Q&A
Q & A: The Power of Partnerships How HR Tech is helping Archangel Accounting support their clients through remote working & beyond Julia Jones has been a qualified chartered accountant for over 20 years
@AppogeeHR
Stuart Keeble, VP Partnerships, Appogee HR Stuart is a veteran of the IT industry and one of the founders of Appogee HR. He has worked in the partnering ecosystem for the past 20 years and sees huge potential in the synergies between the flourishing HR “software as a service” ecosystem that Appogee HR belongs to and the Xero partner community with their role as trusted business advisors.
and founded Archangel Accounting in 2007. Archangel provides finance and accounting functions to small businesses globally and have seen their clients go from strength to strength through Xero and Appogee HR. Here, our VP Partnerships Stuart Keeble interviews her.
Q:
Thank you for joining us today Julia! To kick us off I’d like to know more about how you started to get involved in HR Tech?
A:
Happy to be here! As part of Archangel Accounting I look after companies and act as their CFO, HR often comes my way as companies that I work with often don’t have their own internal HR person due to their size. Where I can see there’s an opportunity I do like to use software to ensure their core business needs are met, and HR is definitely one of those. I look after companies’ payrolls so it’s important for me to find a solution which integrates with Xero, but also we need a platform which can support all companies’ employees, new starters and their records.
Q:
What impact from your customers perspective does using HR tech such as Appogee HR have, and how is it received by clients?
A:
Really well! Right from the start of the employee journey, the onboarding portal really takes away the admin as it guides new starters through all of the documents they need to provide so we love it, firstly, from
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an onboarding perspective. We’re also using it for keeping all the company’s documents and policies in place, especially reviewing versions or having employees acknowledge, for example, handbooks etc. and we love it for just making sure our clients are on top of all things HR. Appogee HR offers a really good performance review feature too, which we used for the first time after it launched last year, and it just went really well. Everyone especially liked the 360 feedback! Instead of using a lot of paper to complete all of these exercises, like we used to do, HR tech automates everything and then has a really strong audit trail which is so important from a compliance perspective.
Q:
How have your customers been impacted by the pandemic and how have HR tech tools helped?
A:
A lot of my clients facilities were closed in the early phases of the pandemic, particularly those using university labs. They adjusted by introducing working from home practices and a phased return to laboratory working when facilities were open and it was safe to do so. HR software is particularly helpful
here as having procedures such as health and safety policies within the labs is often a primary concern. Being able to share health and safety documents via the company documents portal, as well as being able to confirm who’s acknowledging those procedures has really helped in getting the labs to reopen, and then stay open, safely.
Q:
How have you found working with clients from home?
A:
I love working from home! I work from Texas and therefore do all my work online and using video calls. We’ve been embracing the positives coming out of the pandemic, from a working perspective, and I think we’re in a strong place when it comes to client communication and carrying on, business as usual, remotely. I would even say that you can be based anywhere these days and still support the same function to the same high standards. I think it’s a sign of how far business technology and innovation has come really.
Q:
How do you help your clients get started with Appogee HR?
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