Company Announcement - Complete business solutions provider, Synergy Group, is rolling out Sage HR Management to drive efficiencies in the management of its human resources and payroll functions. Sage HR Management is a new, powerful and flexible HR solution that integrates tightly with the Sage ERP X3 business solution. Synergy has been a Sage ERP Africa business partner for over 20 years and uses the Sage ERP X3 platform to drive its own business. The company has decided to implement Sage HR Management to better manage its mobile workforce as well as improve efficiencies in its business.

Says Synergy Group CEO, Ashley Regenass: “Because we’re a consulting firm, our people are right at the heart of our business. A modern payroll and HR platform is essential to engaging with our workforce and providing them with excellent service; understanding and optimising business performance and gaining better visibility into our costs, profitability and productivity. “We were in the first group of Sage ERP X3 partners in South Africa and as such we were eager to join the early adopter programme for Sage HR Management.

“In addition to the benefits we’ll derive from a HR solution that integrates with our ERP backbone, the project is an opportunity for us to skill up in a product that we plan to implement for our own customers. We believe it’s the perfect solution for local mid-market enterprises — a point we’re happy to prove by drinking our own champagne.” Regenass says that Sage HR Management is fully localised for the needs of the South African market and complies with all tax regulations and labour laws. The package will streamline compliance and help Synergy stay on top of a dynamic and changing HR landscape. What’s more, it will help the company to better plan skills development and training across its workforce.

“Due to the integration between Sage HR Management and Sage ERP X3, processes such as expense claims and resource costing will be vastly streamlined,” he adds. Another benefit lies in the fact that Synergy will be able to engage Employees using employee Self-Service. Employees will be able to apply for leave, pull up current or historical payslips, and manage expense claims from any device that has a modern web browser. The data and transactions from the Employee Self-Service system will automatically be updated in the payroll and HR system, cutting down on paperwork. Synergy has already converted to the Payroll module of Sage HR Management. It plans to implement the Employee Self-Service and Skills Management modules next.

Regenass reports that data migration and the printing of February payslips on the new system ran smoothly. “Our implementation methodology follows a plus-one formula,” he says. “We seek to add one major benefit for the client in the first phase, which we achieved by going live with Payroll and Employee Self-Service. Now, we have the framework in place on which we’ll be able to quickly add new benefits and features.”

Sage VIP, a division of Sage HR & Payroll and a part of Sage South Africa, is working closely with Sage ERP Africa and its business partners to implement Sage HR Management at South African sites. “Sage HR Management helps companies to boost performance and efficiency in their HR environments by automating processes such as payroll, hiring, on-boarding and retaining talent, and statutory reporting,” says Anton van Heerden, Managing Director for Sage HR & Payroll. “This frees the HR team to focus on developing the workforce rather than doing paperwork. We are delighted that Synergy will be exploring these benefits in its own business before helping us take this solution to other South African clients.”