Cloud-based innovations boost productivity and increase operational efficiency in cleaning sector

Kriya Govender, CEO of PRP Solutions

People management and workplace cloud solutions specialists, PRP Solutions announced during September that it is providing cleaning and hygiene companies with a more systemic and centralised solution suite able to show accurate, real-time data to improve people management as they navigate a different operating model to the traditionally paper-driven version.

Even though the business environment has changed dramatically since March 2020, companies still want to find the best ways to unleash the power of their people, Now, more than ever, there is an awareness of how precious time has become with employees trying to balance work from home with their personal responsibilities. The stress caused by ongoing lockdown restrictions and the third wave of infections mean business leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to ensure their employees are engaged with the company, have a unified view of their objectives, and have access to the tools and technologies to fulfil their evolving job requirements. All the while trying to ensure they meet compliance requirements and still adapt to changing market requirements.

Today’s distributed work environment means businesses must cope with an exponential increase of data points as employees access systems from their personal devices and send through timesheets, leave forms, sick leave, and other important information from various sources. And, because many legacy environments are hosted onpremises, there is no central point for team leads and managers to harness all these elements effectively and have unified sight of people’s performance and challenges to work optimally in the new normal.

Therefore, companies need access to an intelligent, cloud-based ecosystem that integrates their digital environment and empowers teams across flexible and diverse workplaces, coupled with tools to enhance their job function. It is as much about getting relevant information in real-time as it is about automating much of the mundane administrative tasks that keep specialists in the organisation from revitalising operational processes to be more reflective of people-driven change. By giving managers more time to support and motivate people, the organisation can strengthen its value proposition, improve productivity, and differentiate itself from competitors regardless of the industry sector they are involved in.

In addition to improving the efficiency of administration staff and management in the cleaning and hygiene sector, decision-makers must also turn their attention to how best they can optimise teams in the field that need to deliver on their service mandates.

For instance, a company might get a contract to clean four different sites, each with their own requirements. In the past, this entailed significant admin in terms of providing cleaning crews with printed checklists tailored to each site. With the cloud, this can be removed completely by sending crews notifications on tablets regarding the tasks they need to accomplish at the individual sites.

With the deadline of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) just gone and the likes of the Employment Equity Act and other regulatory frameworks combining to make ongoing compliance a resource-intensive exercise, innovative technologies that can better enable people management become vital. It comes down to enhancing the performance of all functions in the organisation with more digitally enabled tools to help lead the company across a wide geographic footprint with remote working going to be an integral part of processes in the future. It is especially with employee self-service functionality where significant strides will be made to encourage ownership of optimising their individual performance,

says Govender.

Honeycomb, its core people resource planning solution provides clients with an automated people resource planning solution that eliminates manual processes and can be tailored to meet the needs of the SMB to a larger enterprise. It integrates with HR, people management, finance, and operations to deliver a more cost-effective way of enabling people within the organisation.

When combined with existing systems, Honeycomb streamlines business processes to meet digitisation requirements. Employee data is collected and exception reports and alerts pushed to managers enabling agile decision making in realtime. Its advanced rules engine can be customised to suit any organisational requirement and can be configured to process payrolls and the complex rules for either permanent, temporary or contract employees, as well as external staffing suppliers and service providers. Honeycomb features an Employee Toolbox that ensures compliance to company policies, health and safety requirements, and employment contracts. Employee onboarding tools allow new hires to be onboarded efficiently from anywhere and accurately with records sent directly to the HR system.

Given all the challenges facing companies today, people must remain engaged to fully unlock their potential wherever they may be working from. As such, digital solutions are vital to helping businesses create more value across both their physical and online environments. The cleaning and hygiene sector is experiencing massive growth because of this, but companies need access to solutions that integrate effectively into their legacy environments,

concludes Govender.

PRP Solutions assists more than 100 clients across industry sectors to efficiently manage over 160 000 employees at over 7 000 diverse workplaces in 18 countries in Africa. For more information visit: www.prpsolutions.com