Companies can manage the allocation, productivity and planning of human resources in real time using a new cloud-based people resource management solution, says human resource management solutions company PRP Solutions CEO Kriya Govender.

The solution can be used to integrate any existing attendance, access control, financial planning and HR system onto one platform, functions on mobile devices and workstation tablets and can manage the labour tasks of field, factory and office employees.

The information is sent to the cloud from where it is distributed to all users and is differentiated based on their functions. For example, a worker will get the tasks for the day or week, a floor manager will get notifications of who is working on which tasks and who is absent and a project manager will get information on the average time to complete tasks compared against the planned time allocated.

“The real-time nature of the solution enables all levels of employees, from workers through to executives, to be aware of productivity and can act to correct any problems such as delays or overruns immediately.”

“The real-time exception reporting means that notifications are sent when specific tasks take longer than scheduled, enabling the necessary corrective actions to be taken. Typically, the solution is not used to compare workers’ performance, but rather to manage exceptional events, such as a task taking significantly longer to complete. Management is about making the correct interventions at the right time, and this real-time solution is designed to support this.”

Additionally, the module flags any clashes with company labour rules, including hours worked on current shift, breaks taken and maximum allowed overtime per day or week, to ensure that employees are aware of and adhere to the rules of the company and that the company complies with legislation and regulations.

PRP Solutions has blue chip clients across most industry segments, including mining, manufacturing and retail using its solution. The solution helps to improve companies’ cost, labour time estimations and customer expectation management by comparing continuing tasks against the task schedule in real time and providing data-driven projections, says Govender.

Getting the solution operational for new clients is a quick process, typically taking about three weeks. However, getting employees to use the full functionality of the solution effectively generally takes a bit longer, and PRP Solutions will help companies to manage and monitor the solution to ensure that they derive value from it.

“We have focused on making the interface user friendly, and the mobile interface is as simple as tapping a task on the display and then tapping the subsequent task once that one is completed. Managers and executives must get used to managing projects in real time, and the solution helps them to hone their project cost calculations over time, based on concrete data.”

The cloud-based human resource solution and the labour module interface with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, enabling the data feeds, usually in the form of personalised dashboards, to be augmented with relevant information from the ERP systems, and for the labour data to be used for accounting and reporting purposes.

Meanwhile, PRP Solutions has large mining, industrial and logistics companies as clients, and more than 70 000 mostly blue-collar workers are managed through its solution. It will focus on growing its presence in the skilled labour market, which is a good candidate for its human productivity management solutions, concludes Govender.