Out of all the resources that an organization can possess, human resources are the only ones with unlimited potential. There is no limit to what an employee can do with the right motivation, guidance, and support. Hence, empowering your staff benefits the entire organization.
While all organizations realize the importance of managing and developing staff, finding, acquiring, implementing, and using the right human resource (HR) management tool can be challenging for most organizations. Though there is no shortage of HR management solutions today, the majority of organizations find it challenging to choose one due to one of the following reasons:
- The HR software has too many/too less features
- The software is difficult to navigate/learn
- Lack of configurability, business intelligence, and automation
- Adherence to local & international laws/compliances
- Lack of measures/functionalities for business continuity, agility, and oversight
In addition to the above, most firms around the globe are finding it cumbersome to function in a pandemic situation, where keeping track of a remote workforce can be a nightmare. In addition, the world of HR management is evolving rapidly, embracing new technologies and best practices, making it even harder for employers to pick an HRMS solution.
Luckily, today there is a new breed of HR solutions that address most of the concerns mentioned above and allow firms to hire, train, develop and retain employees efficiently while boosting productivity, oversight and accuracy.
Through this review, we will discuss one such application called Connect HR – an intelligent cloud HRMS solution that has had much popularity in the Middle Eastern and Gulf regions due to its innovative features, flexibility, and stellar support.
This review will cover the following points:
- Introduction to ConnectHR
- Key Features of ConnectHR
- Our Final Verdict
So let’s get started. Shall we?
Introduction To ConnectHR
ConnectHR is a premium SaaS-based HRMS platform that is created to simplify and modernize human resource operations. This all-in-one solution significantly reduces HR workload and helps you manage multiple aspects of your organization concerning human resource management.
ConnectHR comes from the house of Connect Group in UAE and allows you to manage everything from employee payroll, insurance, leaves, compliance, and visa documentation.
ConnectHR uses artificial intelligence to process payroll documentation and automatically ensures compliance with local UAE guidelines. This highly-configurable application allows you to manage employee visa documentation internally and notify staff regarding pending documentation.
In addition, the application allows you to manage multiple companies and configure various permissions to staff based on their organizational roles.
Most companies in the UAE region have many non-UAE nationals working for them. However, taking care of their work permits, salaries, payroll, and insurances, especially in accordance with UAE labor laws, can be a challenging task for HR personnel.
ConnectHR addresses this need and allows you to automate such processes through a system of reminders, alerts, and verifications. This ensures that your organization remains compliant with regional laws and regulations while also assisting employees.
ConnectHR is created for SMEs and enterprises and for (third-party) payroll and HR service providers who handle HR responsibilities for multiple organizations simultaneously. It enables you to bill employees for different projects, contracts, or companies they have worked on for some time and automatically calculates employee payments according to UAE labor laws.
It also features a dedicated mobile app (for Android & iOS) to help employees log their attendance anywhere. This allows managers to check the location where the attendance has been punched and is highly convenient for on-field and remote teams.
ConnectHR supports employee payouts in different currencies. The application is highly personalizable depending on your business needs and allows you to delegate responsibilities to 3rd parties for managing employee operations efficiently.
Additionally, you can also take the help of ConnectHR’s internal team to configure the application’s permissions, workflows, payroll, and approval structures as per your organization’s requirements.
ConnectHR offers an internal messaging system for employees to aid organizational communication and synergy. The system allows you to define who can communicate with whom within your organization and how they can interact. Additionally, your staff can chat, create groups, view conversation history, and share attachments with each other instantly.
ConnectHR helps you adhere to the guidelines provided by UAE’s Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) and provides reminders/notifications to your staff in case of any missing/incorrect documentation. It also features 2-factor authentication to prevent data leakages and boost security.
Impressed already? We haven’t discussed the best features yet!
Key Features of ConnectHR
1. Employee Reimbursement Manager:
ConnectHR has an easy and effective system to reimburse employees for expenses incurred on clients. To claim any reimbursement from the organization, employees can create requests, add reasons for the expenditure, date, amount, etc., attach invoices, and send them for approval to their managers. Additionally, it allows your staff to take photos of the invoices via their mobile app and upload them to the system.
With ConnectHR, your managers are instantly notified of each reimbursement request and can approve/reject them or request more information from the applicant. In addition, employees are notified as soon as their reimbursement request is approved and have the option to add the reimbursed amount in the current or previous month’s payroll.
The ConnectHR portal allows you to create your permission structures to decide what kind of requests are handled by each employee, team, and department. Consequently, you can configure HR managers to specific request types based on their specialization, allowing faster resolutions.
2. Leaves Management:
With ConnectHR, you can have a comprehensive picture of the leaves taken across your organization(s). You can filter leaves by type and check employee leaves across multiple companies and payrolls. In addition, employees can apply for leaves, add details, check their leave balances/status, and view their real-time leave status through the application.
Upon receiving leave requests, reporting managers can either accept or reject leave requests. Moreover, it also allows managers to apply for leaves on behalf of their employees under particular circumstances. Finally, based on the leaves approved, the system auto-calculates your payroll following UAE labor laws.
3. User Management:
With ConnectHR, you can virtually control all users in the system and assign them specific rights. For each employee, you can add basic employee details, visa quota/designations, positions/titles, contract details, business category, etc. The application allows you to manage users across multiple business entities and configure reminders and notifications to them.
ConnectHR also accommodates users who serve multiple roles in different organizations. For example, it allows you to assign viewer (employee), officer, and supervisory permissions to other user groups for managing essential HR verticals. What’s more, it will enable you to customize approval workflows based on your organizational structure, which allows you to mold it as per the project/task’s need.
4. Recruitment:
Using ConnectHR’s integrated portal, you can instantly notify managers, contractors, and employees regarding open positions and fill them faster. You can notify managers and employee groups in bulk and view the list of inactive employees with their details.
5. Insurance Management:
UAE makes it mandatory for organizations to provide insurance to their employees. Hence, ConnectHR has a separate module for managing insurance details. This allows managers/supervisors to renew insurances, check expiry dates, and edit insurance details. Managers can also notify employees about documents/data required and filter employees based on their insurance expiry status.
6. Payroll Management:
ConnectHR greatly simplifies the payroll operations for HR departments and collates all staff payroll details within a single dashboard interface. Thus payroll managers just need to add an employee’s labor card number and the bank routing code to process payments. Further, the application allows you to automate payouts and use several templates for invoicing.
ConnectHR also allows you to directly generate SIF files for Wage Protection System compliance, which unburdens you significantly. Even if your business does not require SIF files for payments, ConnectHR offers three other options to pay employee salaries.
The Payroll module offers a variety of reports, which can be downloaded in Excel or PDF format. Further, it provides you warnings/data alerts if the details provided in payroll documents (SIF files) are incorrect/missing, ensuring that the bank does not reject your requests due to compliance issues. Such a system ensures that your salary payouts are accurate, compliant, and super-simple.
7. Visa Processing:
Most companies based out of the UAE have to manage their visa documentation manually, which requires a considerable amount of time. However, with ConnectHR, you can simply use visa templates to process documentation faster. In addition, it allows your managers to request specific visa documentation based on nationality while helping your staff view the status of their documents.
Additionally, it allows you to customize reminder times, view the status of employee visas, and help you create and modify visa quotas. It also has a ‘Master Tracker’ sub-module that allows you to check the status of all visa documents.
In addition to the above features, ConnectHR offers a ‘Document Generator’ that helps you reduce paperwork. With the help of specific letter templates for different employee groups, your HR department can significantly reduce its workload.
Documents and files can also be accessed and stored in the ‘File Administrator,’ where users can search and filter data/files based on their user roles and access levels. The application also features an FAQ module for employees containing company policies, guidelines, and general questions.
Final Verdict
ConnectHR addresses several problems employers and HR teams face in the UAE and addresses many organizational needs from payroll to attendance and insurance to visa documentation. Though it lacks a module to monitor employee productivity, the application provides businesses with much-needed flexibility and agility while automating their recurrent tasks.
ConnectHR can significantly reduce the burden of managing large and distributed teams and improve oversight. Furthermore, it offers several features that will enhance internal communication, simplify workflows and improve compliance.
Considering the immense need for the application (especially in the UAE region), the user-friendliness, and the functionalities it provides to manage entities and their staff efficiently, we are inclined to give ConnectHR a full ‘five-stars’ in our review.
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