Author: LabourGenie.net

Only the Smartest Survive: LabourGenie.net Customer Day to Tackle Workforce Chaos with Smart Tech, Strategic Thinking, and Survivor Spirit

Johannesburg, South Africa – 17 July 2025 – In a rapidly shifting economic climate where businesses must outsmart disruption and outperform instability, LabourGenie.net is stepping up with an event designed to help South African companies not just survive – but thrive.

The LabourGenie.net Customer Day, hosted in partnership with Deel Local Payroll powered by PaySpace and Peopleware, will take place on 7 August 2025, in Pineslopes, Johannesburg. Themed “The Ultimate Business Survival Kit”, this highly anticipated event blends cutting-edge workforce solutions, local and global payroll innovation, and a unique dose of reality-TV inspiration, featuring Nicole Capper and Felix Godlo of Survivor SA fame as co-MCs.

Turning Workforce Mayhem into Competitive Advantage

As Workforce Management (WFM) becomes increasingly complex, balancing remote workforces, compliance mandates, global payroll demands, and skills shortages, organisations are seeking solutions that can adapt as fast as the market changes.

The event brings together WFM innovators, HR tech experts, and operational leaders to explore how technology can transform reactive businesses into strategic powerhouses. 

Attendees will get a front-row seat to:

• Live demos of WFM tools that turn complexity into clarity
• Quick-hit talks from tech and business experts on current workforce trends
• The official launch of Peopleware—South Africa’s new player in workforce optimisation
• Panel-style conversations about how to build resilient, high-performing teams
• Networking with peers and industry leaders in an energised setting
• A Survivor’s Game Plan for Business Success

Adding a unique flavour to the agenda are Nicole Capper and Felix Godlo, two well-known faces from Survivor South Africa, who will guide the day’s programme. They’ll unpack the parallels between surviving in the wild and navigating workforce challenges – drawing connections between adaptability, clarity of purpose, and the power of the right team.

“It’s not luck – it’s bold partnerships, proven technology, and the smartest game plan,” says Dereck Sigamoney of LabourGenie.net. “This event is about giving South African businesses the tools they need to stop reacting and start outlasting.”

Why You Should Attend

South African businesses are under pressure to do more with less, especially in HR, payroll, and service environments. As WFM becomes more strategic, tools that automate compliance, optimise scheduling, and integrate seamlessly with global payroll systems are not just nice-to-haves – they’re essential.

This event is designed for:

• Business owners and C-suite leaders looking to unlock productivity
• HR and operations managers who want to simplify complexity
• Payroll and compliance specialists seeking smarter tools
• Organisations keen to explore cloud-based, mobile-ready WFM solutions

Registrations Now Open – Seats Are Limited

Seats are limited, and each confirmed attendee will receive a Survival Welcome Pack and entry into exclusive prize draws.

RSVP now to secure your place, HERE.

Event Details:

• Venue: Pineslopes, JHB – to be confirmed on acceptance of registration 
• Date: 7 August 2025
• Time: 08h30 for 09h00 – 11h30
• Full breakfast & bottomless barista brews
• High-value prize giveaways & Survival Welcome Packs

Issued by:

Perfect Word Consulting (Pty) Ltd on behalf of LabourGenie.net

Media contact: perfectword@trinitas.co.za 

Event partners: labourgenie.net | payspace.com | peopleware.com

LabourGenie.Net Boilerplate:

LabourGenie.Net is a fast-growing solutions implementation services specialist in the Workforce Management and Human Capital disciplines. Driven by strong customer, partner, and employee relations, the organisation operates in the Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, Hospitality, and Aviation verticals. As a Level 2 B-BBEE contributor, LabourGenie.Net focusses strongly on exceptional, cutting edge, and innovative strategies that embrace the changing and diverse employee populations, processes, and technologies.

Led by an expert executive team, LabourGenie.Net is recognised as a trusted advisor in the workforce management space, with the highest concentrated, certified, experienced, and skilled Solution Engineers in South Africa.   

Peopleware and LabourGenie.Net Partner to Expand Workforce Solutions Across South Africa

Peopleware, a leading provider of innovative workforce management (WFM) solutions, announces its strategic partnership with LabourGenie.Net, a trusted regional solutions provider, to serve as an official reseller of Peopleware’s workforce management solutions in Southern Africa. This collaboration marks a significant step in Peopleware’s commitment to expanding its reach and delivering its renowned WFM expertise to a broader regional market.

This partnership is a strategic move designed to leverage LabourGenie.net’s strong local presence, supported by local expertise and hands-on service. With a deep understanding of the South African market and local Workforce Management challenges, LabourGenie.net will provide businesses across Southern Africa with Peopleware’s strategic WFM suite.

“We are excited to join forces with LabourGenie.Net, whose local expertise and commitment to customer success perfectly align with our values,” said Christof Bollenbeck, Global Sales Director at Peopleware. “Through this partnership, we are expanding the reach of our proven Workforce Management solutions to organisations across Southern Africa. LabourGenie.Net’s strong market presence and deep customer relationships will be instrumental in delivering measurable value and operational excellence to inbound and outbound contact centres and other businesses in this vibrant region.”

“LabourGenie.Net is committed to supporting our customers with comprehensive, future-ready workforce management solutions. By adding Peopleware’s advanced Workforce Management (WFM) suite to our portfolio, we can now offer seamless, end-to-end solutions specifically designed for contact centres,” says Dereck Sigamoney, Managing Director at LabourGenie.Net. “This partnership enables us to help Southern African businesses not just improve scheduling and forecasting, but also drive productivity, optimise staffing, and ensure exceptional service delivery in contact centre operations.”

To celebrate this exciting new partnership and showcase the value Peopleware brings to the South African market., LabourGenie.net is hosting a joint customer day on August 7, 2025, in Johannesburg. The event is open to all interested parties in the region who want to learn more about how Peopleware’s WFM solutions can transform their contact centre operations.

To register your interest, click here. 

About LabourGenie.net

LabourGenie.Net is a fast-growing solutions implementation services specialist in the Workforce Management and Human Capital disciplines. Driven by strong customer, partner, and employee relations, the organisation operates in the Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, Hospitality, and Aviation verticals. As a Level 2 B-BBEE contributor, LabourGenie.Net focuses strongly on exceptional, cutting-edge, and innovative strategies that embrace the changing and diverse employee populations, processes, and technologies.

Led by an expert executive team, LabourGenie.Net is recognised as a trusted advisor in the workforce management space, with the highest concentrated, certified, experienced, and skilled Solution Engineers in South Africa.  

About Peopleware:

Peopleware is a leading workforce management solution, designed to help organizations of all sizes to empower their people to do outstanding work. Peopleware’s comprehensive and innovative platform features advanced forecasting, scheduling, real-time management, and employee engagement tools. Peopleware is trusted by a global community of 500,000 users in over 30 countries worldwide to optimize their workforce efficiency and boost employee morale every day. Peopleware is a brand of InVision Group, a pioneer in workforce management since its foundation in 1995.

For more information, visit www.peopleware.com.

By Dereck Sigamoney, Managing Director at LabourGenie.net

Payroll rarely makes headlines… at least it doesn’t unless something goes wrong. A missed pay run, incorrect tax deduction, or slip in compliance can quickly turn routine operations into reputational and regulatory nightmares.

What’s often overlooked is how closely payroll performance is tied to broader workforce management. The reality is that most organisations that treat payroll as a standalone function end up struggling with the same challenges: rising error rates, growing compliance exposure, and a disengaged workforce.

It’s time to rethink the relationship between payroll and workforce management. Here are four reasons why the smartest businesses are bringing these functions together and seeing measurable gains.

Because mistakes can cost more than money

Most employees don’t peer behind the payroll curtain – they simply expect it to work, and rightly so. Their livelihoods depend on it, so one wrong payslip can shake that trust. Research shows nearly half of employees would consider leaving a company after just two payroll errors.

In sectors already battling skills shortages, like logistics, healthcare, and retail, that’s a risk few businesses can afford. Integrated payroll and workforce management systems create a direct line from time capture to pay, dramatically reducing manual errors. They also give employees self-service visibility into schedules, payslips, and leave balances, boosting trust and long-term loyalty.

Because compliance shouldn’t keep you up at night

South African businesses navigate a complex regulatory maze, from BCEA overtime rules to sectoral agreements and SARS reporting. Managing this manually, or with disconnected systems, is a compliance risk waiting to happen.

Modern unified platforms automatically update to reflect new laws and agreements, flagging issues before they become penalties. They also maintain a full audit trail; meaning when the Department of Labour calls, you’re ready.

Because more than tech, it’s a smarter way to work

Disconnected systems force managers to jump between platforms, chase down timesheet anomalies, and manually reconcile data at month-end. The result? Frustration, inefficiency, and preventable mistakes.

By contrast, a single, cloud-based platform connects the dots… from rostering and attendance to payroll processing. Real-time analytics highlight issues early, freeing up managers to focus on customers and operations, not admin firefighting.

Because payroll is a strategic asset for the future

Payroll might seem like a back-office function, but it’s central to employee wellbeing and business continuity. When paired with intelligent workforce management, it becomes a strategic lever, ensuring people are paid correctly and on time, compliance is bulletproof, and the business can grow with confidence.

At LabourGenie.net, we believe every business should expect more from its payroll and workforce systems. At the end of the day, payroll isn’t just about numbers. It’s about people – and that’s where the real competitive edge lies.

Issued by Perfect Word Consulting (Pty) Ltd 

For more information contact perfectword@trinitas.co.za   

LabourGenie.Net Boilerplate:

LabourGenie.Net is a fast-growing solutions implementation services specialist in the Workforce Management and Human Capital disciplines. Driven by strong customer, partner, and employee relations, the organisation operates in the Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, Hospitality, and Aviation verticals. As a Level 2 B-BBEE contributor, LabourGenie.Net focusses strongly on exceptional, cutting edge, and innovative strategies that embrace the changing and diverse employee populations, processes, and technologies.

Led by an expert executive team, LabourGenie.Net is recognised as a trusted advisor in the workforce management space, with the highest concentrated, certified, experienced, and skilled Solution Engineers in South Africa.   

By Dereck Sigamoney, Managing Director at LabourGenie.net

In a world increasingly driven by automation, data, and optimisation dashboards, it’s easy to forget what keeps the gears of logistics and distribution moving: people. Not just any people. Frontline employees. The forklift driver navigating narrow aisles, the dispatcher balancing unpredictable routes, the warehouse operative hustling to meet impossible timelines. These are the individuals who determine whether promises are kept or broken.

Yet, for far too long, they’ve been overlooked in strategic planning. That’s starting to change. New research from workforce solutions leader UKG shows that organisations in the logistics and transportation space that invest intentionally in their frontline teams see measurable, sustainable returns. From faster productivity growth to lower turnover and safer operations, the numbers tell a clear story: people-powered performance delivers.

This is something we at LabourGenie.net have been advocating for years. The local logistics and distribution industry has unique challenges – high staff turnover, shrinking profit margins, and increasing compliance demands… but the solution doesn’t lie in working harder. It lies in working smarter, through people.

When frontline employees are trained, supported, and given a clear growth trajectory, everything changes. Accuracy improves. Processes speed up. Attrition slows. Safety becomes a culture, not a checklist. What we’ve seen time and again in client operations is that well-trained employees don’t just do their jobs better – they take ownership. They innovate. They care.

Think about the economics: if your dispatch team can shave 10% off turnaround times because they’ve been trained to use the latest route optimisation tools effectively, that’s not just efficiency; it’s competitive advantage. If your warehouse staff are confident in handling digital inventory systems, fewer errors make it out the door. Every mistake avoided, every delay prevented, every resignation averted translates directly into savings and service improvements.

The real opportunity lies in shifting from a cost-based view of workforce development to a value-based one. Too many businesses still treat training as a tick-box exercise. The leaders that are pulling ahead are those that embed learning into their culture. They measure its impact. They link it to business outcomes. Most importantly? They listen to what their people need to thrive.

In South Africa, we must go even further. With constrained resources and a deep need for inclusive growth, investing in frontline development is not just a smart business move – it’s a social imperative. If we want to build resilient, future-ready logistics operations, we must begin with the people who already show up every day to make them work.

It’s time to rethink our definitions of innovation. Yes, tech matters. But real transformation? It starts on the warehouse floor.

Issued by Perfect Word Consulting (Pty) Ltd 

For more information contact perfectword@trinitas.co.za   

LabourGenie.Net Boilerplate:

LabourGenie.Net is a fast-growing solutions implementation services specialist in the Workforce Management and Human Capital disciplines. Driven by strong customer, partner, and employee relations, the organisation operates in the Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, Hospitality, and Aviation verticals. As a Level 2 B-BBEE contributor, LabourGenie.Net focusses strongly on exceptional, cutting edge, and innovative strategies that embrace the changing and diverse employee populations, processes, and technologies.

Led by an expert executive team, LabourGenie.Net is recognised as a trusted advisor in the workforce management space, with the highest concentrated, certified, experienced, and skilled Solution Engineers in South Africa.   

Delivering intelligent transport and road management systems across the African continent demands a pioneering approach. In road and related infrastructure management, structured, strategic decision making is crucial to success – having a marked impact on the state of the nations’ roads, and those who use them. 

Since 1984, InstaToll Africa (Pty) Ltd has employed a forward-thinking approach to Africa’s road infrastructure management. With a dedication to quality assurance, InstaToll relies on its 1000+ employees to deliver on its vision to develop sound, lasting, cost-effective solutions. With this headcount, situated in various locations across the continent, an innovative Workforce Management (WFM) solution is critical to daily operations. 

From compliance to fair labour practices, financial management, time and attendance tracking, and every element associated to the InstaToll workforce, manual interventions simply were not making the grade. Prior to breaking away from Group 5, InstaToll had been on Kronos WFM, and experienced the efficiencies this solution had to offer. As it established its independent footprint across Africa, the team realised this was not a task that could be undertaken without technological intervention. 

“Without a reliable WFM system, managing payroll and timesheets across the plazas would be time consuming, a far greater number of human resources would be required, and both the business and its employees would suffer the brunt of inevitable human error,” confirms Ayanda Zwelibanzi, Payroll Officer at InstaToll. 

With this insight in mind, InstaToll management leaned on the expertise of its long-term solutions implementation specialists, LabourGenie.Net to find the best fit for the business. Having had experience with the Kronos system, the cloud-based UKG Dimensions® (now UKG Pro Workforce Management™ under the UKG Pro® product suite) was a natural – yet considered – choice. 

According to InstaToll HR/IR Manager, Thuli Madikiza, the UKG implementation was prefaced with in-depth assessment, planning, and training. “This resulted in a seamless implementation. The team at LabourGenie.net provided invaluable support in all phases of the project, with particular focus on secure data cleansing and migration to the new system, configuration, and training.” 

UKG values its partnerships and customers in South Africa. “As a channel team we are dedicated to providing support to our team in region. Onboarding InstaToll and supporting LabourGenie.Net has been a priority in the territory,” confirms Wendy Wood Sr. Director, EMEA Alliances, UKG. “UKG’s latest SaaS solution – UKG Pro Workforce Management – was the perfect fit for Instatoll and the outcomes they wished to achieve.  Deploying UKG Pro Time and Absence Management gives Instatoll the workforce information to drive Labour decisions and strategies.”

What InstaToll needed was a robust time and attendance solution that can grow with the business, scale up as it expands further into Africa, and which offered sound absence management as a module. “For these reasons, we chose UKG. It is the best fit for our business, and the ‘plug and play’ modules it offers give us the flexibility we desperately,” states Sipho Thamane, Financial Director at InstaToll. 

From a risk perspective, the solution not only increases productivity and efficiencies – correct schedules, limited overtime, less absenteeism – but also mitigates the risk of CCMA cases, as human error is eliminated. “In instances where a CCMA case does occur, irrefutable time and attendance records often offer vital submissible evidence. This is another benefit of data driven business management,” adds Madikiza. 

While the WFM solution offers several marked benefits, to InstaToll the most critical are unform pay polices across the organisation and fair remuneration. “With the solution, we ensure we have the right person, at the right place, at the right time, and with the right skills… all while also accurately monitoring and assessing labour budgets and payroll, proactively tackling absence management, and effectively tracking employee leave” Madikiza says. 

In the highly regulated labour space, sound HR management and compliance are critical business success factors. Now InstaToll adds leave balances to payslips with certainty, and biometric clock-in solutions ensure hours are correct and staff are paid accordingly. As the business seeks to expand into more African countries, eliminating manual processes has also stood out as a key driver for investment, confidence, and auditability. 

“Labour costs make up 40 to 50 percent of our financials; if these figures are manual, it is seen as a huge red flag – even the smallest of errors can have disastrous knock-on effects,” recalls Thamane. “The ability to make data-driven decisions also ensures sound business strategy, accurate and timeous reporting to the board, a deep understanding of risks and how to mitigate them, and empowers us to overcome reactive management.”  

With data analytics at its core, reporting is of utmost importance in InstaToll’s sector – driving critical information to EXCOs and to the board in line with social ethics, audit and risk, and KPA requirements and metrics. “Of course, ease of use is critical. Our users are able to complete tasks on the system with confidence, which has driven up user adoption,” adds Zwelibanzi.

Now the business is streamlined, scheduling capabilities are enhanced, data is transformed into meaningful insights, and all facets of workforce management are integrated into one solution. “The result is a future-proofed organisation, leaning on a highly configurable, cost-effective tool,” says Dereck Sigamoney, Managing Director at LabourGenie.net. “As a cloud-based solution, InstaToll further benefits from no need for on-premises servers and associated maintenance costs, automatic updates, access to the latest features and security patches, easy scalability, seamless remote access, and improved data security measures with full compliance to GDPR and POPIA.” 

The team at InstaToll certainly experienced the value of forging strong relationships with a service provider. “At InstaToll we place a large emphasis on building partnerships. To us, Dereck is a partner in our business, supporting InstaToll as it found its feet in independence, with total reliability and trust,” believes Thamane. “Operating with a deep understanding of our business, we know we can rely on his advice – our goals are aligned, so when we win, we win together.”

Issued by Perfect Word Consulting (Pty) Ltd 

perfectword@trinitas.co.za 

For more information visit: 

https://instatoll.co.za
https://labourgenie.net/

The world is digitising faster than ever before. Today, approaching businesses with a holistic solution is crucial. Particularly in the labour space, this methodology ensures seamless data connectivity and reduces the likelihood of errors. The result is an improvement in the internal workflow of a business, and its prospects in the market. Simply implementing a piece of software that is neither adopted nor driven within the organisation no longer makes the grade. 

For true return on investment, the goal should be to integrate all software systems into one solution. This ensures that the business is operating with a single point of reference from a data perspective; essentially helping the company to achieve improved, real-time visibility, effective processes, increased sales, and decreased costs. With this approach, valuable data can be collected to drive employee productivity and efficiency, bringing about greater employee engagement and overall labour effectiveness.

Experts confirm that achieving a solution-based approached requires the alignment of people, processes, and technology. “Implementing technology is the easy part, but it is not a silver bullet. To optimise benefits an organisation must look to its people and processes to create a synergistic cultural transformation, leveraging the new technology platform. When this alignment comes to fruition, the business will enjoy cost efficiency, business agility, compliance ease and visibility, customer focus, and staff satisfaction,” confirms Ndumiso Radebe, Technical Director at LabourGenie.Net – a fast-growing solutions implementation services specialist organisation in the Workforce Management and Human Capital disciplines.

Dereck Sigamoney, Managing Director at LabourGenie.Net, describes the ‘golden triangle’; three keys to successful solution adoption, project implementations, organisational change, and a back-to-basics approach to solving complex business problems. He confirms that technology should be the final consideration once the business problem is clearly understood, and the solution requirements have been well-defined.

“It always begins with the people. Stakeholders must add value to the team, a top-down approach is crucial, and team member must be equipped with the relevant soft- and hard-skills. The second key is applying processes. Consider the steps required to solve the business problem, interrogate the tasks required (taking into consideration variations, exceptions, interdependencies, and supporting processes), and review the processes with the relevant stakeholders. The third and final key is the technology. Consider supporting technologies, and ensure you’re putting people and processes before the software. If you start with the tech, you’re going to need to retrofit the people and processes around it, which is never a good idea.” 

In this digital era, it is essential that businesses embrace the symbiosis between people and technology – they should be investing more on employee engagement strategies and solutions. According to a recent survey by Gallup, which studied 142-countries on the State of the Global Workplace, only 13 percent of all employees worldwide today are engaged in their jobs. “This is an alarming statistic given the importance of the workforce in fuelling growth and meeting other key enterprise goals. Employees are typically an organisation’s most vital asset, and when they are disengaged, the ripple effects across the business can and will impact profitability and reputation,” confirms Radebe. 

Emerging technology is playing a pivotal role in the modernisation of the labour sector. Long-gone are the time-stamp cards, physically marking off time and attendance. Today, innovative solutions offer immense data and management opportunities. Biometrics, for example, is the most pertinent means of identifying and authenticating individuals in a reliable, fast way using unique, biological characteristics for both identification and access control. “Advanced solutions offer identity recognition using biometrics or facial recognition devices to manage an enterprise’s access control,” adds Sigamoney. 

Software partners and accreditations should be scrutinised. While technology is only ‘step three’ in the LabourGenie.Net approach, it is no less critical. Reliable software partners, like Kronos, are vital to the ultimate success of any solution. Kronos workforce management solutions, such as the Workforce Dimensions suite, are purpose-built for industries to help drive business outcomes by engaging employees, controlling labour costs, increasing productivity, and minimising compliance risk.

“In terms of accreditations, the business should hold authorised reseller rights to the software, and its Workforce Solutions Engineers must be appropriately trained,” states Sigamoney. “Our Engineers are certified in Workforce Dimensions Timekeeping and Workforce Dimensions Integration. They also hold Dell Boomi Integration Developer and Workforce Central certifications. LabourGenie.Net is a Kronos Services and Referral License Partner, and an Authorised OrgVue Reseller.” 

A high-performing workforce starts with the right tools. “Creating best-fit schedules, tracking time and attendance, administering absence and leave, and measuring productivity is vital to managing and retaining an engaged workforce,” concludes Radebe.

Modern workforces need modern solutions. For effective management, businesses must have access to sound data, digitally-driven functionality, reach features, and purpose-fit engineered solutions that are intelligent and intuitive. With this approach, not only will staff productivity and customer relationships improve, but the business will operate more efficiently, leading to optimised operations. To achieve this, creating a highly engaged workforce is paramount.

However, when considering Workforce Management Solutions and Labour Solutions in South Africa, there appears to be a marked gap in solutions for the middle-tier organisation. Having recognised this gap in the market, local solutions implementation services specialist, LabourGenie.Net, sought a partnership with a software provider that could successfully service these mid-tier needs.

“We have middle-tier clients that desperately need effective Workforce Management Solutions, but simply cannot find relevant and affordable software that suits the size and needs of their businesses,” says Dereck Sigamoney, Managing Director at LabourGenie.Net. “As a result, we scoured the globe for a solution that could work in Africa. After evaluating seven products, Synerion took the lead for its local geographic understanding of South African markets, rich features, and superior functionality.”

LabourGenie.net is now the South African reseller of the Canadian Synerion software. This partnership was formed to meet mid-tier needs, while offering the South African market four key benefits: creating a highly engaged workforce; helping customers to take action with their data; seamless integration with just about any other third party system; and flawless, flexible implementation.

According to Ndumiso Radebe, Technical Director at LabourGenie.Net; “these benefits resonate with LabourGenie.Net’s vision of enabling our customers to build a workforce of the future, today. It perfectly aligns with our mission statement: ‘every customer, every employee, engaged’. It also dovetails with our ethos of offering solutions, not just software. Synerion seeks solutions to optimise and improve customers’ business processes, rather than automating existing processes.”

One of the greatest challenges in tech, however, is adoption. Many costly implementations have offered no return because employees simply don’t engage with the software. Radebe believes that Synerion’s employee self-service module drives adoption and engagement through ease of use. It allows staff to request time off, clock in/out, make attendance changes (if allowed to do so), view their upcoming schedules, view their timesheets, request shift swaps and more – all via a mobile device, web-based platform, or on-site terminals.

From a data access perspective, the Synerion solution offers actionable data. The technology is designed to gather the intelligence customers need to make better business decisions, automate their processes to reduce errors, and start driving return on investment as soon as possible.

“The solution decimates massive amounts of data, highlighting items that require further attention and immediate action. It also integrates seamlessly with a variety of other third-party systems, ensuring a holistic view of essential data. It’s ‘implementation without the headache’ approach is extremely flexible, offering both Cloud (SaaS) and On-Premise deployments. Synerion’s cloud solution is supported by Microsoft’s Azure,” adds Radebe.

The goal is smart control of the workforce from absolutely anywhere. LabourGenie.net partnered with Synerion because this is what it offers – with a highly advanced mobile solution, designed for managers and employees. It also offers Tablet Synerion, allowing employees to clock in and out on their tablets.

“We have developed our expertise in workforce management over many years and have developed tried and tested execution strategies. Our winning approach is to deliver innovative solutions across a wide range of architectures, technologies, platforms, and devices. Synerion’s Workforce Management Solution aligns with our strong stance of delivering a solution driven approach to labour software, and we look forward to helping mid-tier customers excel, together,” concludes Radebe.

In the industrial space, employee relations comprise three critical components which are inextricably linked: employee value propositions, employee wellness, and employee relations. To succeed in the fast-paced economies of today, organisations must employ advanced systems and develop innovative analytics capabilities to ensure these areas flourish.

According to René Schoeman, Human Capital Specialist Consultant at LabourGenie.Net, technology is the crucial link required to bridge the gap between Human Capital Management (HCM) and employee relations. Interestingly, Schoeman believes that it is unnecessary to reinvent the wheel. Systems and platforms already exist, offering organisations excellent analytics capabilities and robust HCM and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions. The real requirement now is to implement and use these existing systems effectively.

“Too often these systems become a place where data is dumped, personal information is used, and the business gains no benefit. Instead, organisations should implement a combination of purpose-built solutions, like the orgvue analytics platform, UKG’s Work Force Management and Human Relations solutions, and a highly effective ERP system – and then drive adoption throughout the entire organisation. With this approach, the entire employee relations trifecta will improve,” she adds.

There are two challenges to this level of adoption. Small to medium business often do not (or cannot) invest in holistic Human Relations (HR) or HCM solutions, opting instead for a small investment in a simple payroll solution. While large organisations make the investment in full HCM and ERP, they often do not use these solutions optimally.

“To experience the full value proposition of these systems, businesses must ask ‘what does this actually say; where is the data leading me?’ Whether large or small, we must bridge the gap between implemented systems, and using them effectively to discover what makes employees tick,” says Schoeman.

True employee relations require knowing who the employees are, how they work, and in which environments they work best. Which employee is better suited for a home office, and which need to be in a traditional workspace? Are the employees suited to the roles they’ve been put in? Are there skills gaps that need to be filled? To answer these questions, organisations must look at data far more critically, developing a deep understanding of the employee, and then matching that with the workforce and landscape. “The information is there. It’s already available in these systems. If they’re used optimally, these insights have the potential of impacting the business in a powerfully positive way.”

From an Operational Process Assessment (OPA), Organisational Processing and Engineering perspective, Schoeman adds that companies often rely on outdated processes and organisational design. This prevents the organisation from moving forward in it markets and remaining relevant. Thankfully, modern solutions like orgvue help organisations redesign their processes without expensive trial and error.

“With advanced scenario planning businesses can investigate, redesign, and analyse their processes without any disruption to the business. With this approach, businesses can access a holistic view of the knock-on effect of a process adjustment before making the change. This saves time, creates certainty, and prevents unnecessary time or resource wastage,” confirms Schoeman.

From an industrial relations perspective, this level of insight is also highly beneficial when working with unions. In a highly unionised landscape, tensions can run high and trust is often difficult to establish. However, with real time access to scenario planning solutions, union representatives are better able to visualise and understand business impacts, with face-value facts that drive transparency in reorganisation processes. With orgvue analytics, nothing is hidden. This tends to build trust and allow for amenable negotiations.

“Gone are the days when HCM centred around admin. Doing a head count, skills report, equity report… HR should go much deeper. Today, HR leaders need to reinvent their thinking. The goal should be to understand people better to unlock their true value,” concludes Schoeman.

In a rapidly moving landscape, organisations that manage continuous change stand the best chance for growth and success. The key is to prepare today’s workforce for tomorrow. There’s no denying that the pace of change is constantly increasing. To keep up, organisations must be proactive and strategic in their approach to ensure less disruptive transformation (but transformation nonetheless).

According to Tony Cohn, Business Development Manager at orgvue, “Business transformation is a universal and pervasive challenge with a chequered history. Globally, almost 8 in every 10 transformation projects fail. Most of these are digital transformation projects, amounting to $900 billion in wasted investment every year. The priority should be to move to on-going monitoring of the organisational operating model’s health, converting strategic workforce planning to operational workforce planning.”

To achieve a progressive operating model, Cohn believes three key elements should be considered. The first is to continuously monitor the health of the organisation. The second is to build a sustainable organisational planning and analysis (OP&A) capability. The third is to reduce the need for painful, demoralising large-scale transformations. “The goal is to move from event-based, reactive transformation to ongoing monitoring and adjustments,” he adds. “This approach leads to smaller, more frequent, less disruptive, and internally driven change. It is palatable yet powerful, and usually yields more sustainably positive results.”

When attempting to meet constant disruption, the best approach is constant design. To design for disruption, the organisation must develop an understanding of the constant, fluctuating change in both the macro- and micro-environments, and how these changes affects the organisation. “From big moments that affect the business, but are outside of its control, to mergers and acquisitions, and other major disruption events, defining a strategic response to change and its impact on the workforce is the best way to manage disruption,” believes René Schoeman, Human Capital Specialist Consultant at LabourGenie.Net.

Today, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, organisations are dealing with more silos than ever before. Enforced remote working and innovation means communication and engagement are suffering, and many business leaders are at a loss for what can be done about this. Cohn confirms that the business must understand the workforce in detail, relying on the latest technologies to track organisational workflow – and then separating those activities that can be performed remotely from those that are better done in-person.

“The idea is to harness more data to view the workforce through different lenses, to model how redesigning roles or restructuring business units would affect costs and outcomes – all before committing to any changes,” he adds. “This insight empowers proactive planning based on real-time information, and ensuring people are in the right place at the right time to deliver the right work.”

Fewer distractions, less commuting, and a smaller amount of sick days taken means productivity actually increased during the global Coronavirus lockdowns. Resultantly, it is reasonable to expect that most industries will not return to traditional office working. Yet the requirements for innovation and collaboration should not be put aside to make room for working from home. Instead, organisations should think holistically about the workforce, enabling people to collaborate effectively in a hybrid work environment.

“It is planning that will allow people to come together in a new era of work,” confirms Schoeman. “This requires understanding where and what work needs to be done and how to upskill people to perform at their best, while allowing leaders to assess current organisational capability to meet business needs.”

Covid-19 may have accelerated the pace of digitisation – but with or without the pandemic, it was already a likely eventuality. Essentially, businesses are planning for a future that’s already here. “Ultimately, the onus is on business leaders to decide on a new way of working and to do so quickly. Those who don’t fully understand their organisational data won’t be able to grasp their future with confidence. In this climate, the organisations that succeed will be those which are already looking at their workforce and operations through different lenses, determining which options offer the best advantage for their business and their people; all while making decisions based on genuine insight, driven by innovative technologies,” concludes Cohn.