approach to ensure that everyone became familiar with the system and realised the benefits of ASR’s software. We will be rolling the self service module out to all employees shortly.  The success of the roll will allow us to provide all employees and Line Managers with full access so that employees will be able to book holidays and Line Mangers will be able to authorise them. With holiday balances automatically updated in the core HR system, the amount of time saved will be extremely beneficial. Line Managers are also be able to run reports pertinent to them.”

Functional Flexibility and Ease of Use

Although ASR provide a Recruitment module, the core HR software already has recruitment functionality built in which is sufficient for most organisations. Shaun has configured some additional fields to help manage SYHA’s rapid recruitment, which since 2002 has led to a 45% increase in staff. SYHA have managed to save considerably on recruitment costs because of utilising the recruitment functionality in ASR’s HR software. During the recruitment process, SYHA often meet exceptional candidates for various positions, finding that there is very little to choose between them and the successful applicant. Candidates go through SYHA’s stringent recruitment process at considerable cost in both time and money, however SYHA use ASR’s HR software to build up a database of candidates that may be suitable for other positions.

Recruitment

Hilary says: “Via ASR’s self-service software Line Managers are able to run a ‘reserve candidates’ report to view a list of reserve candidates before they have to advertise for a job, which saves SYHA an awful lot of money each year. Our recruitment for Project and Support workers will have the same job description and this will be very typical for most Housing Associations. So rather than spend all that time, effort and cost on recruitment we often identify candidates using ASR’s HR software.”

Housing Association Key Features

ASR’s HR software ensures that SYHA manage all Criminal Record Bureau checks effectively. In addition, the CRB report, which has to be run every three years, is fully automated within the product.

Like all Housing Associations, SYHA can be audited on Schedule 1 of the Housing Act. ASR’s HR software manages this process effectively and a complete audit trail is available from within the software to help ensure transparency. As Hilary comments: “If the Housing Corporation were to come and check our schedule 1 compliance we are able to provide them with the necessary information via ASR’s HR software.”

Diversity Action Plan

In line with SYHA’s diversity action plan the board are extremely interested in the make up of all SYHA employees. A detailed equal opportunities report run from ASR’s HR software, breaking down all employees by age, gender and ethnicity is supplied to the board allowing them to monitor progress. Using the ASR’s software, SYHA has been able to demonstrate real improvements with the black and minority employee ratio increasing from 4% to 11%.

Every year, members of the Housing Association regional HR group agree to set up benchmarks on key areas in HR in order to see what improvement have been made. Some of which include the levels of staff turnover, recruitment costs and sickness absence. Each HA then provides a report that includes the statistics and analysis on all of the key elements. Since the introduction of ASR’s HR Software SYHA is now able to provide the information in no time.

In-built Report Writer

Hilary comments: “ASR’s HR software allows us to identify areas that need to be improved upon and allows us to put the procedures and processes in place which allow those improvements to happen. Without ASR’s software it would be extremely difficult to do this as we would not be able to monitor the information closely and act accordingly.”

ASR’s HR Software provides a systematic approach to help SYHA manage the Investors In People process. Utilising the reporting functionality SYHA is able to illustrate how they are improving business results by making the most of the skills and capabilities of their staff by running reports on appraisals, training records and training spend.

Evolving the System

Hilary continues, “We have a number of plans for the future, which will see the expansion and use of self-service throughout the whole organisation. As SYHA continues to grow, we want to be in a position to promote employees internally and we will look to move our appraisal process on-line, helping Line Managers to identify skills gaps put together learning and development plans for members of their team.”

“It is likely that some employees will have skills that are not being completely utilised and we want to improve in this area. ASR’s software with succession planning and career progression functionality already included will help us to do this.”

“I see HR as the SYHA employee support team. We do not generate money, we cost, however we can make Line Managers’ lives easier and one of the ways I see us being able to deliver on this is through the introduction of ASR’s .NET HR Workflow module. “

ASR’s .net Workflow module is critical to driving greater efficiency within HR. It is a process which delivers the right work to the right people at the right time, eradicating the need for highly labour intensive activities. In essence Workflow can help to reduce costs, improve productivity, provide faster processing times and by using electronic forms, take organizations a step closer to a paperless office. This improves process visibility, which is key for tracking progress and improvement.

.NET HR Workflow

Shaun first became aware of ASR’s .NET HR Workflow module at one of their User Group meetings. Shaun comments, “The module ties in perfectly with ASR’s self-service software and will enhance the email triggers that we already have set up in the system; allowing us to complete a true workflow process.”

“We can take the pressure off Line Managers, as they will no longer have to find the relevant form to print and complete. The form will be electronic and embedded in the email. Clicking on the link will take the Line Managers to the form without even having to log into another application. The Line Manager completes the form and all the data feeds back into the core HR system.”

Hilary adds: “ASR’s .net Workflow software will even provide Line Managers with prompts to ensure that the task is completed. Inevitably, we will see huge administration overhead savings and tasks completed more efficiently and effectively. I also see the module helping us to manage our 360-degree appraisals process.”

An important aspect of any software supplier is the support that they provide after the sale and through the product life cycle of the customer relationship. Hilary acknowledges this: ASR’s UK support desk staff are extremely helpful and responsive. Furthermore, ASR are always extremely professional and we look forward to continuing our relationship with them.”

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