Blogs have a lot to say about small businesses and their operation, though few address specific companies and their needs. Emergent Mechanical Services is a pseudonym for a real company with 220 employees. It provides on-call mechanical repair services for vehicles – from heavy equipment to pickup trucks. They also repair related equipment, tow cranes, augurs, and the like.
EMS intends the pun on emergency medical services. It contracts with service providers to deliver aid wherever their vehicles are located at the time and/or to service those vehicles in their garage. Everything in their corporate process and service goals makes them a prime candidate for Human Resources Information System (HRIS) programs.
At any given time, fewer than 50 employees are at the headquarters location. The rest are traveling to and from sites where needed. They complete their work and are dispatched to another site needing their skill set or valuing their proximity. Employees work odd and continuous hours, but there is an infrastructure that provides three shifts.
A quality HRIS program is the solution to problems that arise from the multi-site, volatile scheduling. It also solves the problem of employing HR personnel to wrangle all the flowing data.
- Employees can report hours from any internet platform: laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
- Workers can check on payroll detail, and payroll has reliable and compliant records.
- Staff can access benefits info and make changes, such as beneficiaries or deductions.
- Management can monitor hours and performance.
- Leadership can communicate key issues and motivation.
HRIS is sometimes discussed so broadly and so universally that you overlook its specific applications in small business. A quality HRIS vendor will step up to customize your program to your unique small business needs. EMS, our fictional company, for example, has much in common with the construction business, but it is just enough different to deserve its customized HRIS design.