This time around, admins can expect even more flexibility and an improved leave feature. Here’s a list of the latest enhancements and some important bug fixes:

MORE POWER TO ADMINS

Option to delete anything in streams: An admin can now delete any message, question, polls, and events. This enhancement will make it easy to moderate the company’s in-house social network on sumHR.

Apply for leaves for anyone in the company: Earlier admins could only apply for leave on behalf of people who reported to them. Now an admin can apply for leaves for absolutely anyone in the company, including employees who are superior to the admin in the organizational hierarchy.

View leaves for anyone in the company: Previously admins could view only those leaves in which they were involved, either as managers or Auto-CC recipients. Now admins can view any leave across the company, irrespective of whether they are involved in it or not. You can find a detailed explanation about managing leaves on sumHR’s Support Center.

LEAVE POLICY UPDATES

Option to start accrual of leaves at the beginning or end of the month: Earlier when creating a leave policy, the accrual option was fixed at “start of the month”. This meant that leaves would begin accruing for that policy at the start of every new month. Based on customer feedback, we have now given an additional option. Admins can now choose whether to:

a) begin accrual of leaves at the start of every new month OR
b) accrue the leaves at/after end of the month (beginning of next month).

Improved balance counters: Previously, the employee’s leave page would only display the current available balance along with the leaves credited so far in the current year to the admins. Now we have included an additional piece of info to the counters: Balance count of Leaves carried forward from previous year.

BUG FIXES

After the launch of some major enhancements in our leave carry forward feature and leave balance import feature, we received some error/bug reports from customers immediately. These bugs have been resolved along with some minor fixes to optimize the leave calculations system.

We’re sure that these new additional Admin powers, along with the leave policy accrual update and miscellaneous bug fixes will further enhance your sumHR experience. Feel free to share any feedback in the comments section below.

Nearly everyone who has used sumHR agrees that it is one of the most easy to use HR software. This is because our engineers make it a point to focus on the user experience too, along with writing some beautiful code that makes the backend robust.

As you know whenever an organization, big or small, moves to new software or installs it for the first time, there is always a dire need of support, especially for the users who are going to use it. This is especially true for HRM software as it is used by the employees each and every day and has several important things related to it, such as leaves, attendance, payroll, etc. All users who sign up (usually CEOs & HR managers) for sumHR are quite excited about our HR product but usually this enthusiasm is not shared by their employees since there is a perception that any new software would be difficult to use.

To ensure that all employees of our customers share the same level of eagerness, we decided to invest extra time and resources to create the “Understanding and Using sumHR” learning module. We realize that a little bit of handholding is always necessary, and our Admin users cannot solve each and every single query of their employees. You can visit the Q&A module over here: http://support.sumhr.com. We encourage you to share it with all your employees.

sumHR is evolving and every few weeks we’ve been adding new features. The same applies for our support section too. We are continually updating it as per the feedback we receive from our customers. Do feel free to share your thoughts via the comments section below.

What’s more, a trend that has been observed these days is that it is easier for someone from an IIT or an IIM to get funding for their entrepreneurial dreams. The current startup ecosystem is dotted with success stories of top entrepreneurs who graduated from either an IIM, IIT, BITS and the likes. Nevertheless, as we said, there is a general perception unless you are an IIT/IIM alumni, it is tough to be a successful entrepreneur. We have now drawn up a list of top entrepreneurs in India who have not been to any of these top institutes yet have gone on to create some wonderful companies and built great teams.

Here is a list of top entrepreneurs in India who were successful without attending an IIT or an IIM:

* In alphabetical order

ALOK KEJRIWAL
Sydenham College, Campion School
Alok Kejriwal is a top serial entrepreneur from India who made his name with the Contests2Win companies, especially Games2Win, which comScore rates as one of the top 20 online gaming businesses in the world. The site has hundreds of games and gets over 15 million unique users each month. A typical Mumbai boy, Kejriwal’s alma mater consists of the Campion School in Colaba and the Sydenham College. While The Walt Disney Company has acquired Mobile2win China, he now acts as a mentor for many startups and has launched a community for budding entrepreneurs – Rodin Hoods.

ASHISH HEMRAJANI
Sydenham College, Manekji Cooper
Ashish Hemrajani, who helms one of India’s top entertainment ticketing applications and analysis solutions provider, Bigtree Entertainment, is an MBA from the Mumbai University (Sydenham College). He completed his schooling from the prestigious Manekji Cooper School in Juhu, Mumbai. After a two-year stint at J. Walter Thompson (JWT), Hemrajani founded Bigtree Entertainment that launched Bookmyshow, which has managed to grab 90% market share in the online entertainment ticketing space. In addition, the Network 18 group has heavily invested in his company.

BHAVIN TURAKHIA
D.G. Ruparel College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Arya Vidya Mandir
Bhavin Turakhia is an internet maverick, who managed to have a vision about the internet industry in India as no one did. Turakhia, while still in college at Ruparel founded Directi, a web products company, in the late nineties. Now, a technology conglomerate, it has nearly a thousand employees. There are two special things about Directi. One is a pretty well known fact that Turakhia started the company with a capital of Rs 25,000 from his father. What many people don’t know is that thanks to the company’s culture and hiring practices, quite a few employees of Directi have gone and helmed important positions at major startups and have founded their own companies. Turakhia is a top entrepreneur in India who has thus indirectly mentored many entrepreneurs in India.
(PS: sumHR is co-founded by Jay Thaker, who started his career at Directi in mid-2000s.)

DEEPAK RAVINDRAN
Kannur University (Dropout)
Deepak Ravindran founded one of the leading mobile companies Innoz, while still at college in 2008 along with three of his fellow students. This tech startup operates the largest offline mobile search engine 55444, which has managed to clock 15 million plus user, and is still growing. In fact, Innoz was rated among the top 100 technology companies by the Red Herring magazine. The only connection that Ravindran has with top educational institutions such as IIT, IIM, or Stanford is that he’s given lectures about the finer nuances of entrepreneurship and starting up to the students of these elite institutions!

DIPPAK KHURANA
Narsee Monjee, St. Thomas High School
Dippak Khurana, the co-founder of Vserv.mobi, earned his Bachelor’s in Commerce as well as his management degree from Narsee Monjee in Mumbai. His company Vserv.mobi acts as an advertising network for app developers, publishers, and advertisers, enabling major global brands and digital agencies for the in-app marketing. Prior to starting up Vserv.mobi, Khurana worked at major digital technology projects for biggies like Times of India, Yahoo, and Mauj. However, his zeal for entrepreneurship began during his college days when he started up a business manufacturing and selling t-shirts with rock band prints, which was followed up by a livestock business after graduation.

GIRISH MATHRUBOOTHAM
University of Madras, SASTRA University, and Campion
Girish Mathrubootham, who is the Founder & CEO for one of the leading customer support software provider Freshdesk, could well be an ideal role model for all professionals working at tech companies. Educated at the SASTRA University (Bachelor of Engineering) and University of Madras (MBA in Marketing), Girish got the idea of a helpdesk software after reading an online discussion, after which he thoroughly followed it up and quit his plush job at ZOHO. Freshdesk is now one of the top web based customer support platform, thanks to its really simple to use GUI and intuitive interface. Mathrubootham’s experience and leadership, coupled with competitive rates has made the service a preferred choice of not only startups but also major corporations.

KUNAL SHAH
NMIMS (Dropout), Wilson College
Kunal Shah, the co-founder and CEO of FreeCharge.in, completed his Bachelors of Arts in Philosophy and joined the NMIMS to pursue an MBA but soon dropped out. While he began his first company, PaisaBack, a business process outsourcing firm in 2009, it was FreeCharge.in which has caught the interest of many. Established in 2010, the online recharged site has attracted the likes of Sequoia Capital India, who have pumped in Rs 20 crore. Another indicator of Shah’s success with FreeCharge.in is the number of copycat sites that have come up and imitated their business model!

MAHESH MURTHY
Osmania University (Dropout), Kendriya Vidyalaya
Say the words digital media and startups, the first person that comes to your mind is Mahesh Murthy. Schooled at a Kendriya Vidyalaya, Murthy then went to Osmania University to study Chemical Engineering but dropped out after a year and just like every other dropout in India those days, joined the advertising industry and grew through the ranks. He eventually founded Pinstorm, one of India’s top digital marketing agencies. But Mahesh Murthy’s stint with entrepreneurship started in 1999, when he co-founded Geodesic, a pioneering company since it was product-driven. He is also a well-know investor, and is the Managing Partner at Seedfund, which invests in technology companies.

NEERAJ ROY
SIMSREE, Allahabad University, St. Joseph’s College, Nainital
Neeraj Roy, the MD & CEO of Hungama, completed his schooling at St. Joseph’s College in Nainital and then went to Allahabad University. Always, wanting to be an entrepreneur, Roy then came to Mumbai where he completed his MBA from Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education (SIMSREE). Hungama is one of Asia’s top digital and mobile entertainment firms. Roy founded the company in 1999, after spending close to a decade at the Taj Group of Hotels and Prime Securities. In addition to being a top entrepreneur, Neeraj Roy has also invested in a company started up by an ex-Hungama employee.

NITISH MITTERSAIN
Sydenham College, Bombay Scottish
Nitish Mittersain is the founder and CEO of Nazara, one of India’s top mobile content platform provider and games publishers. Schooled at the Bombay Scottish, he then went to Sydenham College in Mumbai (just like the other top entrepreneurs in India on this list). While in college, Mittersain launched the firm, which focused only on games but it later started to provide content too.The company started just after the dotcom bubble burst but managed to rake in some Rs 20 crores in 2005 from Sequoia Capital. Nazara has come a long way since then and has even backed and incubated another gaming startup, Playcaso, which focuses on casual and social games.

RUDRAJEET DESAI
Fergusson College, Kendriya Vidyalaya
Rudrajeet Desai is the co-founder and CEO of Ideacts Innovations, a startup that has developed software for cyber-cafes and then successfully dabbled in technology solutions for online shopping. Desai graduated with a degree in Mathematics from the Fergusson College in Pune. He has completed his schooling at a Kendriya Vidyalaya. Commonly known as a cyber cafe advertising company, Ideacts Innovations managed to raise capital from Sequoia. Prior to starting up, Rudrajeet Desai worked for industry majors such as BPL Mobile, Cadbury, Mobile2win, and Group M, working on diverse fields, including large-scale distribution networks and branding.

SANDEEP SINGH
Symbiosis, Delhi University
Sandeep Singh is the co-founder of one of India’s leading online lifestyle apparel brand, Freecultr. He finished complete his Bachelors of Commerce with honors at the Delhi University, during which he also had his first stint with entrepreneurship. After graduation, Singh went to Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, where he completed his MBA with a specialization in communication and advertising. Freecultr is a young firm that was started in December 2011 by Sandeep Singh, Sujal Shah (who has now exited the firm), and Rajesh Narkar, and has been funded by the Smile Group. In addition to Freecultr, Singh previously started up Quasar Media, one of India’s top digital marketing agencies.

VARUN SINGH
Kurukshetra University (Dropout), Kendriya Vidyalaya
Varun Singh is the founder and CEO of ScaleArc, a Santa Clara-based technology firm that specializes in database infrastructure solutions. After completing his schooling from a Kendriya Vidyalaya, Singh joined the Kurukshetra University to study electronics and telecommunications but eventually dropped out. While he started off as a tech journalist, Singh created and worked on major online properties related to technology news/information in India, such as TechTree, Tech2, Web18, etc. He eventually started up ScaleArc, which has received some rave reviews and managed to get funding from major VC firms, such as Nexus Ventures, Accel Partners, and Trinity Ventures. This Indian entrepreneur is also a well know host for top technology-related shows on major networks, including CNN and Economic Times Now.

VINAY GUPTA
Sri Venkateswara University, Kendriya Vidyalaya
Vinay Gupta, the Chairman, Founder, and CEO of Via, completed his schooling at a Kendriya Vidyalaya and then went to Sri Venkateswara University and graduated with a degree in engineering (computer science). Formerly known as Flightraja, Via is India’s largest technology based travel services firm, and a network that spans 900+ cities in the country along with 17000 agents. Coming from a management consultancy background, Gupta has worked with companies such as Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, etc. He founded Via in 2006, and has taken the company to great heights, attracting investments from Sequoia Capital and NEA IndoUS Ventures.

VINAY SANGHI
Sydenham College, Campion School
Vinay Sanghi is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CarTrade.com, one of India’s top online motoring market for buyers and sellers of new and used vehicles. Born and raised in Mumbai, Sanghi too went to the Campion School and then went to the Sydenham College to complete his graduation. While Sanghi commenced his career at a Bajaj dealership with a job in the sales department, it was in 1999 when he had his first real tryst as an entrepreneur after launched Automart, an online platform for selling pre-owned vehicles. But his claim to fame is with CarTrade.com, which has become a go-to site for car buyers in India, thanks to a network that spans 80 cities and 12000+ dealers. The company has backing of Canaan Partners, Tiger Global, and Epiphany.

VIRAT KHUTAL
Pune Institute of Computer Technology, IPS Academy, Indore Public School
Virat Khutal is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Twist Mobile, a Singapore-based mobile development company that focuses on mobile applications and games for India and other emerging countries. Schooled at the Indore Public School, Khutal then studied at the IPS Academy and Pune Institute of Computer Technology. Founded some five years ago, Twist Mobile has made a name for itself in application and game development, and has managed to attract investments from the likes of Matrix Partners India as well as Achal Choudhary, who provided the seed fund. Prior to this, Khutal worked as a game designer at games industry biggie Gameloft in Pune.

VISHAL GONDAL
RA Podar College Of Commerce & Economics, General Education Academy
Vishal Gondal is most probably India’s answer to the Cliff Bleszinskis and Gabe Newells! Schooled at the General Education Academy, Gondal then went to the well-known RA Podar College to study commerce but eventually dropped out to concentrate on his entrepreneurial ambitions. While he dabbled in video games and software development during his teenage years, it was in 1999 when he founded Indiagames, which went on to establish itself as one of the top gaming companies in India. The gaming company set up offices in other countries too. Disney acquired it for around a hundred million dollars in 2011, and Gondal was then made the MD of the newly formed DisneyUTV Digital (from which he quit recently). A true entrepreneur at heart, Vishal Gondal also invests in new startups via Sweat And Blood Venture Group.

We are sure you enjoyed reading this list about the top entrepreneurs in India. There are hundreds of budding entrepreneurs in India (a majority of them wannabepreneurs) who haven’t been to a top institute like an IIT or an IIM or XLRI or the ISB. This list also tries to serve as an inspiration for these promising entrepreneurs who can take a cue from the top Indian entrepreneurs above.

Being a startup that serves other startups and small businesses, sumHR closely interacts with various important stakeholders of the Indian startup ecosystem including VCs, most of whom are positive about mentoring startups and entrepreneurs from non-IIT or non-IIM backgrounds. The perception of startups in India as a whole is changing and various platforms are emerging for just about anyone who has a good business idea, regardless of the educational institute he/she has studied (or dropped out). This article is merely an attempt to break the common misconception observed in the startup ecosystem of India, that ‘only entrepreneurs who’ve studied at such institutes can manage to succeed in their enterprises’.

Please, feel free to use the comment section to add any top Indian entrepreneur that you feel has scaled up and succeeded without going to a top education institute such as IIT, IIM, ISB, etc.

PS: Like these guys, the sumHR team too is composed of non-IIT and non-IIM guys. And yes, they aim to get into this list someday.

Disclaimer: IITs & IIMs are premier institutes, which produce some very talented professional, and we have high regards for these and similar institutes. While this list is inspired by actual entrepreneurs who have NOT attended/graduated from an institute like IIT/IIM, it doesn’t mean to imply, in any way whatsoever, that these entrepreneurs have anything against institutes like IIT/IIMs. On the contrary, some of these entrepreneurs are guest/visiting faculties are these institutes and have high regards for these institutes, and often look out to hire talent professionals graduating from these institutes.

Below is a comprehensive list of enchantments made with respect to features such as Leave and Attendance Management, Calendar, Directory and Organization Structure:

Attendance Management

1. “Reports For” Filter in Export Data: A ‘Filter By’ option is added for attendance data export. You can now export attendance information based on individual employees, departments, shifts, and locations.
2. Clock-Out Reminder: sumHR will send employees a notification email, reminding them IF they ‘forgot’ to Clock-Out yesterday/last working day. Thanks to this notification, confusion about ‘absent’ marking can be avoided and fewer employees will give the “forgot to clock out” excuse.

Leave Management

1. “Reports For” Filter in Export Data:A ‘Filter By’ option is added for leave data export. You can now export leave information based on individual employees, departments, shifts, and locations.
2. Extra Info Description box: An extra description box added when setting up leave policies. You can now add notes/disclaimers to leave policies, thus enhancing your leave management offering more info to employees.
3. Option to set leave carry forward rules in %: Option to include information in percentage format added to Unused Leaves Carryover. You now have an option to specify the number of unused leaves carried forward in a percentage format. This will empower your company to make your leave structure more flexible.
4. Public Holidays for specific office location: Holidays can now be configured as per the office locations.
5. Minor bug fixes:
   • holiday changes and attendance logs – when dates of public holidays are changed by admins after the holiday has already passed, the attendance log is synchronized and updated.
   • carryover option and pro-rating leaves.

Calendar

1. The Calendar no longer shows ‘Pending Leaves’.

Organization Structure

1. Define company structure: from the admin section, now you can create an organized company structure. You can create Business Units, under them you can add Departments, and finally you can select which Designation (job title) falls under which Department.
2. Organization Structure: Earlier you could only see the reporting hierarchy, but now you can actually see your company’s organization structure, in “Business unit” >> “Department” >> “Designation” view.

Directory

In the Directory, you can now directly update designations and business units

1. for multiple employees using ‘Select a Bulk Option’ button.
2. for individual employees using ‘More Options’ button.

Employee Welcome Email

1. Content changes made to the welcome email text to make your HRM system (sumHR, of course) more appealing to your employees.

Yes, these are quite a lot of enhancements in one shot compared to our usual standards, but hold on to your horses, there’s more coming in the next few days. This is just one of several such feature enhancement releases we’ll be announcing.

But we’re sure that these changes, especially to the attendance and leave management features will definitely make your life easy. Feel free to share any feedback using the comments section below.

Tension Free Payroll Software in India

Taxation in India is quite complex and in some cases ambiguous. Big companies have budgets to either outsource employee payroll processing or pay expensive license fees for complex payroll processing software. However, startups and small companies, especially in India do not have that kind of luxury. For them, a web-based, tension free payroll software is something that would solve their challenges related to employee salary processing.

Web-based Payroll Software for Efficiency

Businesses, big or small, need to issue paychecks on time to their employees. Web-based payroll software can enable accountants and HR managers to do just that. Most SMBs and startups use spreadsheet software such as MS Excel to not only calculate employees’ payroll figures but also store salary data! This can be quite risky as there is a very high chance of losing employee salary data. Worse, someone can easily manipulate salary amounts in spreadsheets. At sumHR, our endeavor has always been to ensure that HR managers can seamlessly handle their tasks. That’s why we decided to incorporate a payroll feature to our HR software. It will enable hundreds of small businesses and startups to automate their payroll processes, allowing them to make the process of calculating taxes and deductions easy.

Are you an Indian startup / small business that wants a tension free payroll software to process your employees salary? Why don’t you sign up for sumHR and try out the new payroll feature.

Leadership

An entrepreneur should not only be able to envision his goals but also be passionate enough to lead his employees towards achieving that goal. Leadership truly is one of the essential skills to good entrepreneurship. A good leader is dynamic enough to envision the unknown to conquer goals. Your employees should be able to diligently follow and work to make the arrow hit the target.

Inspirational

One of the most essential skills of an entrepreneur is that of being inspiring. If the leader himself were to be a drab, then having his employees lose interest and produce mediocre work would be inevitable. Therefore, it is essential that an entrepreneur not only inspires through pep talks and conference meetings but also through his work and magnanimous authority.

Know the firm

Most importantly, an entrepreneur should know his firm. You shouldn’t be one of those clueless delegators who just waltz into the office unaware of what is going on. If an entrepreneur gets to know their firm better, comprehension of how he must conduct his business from within the firm becomes easier.

Never say die

During times of difficulty, a good entrepreneur should not give up. He should carry on with the fight to achieve targets and produce quality work. A good entrepreneur should be able to influence his employees to never give up when situations get tough either. You should be able to instil such characteristics in his employees simply by having them observe his style of work.

Ups and downs

An exceptional entrepreneur should not let success get to his head or failure get to his heart. The ups and downs should only be looked at as learning opportunities. A good entrepreneur should be able to find strengths and build on it. When weakness is an issue, he should know how to tackle the problems without stress.

Several attributes make for a brilliant entrepreneur. However, most importantly, valuing one’s experience along with learning and applying the lessons learnt during tenure is the key to being an exceptional entrepreneur.

One bonus secret: Try out sumHR, a new-age HR tool to manage leaves and attendance, and even keep employees happy with the built-in enterprise social network.

New Look

Our endeavor to offer a great user experience continues as we have completely redesigned the product look-n-feel. The new design offers a modern look-n-feel, taking the user experience to a completely new level. You will notice many more nifty changes in the next few days.

Enhancements to Permissions (for Admins)

Empower your managers and team leads with even more options to manage your company’s sumHR account. You can edit and set permissions at a more granular level, especially when it comes to editing employee details and sub-functions of Company Setup.

Go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Manage Roles (Under Permissions).

Introducing Privacy Control for Employees’ Profiles

Employees can now select the information they want to keep private or public. When entering information such as phone numbers, email ids, and birthday, they can choose who can view that information using a dropdown menu, with options to select “Everyone / Team or Peers / Only me”.

Pre-define Designations

As an admin, you can now pre-define designations for better management and one time edit. This will help you avoid typos or incorrect designations.

Go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Designations (Company).

Adding Business Units

Many organizations have different business units for which different employees work for. We have now introduced an option for you to add Business Units as well.

Go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Business Units (Company).

Please, feel free to share your feedback in the comments section below. And yes, the Payroll feature will be launched soon. Keep watching this space for more details.

Make yourself known
When an employee knows a very negligible amount about the organization, losing interest won’t take too long. Orientation or a quick briefing about what the organization does, what are the long term plans and how the organization intends to achieve them etc. When an employee understands the startup/SMB, they get a sense of purpose and are keen on their work.

A friendly environment
People tend to get more assertive when they are comfortable with the people who surround them. When an individual has got to know all his/her employees, the comfort level will inevitably instil boldness and a less passive sense of working. Hence, it is crucial for your employee to get over their shyness and any animosity to be assertive.

Appropriate delegation
It is very important to make the Michael Jordan of your organization play only basketball, for he would be a disastrous cricketer. Match the employee with his/her skill set to extract the best out of them. Enthusiasm and passion for work go hand-in-hand. Communicate with your employee and get to know what they prefer doing. If you fail to delegate a task to them that they are passionate about, in the least you won’t let them do something they dislike.

Make plans
When it comes to meeting deadlines or achieving targets, encourage your employee to plan ahead. Tutor them to finish a decent amount of work every day. This will not only help them be prudent for the next day’s work but also avoid exhaustion due to over working. Being clueless about future tasks or stressed out discourages enthusiasm. This will result in you working with a drained employee who is a victim of the “eating more than they could chew” disorder.

Most importantly maintaining a positive work environment by eliminating unhealthy competition, cliques, negative emotions like depression, jealousy etc. is the start to having a happy employee. Job satisfaction is therefore the inevitable road to employee enthusiasm in the work place.

Every bit of due diligence counts
In a startup and or a small business where the number of employees are mostly limited, every bit of effort counts. Rewarding the employees now and then will increase their due diligence considerably, and hence increase the overall input from the manpower in the organization itself.

Hope for the rest
When an employee is rewarded a bonus for doing good work, it will obviously encourage him/her to continue doing quality work. Along with this, employees reporting to him/her will also be encouraged to strive and work harder towards gaining rewards. Therefore, the benefits of giving out a bonus could be contagious, if not stagnant.

Loyalty
Giving out bonuses regularly for exceptional work and achieving targets on time will leave your employee satisfied with an organization that treats him/her well. This will increase their sense of loyalty towards the organization. Not only will it cause your employee to stick to your firm for as long as possible but also will encourage him/her to be a great custodian of company secrets.

The extra mile
Handing out bonuses itself is going an extra mile for the organization. Doing so will probably cause your employee to do so too. You may notice your employees being ready to work extra time, forfeit leave during work season if needed, and also helping out their fellow colleagues. All this will increase their credibility as good employees and they won’t be hesitant to do so since bonuses are offered to good employees.

Giving out bonuses in a startup and or small business is all the more essential and easier since there are lesser employees to distribute bonuses to, and the management is much easier to consult in doing so.

Business idea
To make your idea is not accidentally of resemblance to a pre-existing idea, research it. This should be conducted at a very early stage. Any changes therefore can be made accordingly before it could be too late to make any at all.

Outdo yourself
A business pitch should nothing short of capture people’s minds. Do all you can to make sure your business idea is exceptional and hard to say no to. Keep improving on your idea at every stage and make it much better than what it already is.

Technicality
Prepare the facts, pros and cons, statistics etc. It would help you pitch better with more confidence knowing that you are armed with the facts. Also, it would leave a better impression on the minds of the organization that you are pitching to. It will nudge them toward taking your business pitch seriously.

Research
Conduct a research on the organization/VC you will be pitching too. Researching them and the kind of business they do will accordingly help you alter your pitch in accordance with their business. You will also better understand their likes and dislikes, and conduct yourself in accordance on the day of the pitch.

Professionally confident
If you are amongst the people on the pitching team, you should master the art of being confident and tackle nervousness. It is important to stay professional and be confident about the idea you pitch. Be relaxed and believe in your idea. By doing so, you will conduct the business pitch with a passion for the idea and will hence leave no room for nervousness.

To conduct a successful business pitch for a small business, simply work hard on your idea, stay as ethical as possible at every stage, and believe in your idea. If you are passionate about what you pitch, the VC will show more inclination toward your business due to the exhibition of your fondness toward the idea.

Dynamic Leader
A business needs to be led by a leader who possesses the ability to inspire people. He/she should be an exceptional personality with the ability to turn heads and ‘wow’ people with their dynamism and persona.

Visionary
The word visionary and leadership go hand in hand. A leader in a startup and small business should possess clarity of what he/she wants. When a leader knows what they want, working on it becomes easier, and fishing out irrelevance that doesn’t aid goals and targets is easily accomplished. A visionary, inevitably, will be a brilliant leader.

Rational & Logical
A good leader needs to be practical, and needs to be able to weigh out options as well as pros and cons to make rational decisions. A sensible leader emits prudency in his/her decisions and how to go about doing the business.

Ethics & Goodwill
Brilliance is a quality that burns bright in a leader. One can’t shine with the brilliance of a star without being ethical. Doing business with motives and means that are unethical is most certainly not a quality a brilliant leader possesses. Goodwill in a business leader aids goodwill in business.

Openness
A leader in a startup should be open to new ideas. He/she should not only underestimate an idea but also never underestimate where or whom the ideas come from. Even if a subordinate were to come up with an idea, a good leader should consider it. If not accept an idea, he/she should be patient and encouraging to the person supplying it.

A brilliant leader in a small business or a startup should possess these five qualities and emit nobility in their personality and style of handling their work.

Personality
If you are close friends or even just good acquaintances with your employee, your business shopping just became easier. If you know a few likes and dislikes of your employees, it becomes even easier. You may not have figured out what precisely to purchase just by knowing a few likes and dislikes, but you will have made fewer mistakes while business shopping. Hence, pay attention to water-cooler gossip before you head out to purchase this year’s office presents.

Yearnings
Find out what your employee really wants if possible. If it is a season for giving out presents, then being a friend in need could be the best one. If there is something that you know your employee truly needs, then trying to gift wrap it would be wonderful. For instance, if your employee can’t afford to buy tickets to a sports game or is saving up to buy a new laptop, then a ticket to the game or an electronic store gift card would truly be a blessing.

Tech savvy
Gadgets are no more a luxury. One can watch their budget by steering away from the expensive brands and gift employees MP3 players. Get creative and assemble a tech gift bag, with goodies like ear-phones, phone and laptop skins, app store gift cards, memory sticks, etc. it would be a smart present that would make every employee happy. You would be catering to their needs and avoiding them from spending their extra change on tech accessories after having spent a bomb on the gadgets itself.

Times are tough
If you and your employees have been spending way too much time on achieving targets, you haven’t had the time to think of presents or even go business shopping then a bonus corporate gift would be the best idea. It would not only be a decent present that helps your employees worry less about their domestic budget for the month but also a great reward for their hard work. To personalize their cash presents, you can give each one of them a card or a souvenir to express a personal touch.

We are sure these employee and corporate gift ideas will help you take the right decision. An HR software such as sumHR too can be a great gift to employees. Just sign up for the free trial and see the delight on your employees’ faces.

Handle the pressure
A rockstar salesperson is one who can show grace under pressure. He can tackle deadlines and manage to maintain a decent sales record – just like a rockstar handles the pressure of performance.

Exhibit charm
Charm is one of the main characteristics that make a rockstar likable and attract the fans. A good salesperson should be able to charm people but not in an annoying and indecent manner. He/she must exhibit charm and good mannerisms in order to attract clients and have exceptional sales records.

Sense the tone
If a client is in a bad mood or simply in a hurry, a rockstar salesperson should be able to sense it. Sales should be made when both the client and salesperson have time, and are in a position to conduct business. Trying to make a sale to an anguished client may go terribly wrong. Not only will the sale not be made but the salesperson can also lose the client.

Brand loyalty
A rockstar salesperson should be able to establish brand loyalty amongst his clients. He/she should be able to make a good enough impression and never cheat a client. An honest salesperson won’t find it too hard to not only make a sale but also gain the loyalty of his/her client.

After-sales
A rockstar salesperson should deliver. He/she should be polite to consumers and give them the required attention. He/she should offer any after-sales services that the company may offer. Even though the sale is made, good after-sales service usually ensures brand loyalty.

Special attention
A rockstar rep should treat every client with special attention. He/she should make them feel wanted by the firm and value their business. This will cause the client to have an inclination towards the firm and its product/service.

All-rounder
A rockstar salesperson should be able to juggle deadlines, sales targets, attend to existing consumers, find new clients etc. He/she should be able to do this with ease and have the knack to handle all his tasks promptly and with ease.

Through proper employee management, hiring a rockstar employee should be easy enough. One would simply need to find a people person who possesses a knack for all of the above listed points.

Ease Your Burden
When you need to keep your mind on several important aspects such as market statistics, business improvements, market competition, etc. a little ease in tension would always be welcomed. Get your mind off the errands that a computer should be doing and focus better on projects that require your nuance and inputs.

Rectification Of Errors
Since the errands will be taken care of by a computer, you can worry less about any errors. Avoiding a statistical error or an error of information can save you and the firm itself of major time and effort of rectifying the mistakes. You can breathe a sigh of relief when you know your work is being done with accuracy.

Perfect Records
When you know your software is efficient and your work is digitized, you can easily maintain records. Not only maintenance of records but accuracy too is usually a guarantee. There is always a need to refer archives time and again in an organization. Therefore, you need proper maintenance of these records and a dingy old record book just won’t do.

Snow-ball Effect
Digitization in the HR department and the other departments too will lead to efficiency and accuracy in work patterns. Work well done will inevitably lead to desired results, which are synonymous with profits. Therefore, your company doing exceptionally could be one of the effects of digitally transforming a startup or a small business.

Positive change
Digitally transforming your organization is nothing but a change in the right direction. It is adaption to the modern times and moving forward with what is à la mode. Perk up your organization however small and thinking large will probably help you play with the big boys and be one of the large-scale firms sooner than later.

sumHR enables you to easily digitize employee database and leave/attendance management. Give the HR software a try (NO credit card required).

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Availability
It performs as a readily available source of information between the organization and the employee. Contact information, salary information, posts, work schedule, education information etc. is what most database systems consist of. Such information is readily available through HR software like sumHR.

Efficiency
Employee database management systems are highly efficient. A member of the organization can easily retrieve information about his/her colleague whenever required, and that too on short notice. One can avoid making calls to the employee out on vacation just to retrieve an address to send an important letter.

Accuracy
Since the information is mostly fed in by the employees themselves you can be sure the information is accurate since it’s straight from the source. Moreover, an employee can access their information at anytime. Therefore, he/she can keep it updated and correct mistakes, if any.

Updates on time-bound
The information added to the employee database management system can be available for as long as an employee is working in a firm or if needed, longer than that. Also if at any point in time, the employee data changes, the employee themselves can make the alterations. As a result, obsolete data is a rare find on such systems.

Confidentiality
Specific information about the employee can not only be set to be kept private from public viewing but can also be set to be kept private from anyone other than the admin of the software or the head of the organization. Therefore, it is safer to have an employee database management system in an organization, big or small, than have your bank account information lying in some drawer of a dingy desk.

Softwares such as sumHR are easily available online. It can insure availability, efficiency, accuracy, updates on time-bound information, confidentiality etc. You can worry less about managing a bulky dilapidated file or calling up your employees at inconvenient times or even be stranded without crucial information with the employee database management system of sumHR. Just sign up for the 30-day trial (NO credit card required).

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Here are five tips to motivate employees in startups and small businesses:

Meritorious delegation

To get your employee motivated in his/her work, assign them tasks they are interested in and capable of. Once you give them a job based on their merits, they will inevitably be motivated to show due diligence in their work.

Laurels and encouragement

Do not ignore any employee and their engagement in work. Whenever they do something right, compliment their work. When they mess up, tell them politely. Avoid being harsh and be encouraging instead.

Reward target achievements

Whenever an employee achieves a difficult target or has simply worked too hard for too long, reward them. Give them a holiday or a coupon to a fancy buffet. A gesture that makes an employee feel that their talents don’t go unnoticed is never a waste. They will surely be highly motivated at work the next day.

Get your employees involved

If you find an employee who is demotivated and you can’t help him/her for some reason, ask another employee to help them. After all, the best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer up someone else. You will most probably succeed in having more than one motivated employee.

Feel-good work environment

Create a work place where employees, authorities, and subordinates all respect and honor each other. If you find any animosity between employees or a dishonorable employee, resolve the matter as soon as possible. This will not only create a positive work environment but also motivate your employees to work better and just be happier with their job.

Employee motivation is quite important to maintain an encouraging work environment and get a better output from your employees. sumHR too offers some great tools for such activities. Take the 30-day trial and check it for yourself (NO credit card required).

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Communication
Honest communication should be carried out amongst your employees, and between you and your employees. Don’t encourage them to lie and avoid being dishonest to get more work done. Dishonesty in the work place and lack of communication won’t help you and your employees be alert about work. The better the communication the better the awareness of what is going on in the work place.

Understanding
Understand your employees! Whenever they ask you for a leave or make any mistake, hear them out. Put yourself in their shoes and understand what they’re going through. This will help them be honest with you and avoid intimidation. There will also be less or no animosity in the work place.

Be alert
Be alert about your employees, their work, and behavior. How they feel should be reflected in their work and behavior. If any employee is undergoing any problem at work or otherwise, try to help him/her out. On the other hand, if any employee is complained about too much, look into it. Don’t let a rotten apple spoil the bunch.

Clean, green, and character
It cannot be stressed enough that an office needs to be de-cluttered and clean. Get your employees to clean up regularly and recycle if possible. Office plants sooth the environment too. Also, allow your employees to add character to their desks and cubicles with pictures, figurines etc. This will help them lighten up the work place and avoid a drab feeling.

Time outs
Give your employees the occasional holiday or half day if they need it. They too need a break and have important things outside of work. A well-deserved break will do wonders and may even help them work better after a hiatus.

One more way to create a great office atmosphere is to use HR software for better talent management. Try out sumHR (NO credit card required).

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Here are a few ways how you can setup a company social media policy for employees:

Set up technical norms
Set up a list of rules that adhere to legal ethics, religious / political sensitivity, vulgarity, discretions regarding client and company private matters, etc. Hire professional legal help if you need to and make sure you have an all-points bulletin.

Sensitive issues
Whether it is current affairs, religion, race, politics or sensitive issues of the past, steer clear of them. Train your employees to not mention sensitive issues on social media sites. If they need to, instruct them to ask for your approval before publication of any sort.

Address the rules
Especially to the new employees, the rules should be addressed. Orientation about the rules they have to follow is a must. This will help them tailor their work in accordance with these norms. So, ensure you address the rules in your company social media policy for employees.

Focus on clients
Every client will probably have a different set of wants and rules. Whenever there is a new client or a new site your employee has to work with, send out a memo outlining the new rules. While one client may prefer apples, the other may prefer oranges. Teach your employees that every client is different and so are their wants.

Avoid self-opinion
Train your employees to focus on the brand and the message needed to be conveyed on social media. Using the employee social media policy, guide them to write based on requirements and not opinions. This will probably help avoid any future controversy.

Be respectful
The employee social media policy should prepare an employee to be respectful of people’s emotions, to respect the client’s wants etc. If they are respectful of such things, it will be easier for them to do honorable work.

These criteria should be kept in mind while framing company social media policy to conduct better employee management.

In case you don’t allow access to social media, use the in-house, enterprise social network in sumHR. Try it out and see your employee engagement activities grow exponentially (No credit card required for signup).

Here is how you can write effective emails to your employees:

Be specific
When writing to your employee it is important to be specific. Don’t beat around the bush. Your employee has very little time to spare just like you do. Get to the point as soon as you can.

Maintain clarity
When you email your employee, be clear about what you want your employee to do. Be descriptive about the things that may be complicated. Attach documents with bullet points, pictures etc. wherever needed. Don’t be vague because how the job is done is based on the instructions you give out.

Singularity
If you have a set of things to email on the same topic or an allegory of a host of topics, send it in one email. Create a PDF or Word document if you need to. This will decrease clutter for you and your employees. It will be easier to keep records of assignments handed out via email and maintain continuity.

Stay professional
Remember, it is a business email to your employee. Keep personal matters out of the email. You will have a plethora of other opportunities to socialize. Hence, a professional tone should always be maintained in the email.

Avoid tardiness
Do not send an email too late to an employee. Maintain a considerable interval between the time of sending the email to the time of deadline of the assignment. Give your employee a fair amount of time. Avoid sending late emails with narrow deadlines.

Be polite
Add a little warmth and politeness to your emails. This will motivate your employee to work better. Amend a simple “Have a nice day!” or a kind greeting in the end. There’s no reason why even a professional email shouldn’t be polite. Employee management involves treating each other with kindness, even in an email.

Internal communication is the key to smooth functioning employee management. Therefore, it must be handled with professionalism, honesty, and kindness.

Did you know you could drastically reduce the number of emails sent to employees by using sumHR? Why don’t you try it out? Just sign up for the 30-day offer (NO credit card required).

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Employee Orientation Programs
Employee orientation programs should include the technical aspect of what the employee needs to do. If your employee is clear about what he/she needs to bring to the table, half your battle is won. Training your employee in other aspects such as managing deadlines, handling stress, and eradicating any social problems that may occur in the work place is another important aspect of new employee orientation programs.

Onboarding employees is another way of making your employee feel welcome. We all remember how nervous we were on the first day of school. Moreover, a bad experience when an employee is new to an organization can tarnish their image of the organization and cause an irreversible hatred for the job itself. Onboarding employees is a process where you help your new employee feel welcomed and appreciated. Through a formal introduction, lunch with all the employees together, asking your existing employees to make the newbie feel welcomed is very crucial. A first experience is just as impactful as a first impression has the potential to be.

Onboarding Process & Checklist
What a firm needs to know and remember about the onboarding process is that the basic purpose of the orientation should always be kept in mind. Your checklist? Remember what you need your employee to learn from the program and make sure you find the simplest way to teach it to them. Once the technical aspect is understood, the next part of the employee orientation process is teaching the new employee to handle work on a rainy day. Thirdly, one must conduct onboarding to help the employee like the organization. If your employee likes the organization, they will love their work and in the long run you will have hired one of the best resource for your organization.

sumHR’s Streams feature is a great way to welcome an employee. Why don’t you try it out for the employee orientation process? Just sign up for the 30-day trial (NO credit card required).

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So, how does this aspect of employee data management work?

To download all employee data, go to:

Manage (lower left navigation) >> Click on Setup Company >> Click on Employees (under Export section) >> Click the Download button.

This will export a spreadsheet with every piece of data present in the Employee Profile page of all your employees.

At sumHR, we’re glad that our cloud-based software allows for better HR management. With this new enhancement we’ve tried to make it a cinch for HR managers to manage and download all employee data for their perusal, at any time.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below about this enhancement to the employee data management system.

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Employee engagement activities
In case your employee isn’t a very big fan of the work itself, try orientation. Knowing the cause and effect of what an employee does will at least get him/her a fair level of understanding of the job. Once an employee understands what he is supposed to do, the interest in work will increase automatically. Therefore, orientation would be the most effective employment engagement activity.

Occasionally conducting light-hearted social gatherings and celebrating occasions in the office is a good employee engagement idea. It gives your workers a boost and something fun to look forward to. Traditional days, potluck, movie in the office, birthday’s etc. – familiarize your employees with each other and the organization. Your employee will eventually stop viewing the organization as a dreaded prison with the occasional fun.

Higher level of employee engagement
However, the most affective employee engagement activity and the best employee engagement idea is getting your employees to make friends with each other. It may seem like a simple solution but some of the best ideas are the best because of their sheer simplicity. Even at school, the most boring lecture was fun simply because our closest friends surrounded us. Studying turned less torturous in study groups with friends.

A work place is much more pleasant and engaging when the people not only know each other but are also friendly with one another. It somehow manages to lighten up an otherwise drab activity. Also, as the HR manager you can instruct the senior management to adopt a friendly approach towards each other and towards subordinates. Instruct your employees to do so as well. Doing so truly makes an organization far more engaging.

The enterprise social network feature in sumHR, Streams, was developed keeping in mind the nature of employee engagement activities in startups and small businesses. You can try it out by signing up for a free trial (NO credit card required).

Image Courtesy: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Employee Leave Management Systems

For any organization, especially for startups and small businesses, employee leave management is a crucial aspect. Such records of employees help you keep track of their diligence. It also indicates the interest your employee has in his/her work. The more the leaves, the less the interest. Leave management software helps you keep the most accurate track of the amount of paid leave, sick leave, and holidays your employee is entitled to.

You will be able to keep a track of how many holidays your employee has used and how many they have left. Leave management is crucial in any company as it indicates input by the employees. Excess vacations can and will reduce this input to a great extent. Such factors are very simple yet pivotal.

HR Software for Leave Management

Leave management software will help you base your performance appraisals on accurate information since there is no chance of human error through the employee leave management systems. Hence, errors in the work input, leave count, and diligence in the work of an employee are a few less things you don’t need to worry about keeping track of.

Such efficient employee leave management software is available online and can be easily installed in your system for better and immaculate records of your employees’ leave patters and the remnants of your employee’s paid vacation days.

sumHR too has an exciting employee leave management feature. Why don’t you try it out? Just sign up for the 30-day trial (NO credit card required).

Go to “Setup Company” (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> click Reimbursements (Under Export) to go to the Reimbursements Report page. On this page, you can either select the pre-defined durations (for 1,3 and 6 months) or select a custom date range, as per your requirements. Click download after selecting the duration and voila! The data will be available for download as a .xls file.

In case you have any feedback/suggestions about exporting details of reimbursements, feel free to share it in the comments section below.

With several errors to rectify and assignments to watch over, attendance management should be left to the attendance management software to take care of. When you have a herd of employees working under you, your assignments to complete, your boss to impress, your non-work life worries breathing down your neck, as an HR manager or office supervisor, you may lose your attention to detail. With multi-tasking and deadlines to worry about you are barely going to notice if there are any absentees in your organization.

Attendance Management & HR Software

To help you with this problem, free software for attendance management are available online. Attendance trackers and attendance software help you keep a tab and be alert without the stress. Attendance register software, such as sumHR, simply help you maintain a computerized record of the employee absentees, and works just like a professor attendance register at school, except that it is more efficient and futuristic as compared to the dilapidated attendance register at school.

Attendance tracker software comes in handy when you need to form systematic performance evaluations, keep an eye on the slackers and reward the hard workers in your organization. You can easily use the data from the free attendance management software to quote your employee’s pay, and also know when to cut their pay for too many leaves and also pay them for their over-time.

Tracking Employee Attendance

Basically, you can kick back and have one less thing to be alert about by using the attendance tracker. You can focus better on far more important assignments than worry about which cubicle is empty and which isn’t. But most importantly, you don’t have to worry about any error in attendance management or paying anyone more or less than they deserve by accident or any such clerical error that occurs due to lack of alertness.

In a nutshell, attendance software helps you be free from at least one of your worry if not all of your hassles. And yes, it enables you to leave behind any doubt or mistake in the attendance count.

sumHR too has an exciting attendance management software feature. Why don’t you try it out? Just sign up for the 30-day offer (NO credit card required).

Anyways, here are a few tips and tricks to avoid working late and bringing in more efficiency:

Power-packed mornings
When you just arrive at work in the morning is when you can finish most of your work. Set a target and finish it by lunchtime. If you manage to do so, half your battle is won.

Inbox & call back
Once you’ve finished your lunch break, it’s time to make sure you’ve replied to all those queries and appointment calls. Keep the mails and calls to the point and straight forward and mention everything you need to. This way you don’t have to deal with unnecessary interaction to “confirm missing details”.

Stretch
Get off that computer every once in a while and stretch. Improve your circulation, drink water, take a bathroom break etc. After which remind yourself of your target once more and focus again. Ensure that your breaks are short.

Talk to your boss
If your boss gives you a load of work just when it’s time to leave or is being unfair by asking you to work late too often, talk with him. Explain your other priorities to him and how you manage your time well and finish your work on time and efficiently. Ask him to submit assignments to you in the mornings instead. Work out a schedule with him/her.

Final check
When there’s about an hour left to go, check what is left to do. If you have finished most of your work in the morning, you probably will have much less to do in the last hour. Reply to the last minute emails. Also, set a rough target for the next day if you can, it will simply make you worry less about work when you’re home.

Freedom
Finally, when it’s time to leave, don’t take your work home with you no matter how much you love your job. Take a break sit back and relax. Not only is time for yourself very important but you will also be fresh for the next day. Stop worrying, start working and eventually, you will finish on time.

To turn working late into something habitual is merely foolish, both on your part and your superior who asks you to do so. The stress of working too late builds up over time, and you will end up turning you into an irritable monster by staying back past your regular working hours.

Image Courtesy: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Here are five useful and innovative ways to retain employees:

Lighten the mood
Whenever time permits, do something fun and non-work related with your employees. Watch a movie together, start a book club in the office, have potluck once a month, organize an assorted donut day, etc. Such activities help employees divert their mind from work stress.

Help each other
Have people from very different departments help each other out. This will not only help them socialize with people of different personalities and keep things interesting, but also help bring about a friendly work environment. Knowing as many people in the workplace as possible renders a sense of familiarity and comfort. Hence, you should have an accountant help your graphic designer with ideas once in a while.

Give ‘em a break
There are those days where one just can’t seem to concentrate and a 20-min power nap just isn’t enough. Give your employee a break. Give them a half day or ask them to finish their task for the day and take a holiday. Avoid making this habitual, but if you just can’t help but notice when your employee is sad… give them a break.

Orientation & training
If you see your employee getting frustrated every time he/she does some assignment incorrectly, train him/her. Better knowledge of the work leads to better quality service in record time. Also, everyone does tend to get a little content when assignments and work styles are mastered with ease.

Relationships
Build and maintain friendly relationships within the work place. Animosity between co-workers leads to jealousy, cliques, cut-throat attitudes, unnecessary drama, and unwanted problems. There is no way to really force people to be friends, but make it a compulsion to be cordial and polite with one another. The moment you sense negative feelings between people, sort out the matter as soon as possible.

A software like sumHR can help implement these ideas about retaining employees very easily, especially using the Leave/Attendance Management feature and the in-house Enterprise Social Network. Why don’t you sign up for a 30-day trial and see for yourself.

Image Courtesy: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Attendance

1. The attendance clock-in option has been provided on the dashboard page itself for easy access and quick action.

2. Tracking attendance for ‘work from home’ and ‘out duty’ is now easy and possible! Employees can now send a request to their reporting managers for making changes to their attendance record. Any modifications to previous date attendance logs can be requested by employees for managerial review/approval. Here are the details:

A user has to go to “Attendance” (under Dashboard, Left Navigation bar) and click on the blue-colored Request Button (below the green-colored Clock In/Out Button). On the pop-up form, the employee can select the Request Type – Clock in Request (for the same day) or Update Attendance (for changing past logs). After selecting the type, the user has to fill all the details in the form and click the ‘Submit’ button to send it to their reporting manager for approval.

And also, we’ve got a much awaited feature to modify the primary email address and change the self-service status!

Admins can now change the default email addresses of the users. Go to “Company Directory” (under Dashboard, Left Navigation bar) and select the employee whose details you want to edit. Click the “More Options” button and select ‘Change Self Service & Email’. Enter the new email id. In case you want to change the account to non-Self Service, select ‘No’ from the dropdown menu next to Status.
Note: Only admins can change the email address for users.

We are big fans of your feedback. Do feel free to share your views about these enhancements.

Anyways, here are a few tips for conducting performance appraisals:

Know your employee
When you get to know your employee and their skill sets better, you can delegate appropriate tasks to them, which also means you can keep them at arm’s length from tasks you know they would not only be sub-par at but also tasks that will cause miserable moods.

Encourage your employee
When one renders an appraisal to their employee, it is crucial to make it as encouraging and well reckoned as possible. Everyone feels wonderful when their work is appreciated and is accordingly driven to work better.

Apt appraisal
Like calculating large numbers with a calculator in your hands, you expect a correct and pertinent solution. An employee too will expect to be evaluated as correctly as possible. Let’s not forget to include making an employee feel good about the work he/she does and make them feel appreciated.

Computer accuracy
To help you evaluate your employees to the best of your ability, performance appraisal software is available online. Therefore, you can just channel your attention on encouraging and appreciating the work of your employee. Easy to use performance appraisal software can help your Human Resource team, customer service representatives, managers etc. calculate the most befitting and relevant performance appraisals.

At sumHR too, our engineers are hard at work developing a performance appraisal module for our HR software. In case you are a HR manager or a person who participates in the performance appraisal process, do feel free to share your comments and requirements in the comments section below.

Image Courtesy: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Training programs for employees are necessary for startups and SMBs.

Avoid spoon-feeding
Without a training program for employees, you may have to explain every single detail of how you want the work done. Spoon-feed your employee, initially at least if not always. Spend time and focus on your employee rather than your own work instead. The pressure of crosschecking every single thing and your own assignments to complete will get to you causing inevitable stress and irritation.

From an employee’s perspective when one undergoes employee training and development work just simplifies itself if nothing else. When an employee is well trained and educated about his/her job and a certain level of understanding is grasped, input increases in lesser time. An employee need not worry about learning how to do little tasks every day and after the time wasted gets on to do what was actually asked of him/her.

How to train them
Training programs for generic matters like time management and how to tackle work load and deadlines go hand-in-hand with technical training and development about the job they are hired for. If one has hired a whole bunch of employees, make them undergo training and development together if possible. This will save you the extra time and resources and will also help the newbies socialize with each other and ease the “first day at work” nervousness.

Training programs for employees saves time and effort of the employees and upper management. Most importantly employee training and development will help decrease the amount of complains from clients and customers to a great extent. Therefore, training programs for employees automatically eases the tension of other departments such as customer service and helps keep clients content.

Did you know you could use sumHR for scheduling training programs for your employees? Just sign up for the 30-day trial and use  Streams and built-in Calendar feature to coordinate with your employees for your training programs.

Image Courtesy: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Getting programmers is easy but getting good ones is the challenge. A programmer must possess the proper understanding of the job and sheer common sense when it comes to understanding what he is expected to bring to the table.

Sometimes a simple job of just counting numbers or getting your boss his morning coffee is done with “Tally” or a coffee app on your BlackBerry that makes ordering coffee easy. Nevertheless, even jobs in technology are just as challenging as it requires the same level of understanding and mastering of skills to do.

When hiring programmers, a personal interview is not enough. You probably are going to ask him to plop down on a chair and work his magic on the computer. It is then that you can judge by the intensity on his face and the patience when working that you would be able to best judge his love for technology.

A rockstar programmer is not one who thinks he knows everything about technology and programming, but someone who thinks that no matter how much he (or she) knows, there’s always something new to learn.

Most tech startup with who we spoke to told us that they would hire anyone who is passionate about technology, simply because it would be similar to climbing Mount Everest if one had to slouch on an office chair all day in front of a screen that he/she can’t stand the sight of.

After all “rockstars” are rockstars because of their passion for what they do and how evident it is in their work, be it music or programming.

[This article is part of a series called "Of Rockstars and Startups: Recruiting the Best". Hope you enjoy reading it.]

Image Courtesy: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Select Clock In Location
sumHR now enables employees to select the location when clocking in. They have the option to select either Office, Home, or Outdoor Duty. In case your company has chosen the IP restriction option for attendance, the “Office” option will be disabled for employees if they login from an IP not defined as your office IP in the system.

Late Mark Policy
Using sumHR, you can now configure the Late Mark policy also. This option will be available when you create new Shifts. Go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Shifts (Under Attendance).

Note: For previously created Shifts, click Edit for the particular shift to set your company’s Late Mark policy.

Here’s how you can configure the Late Mark policy:
- Select Enabled for Late Mark Policy (disabled by default).
- You can also set the Number of Late Marks (Zero by default).
- Choose Late Mark Leave Deduction (half day or full day)
- Select Late Mark Leave Type i.e. the type of leave you want to deduct from the employees’ quota if he/she crosses the Late Mark limits set by you in the previous two options.

These enhancements to the leave and attendance management systems of sumHR, make the Attendance Policy Management for your organization easier and flexible. Do feel free to share any suggestions for the Attendance enhancements in the comments section below.

Related articles

• Attendance Feature Enhanced: Attendance Policy Management Added
• Bulk Import Attendance for All Employees, Export Details, and Edit Attendance
• Configure Different Leave Policies for Employees based on Departments, Office Location or Employee Type

If you take a look around (when at your work place) you can determine your employee’s most perceptive trait by thinking of the first word in terms of personality that comes to your mind when you see them. Example: artistic, observant, lazy, cheerful etc. Identify these personality traits in your colleagues and employees and enforce better employee management. You can delegate much better, enabling your organization to work like a properly maintained and oiled machine.

The Honest Bunch
If you truly are a lucky employer, you have atleast one genuinely honest person in your work place. The idea is to simply encourage such people in the work place to continue being just the way they are no matter what. Avoid being too harsh with such people. After all, they are just being honest with you. Whether they’re maestros at what they do or not, they possess a trait that’s deserving of a pat on their back.

The Point-Dexters & Perfectionists
If they’re the typical point-dexter nerds they are very much likely to be perfectionists. This is because these employees possess a decent amount of knowledge on several subjects that they just know what the better way of doing things is. The best thing to do with this category of people is never over look their suggestions and if something isn’t upto the mark, encourage and trust them to make it perfect.

The Hard Workers
This is the most dependable category of people. It usually is due to spontaneity that people are hard working. Never take advantage of this good trait by over loading them with work just because they have the ability to cope up with it. Instead, reward them for their work and encourage them to be better at what they do. Give them a holiday now and then too. This will not only encourage them to do better but also cause their colleagues to try to work just as hard too.

The Office Clowns
By all means never ever fire the office clown for ‘goofing off’. If they do not produce quality work, create a liaison in ‘stress management’ if you have to. They lighten the mood when everyone in the office is in a horrendous mood, suffering from Monday blues or just can’t cope with their problems in and out of work. They are nothing but stress-busters. So, “Who ya gonna call?”

The Artists & Experts
The artistic bunch or connoisseurs are driven by the love for what they do. Understand what they love doing, and give them only that to do. Due to their sheer passion for what they do, assigning them work they dislike will just be inviting mood swings and eventually cause them to disappear from the work place (sometimes without notice). Instead make them do what they love and they surely will deliver and outlive your expectations.

The Go-to Guy
Termed as ‘the helpers’, ‘the troubleshooters’ etc. call them whatever you may but they’ll always be there on your rainy day with an umbrella. Acknowledge them in the workplace for their good traits. Everyone loves laurels and when they need help themselves, return the favor to the best of your ability.

The Quiet Bunch
You shouldn’t mistake their silence for being “anti-social”. The “anti-social” bunch already failed the interviews so you don’t need to worry about that. Most of the silent ones just need to spend more time with the ‘office clowns’ to loosen up. They are very good listeners and you can count on them to be very observant and catch every detail that you have missed! Such people work wonderful in quality control.

Understanding each other is the key to maintaining a ‘laid back’ work environment and hence causing your employees to dread Mondays much less.

And yes, you too can make your Mondays more fun by managing these employees efficiently. Just have a look at sumHR, an awesome HR software for managing your human capital.

Related articles

• HR Software: Big Acquisitions & What Startups/SMBs Can Do for HRMS
• Moving HR Management from Spreadsheets to HR Software: For Startups/SMBs

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Taleo (Acquired by Oracle); Deal Size: USD 1.9 Billion
Oracle, which has a knack of buying good companies, acquired Taleo in February 2012. The cloud-based talent management solutions company had made a name for itself in the last decade, and offered solutions related to performance & compensation management and learning & development, in addition to recruitment to enterprises and small businesses.

SuccessFactors (Acquired by SAP); Deal Size: USD 3.4 Billion
When SAP wanted to bolster its offering in the HR space, it went and acquired San Mateo, California-based SuccessFactors for 3.5 billion dollars. The company offers cloud-based human capital management (HCM) solutions, and is well known for its employee-performance management solutions. It has nearly three and a half thousand customers and had carved its own little niche in the HR software space.

While these acquisition deals are a great indication of the HR software space, other news such as Salesforce launching Work.com (refurbished form of Rypple) and Workday’s IPO, which is in the range of USD 400 million, do show how thrilling the space has become.

So where do startups and small businesses stand? Yes, they do have these above-mentioned options to manage their human capital but would these be really cost-effective? Now comes the most exciting part. Startups and small businesses should use cloud-based HR software but the ones developed by startups for startups. At sumHR, our aim is to enable startups and small businesses to manage their human capital at a cost-effective rate by offering them all core services in an HR software, ie attendance management, leave management, enterprise social network, employee onboarding, employee directory, and salary/reimbursement management.

If you are a startup or a small business, you should give sumHR a try.

While LinkedIn started to roll out the feature a few days ago, earlier this week the company made an official announcement about Endorsements. Users can directly go to the Skills & Expertise section of the profile page of the connection whom they wish to endorse. LI is also featuring a box on the top when you visit a connection’s profile page. It recommends a few skill sets for you to endorse.

One great thing about LinkedIn endorsement is it will make the whole recommendation process easy. While I am a writer, I have seen that a lot of people find it difficult to either write or find time to write recommendations. Also, the recommendation feature was open to abuse. I must have received at least 10 emails from LinkedIn connections whom I have never met asking me to write a recommendation in return for one! While this can happen for the Endorsement feature too. But as the usage and the volumes increase, it can be a great tool for recruiters to objectively gauge the skill sets. LI has also made the process transparent by including who has endorsed a person for the particular skill sets. A clever recruiter will know how to quickly use this information to his or her advantage

Of course, we do have a little bit of Oliver Twist in all of us, and I do want some more from LinkedIn. I am sure many hiring managers too would prefer statistics when it comes to endorsements. The professional networking site already provides numbers when it comes to certain aspects, such as the Company Page. Maybe they could do the same for Endorsements too! For example, if a developer has received many endorsements for PHP, the feature should give combined demographic details about the endorsers, or whether it’s the boss or the client. Who knows HR managers could also use the Endorsement feature to see if employees are getting endorsed by their clients or seniors and use it as a metric for performance appraisal.

LinkedIn Endorsements have started to become popular with the users, and hopefully the company would make more enhancements to it.

Our engineers have enhanced the Leave Management features of sumHR to accommodate this pressing need. You can now restrict a Leave type to gender, department, type, or location. Just go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Create Leave Policy (Under Leaves). This is in addition to the other options for Leaves that were already present in the system.

NOTE for existing customers: In case you want these changes to reflect retrospectively for the Leaves section, kindly write to us at support@sumhr.com or call on +91 922 3131 202.

You can now configure Attendance Policies when you setup a new shift. Go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Shifts (Under Attendance). Click on Create Shift to add a new Shift or click “Edit” next to existing shifts to make changes. After you have finished filling in the shift details, go to the Attendance Policy section.

Attendance Cycle
Depending on your company policy, you can set the attendance cycle to either “Calendar Year” or “Financial Year”. This would generally be the same as the “Leave cycle” mentioned in leave policies.

Mark-In Policy
There are two options available for Mark-In Policy. As per the requirements, you can either choose “Both In & Out Time” option that makes it mandatory for the employee to clock his/her in and out times, or the “In Time” option which makes it mandatory for the employee only to clock the In Time.

Leave Deduction Policy
This option allows you to deduct a leave in case employee doesn’t mark his/her attendance (clock in or clock out) for a particular day, when there’s no leave applied for or a public/weekly off too.

Deduct Leaves From
In case you have chosen to “Enable” the Leave Deduction Policy, this option allows you to select the type of leave that you want to deduct from the employee’s account.

Max Optional Holiday Policy
You can choose the maximum number of optional holidays that can be taken by an employee.

NOTE for existing customers: By default, the Attendance Cycle is set to Calendar Year, Mark In Policy is set to Both In & Out Time, Leave Deduction Policy is set to Disable, and Max Optional Holiday Policy is set to 0. Users who have already created the shifts can make these new changes by editing the shifts. In case you want these changes to reflect retrospectively, kindly write to us at support@sumhr.com or call on +91 922 3131 202.

Here’s an excerpt from the SMD article: “But the cherry on the cake came last January, when they launched sumHR, an HR management software aimed at startups and small businesses to centralise all employee data, streamline HR processes such as leave tracking, provide an employee engagement platform, and improve collaboration within teams.”

sumHR has been gaining a lot of traction amongst many small businesses and startups, who are using the HR software to manage leaves and attendance. Streams, the enterprise social network of sumHR, too has captivated the users. Many new features will soon be added to the HR software.

To read the entire article about sumHR and Mumbai coworking space, click the image above or head to this link.

Employee Databases
Spreadsheets and other documents are only good if you have a team that is around six to seven people. After that, things can become more complex. Keeping records is important and when it comes to employee information, there are lots and lots of forms to be filled. However, if you use an automated system, such as the one sumHR offers, not only do you make things easy for the employee, it becomes easy for you to manage as there wouldn’t be any data entry work for you. Small businesses and startups usually use printouts of forms, which are then filled by the new employees, after which the person in charge goes and again fills the same information in a spreadsheet. This can be avoided by using an HR software.

Attendance Management & Leave Management
As information about attendance and leaves is related to the payroll, it is imperative that such data is kept secure and confidential. It is easy to manipulate information in spreadsheets. There have been instances when employees have accessed official spreadsheets and manipulated data. And even if you trust your employees, the other issue is the spreadsheet itself. Be it any spreadsheet software, copy and pasting data can be a little tricky sometimes. In case you make an error and don t realize it at that time, you could end up with a huge crisis later. Another drawback is that it is hard to gather data from multiple spreadsheets, in case needed for analysis. Using sumHR, you can easily export leave and attendance data for insights and trends.

Why don’t you try out sumHR and see for yourself how it beats the spreadsheet each and every time? Yes, there is a FREE 30-day trial! No credit cards involved too.

PPTs Are Not Ideas
Whether in India or abroad, most b-school students spend a major part of their time preparing presentations and slideshows to put forth their points and the learnings they get from books or case studies. This then extends to the company, which they start working for. While presenting ideas in an organized and efficient way is a good idea, but expecting each and every small plan or a concept as a PPT is not. In fact, these things could end up wasting time of your team, and you could have a disgruntled workforce, who isn’t happy with their work. A better way to develop great ideas is to have a casual brainstorming session and ask everyone to chip in without any hesitation. In fact, you can encourage all team members to speak without worrying about looking stupid.

Balance Data & People
Many people believe that numbers speak the truth, which they do. In fact, these days with the advent of big data and various tools enable you to get insights from the numbers that you have collected. Business schools are introducing new quantitative methods to enable students to be more data driven. Some tools even allow you to visualize the data in a fancy way. And most organisations are increasing transparency by making their processes more objective, which is a great thing. Nevertheless, just using the numbers and ignoring the human factor can be futile. Many leaders, to increase productivity and optimize their profits, will use data and make changes. For example, one digital company we know decided to quantify every task. Certain creative tasks can never by quantified and they ended up having many disgruntled employees.

These are a few things that are hard to pick up in a b-school. So what else have you learnt, as an entrepreneur that you think cannot be taught at a b-school? Use the comment section to share your views.

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Communication Savvy
Employees who work from home are usually more accustomed to use many channels of communication. In fact, working from home means finding different ways to communicate, so that there is always an alternative way to be in touch, in case one of the system fails. They are also used to be connected with different people in different ways. While they may use instant messaging to stay in touch with co-workers, they may use video conferencing when contacting their managers.

Better Usage of Meetings
When individuals work from home they tend to make the best out of the things that are available. This stands true for meetings too. Most of the times, employees who work from home are connected via video conference or a telephonic conference call. And the meetings usually are of short duration. Thus, not only them but also the managers optimally use the meetings because of the time shortage.

Paradox
When it comes to interaction with the leaders in the organization, how many times a day do we meet them? Forget days, even though the senior manager or the VP might be sitting down the aisle, an employee might meet him/her just once a fortnight. However, when an employee is working from home, he or she tends to interact more, especially with other channels of communication open. The same goes for the managers, who tend to take more care of employees working from home.

At sumHR, our employees who work remotely use the Streams to continually interact with each other and also their managers. What about your company? If you have a reason why or why not an employee should work from home, feel free to share it in the comments section below.

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Bulk Import Attendance

You can now bulk import employee attendance details downloaded from biometric devices or saved in a spreadsheet.

Go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Attendance (Under Import)

Once you are on the Import Attendance page, click on the Choose File to select the CSV file. Select the relevant date format, time format and the delimiter, and then click on Upload CSV button.

Export Attendance

We have now configured sumHR to enable you to download the attendance data of your employees, which you can use to monitor as well as analyze trends.

Go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Attendance (Under Export)

Select the duration for which you want the Attendance report and then click Download. Though there are 3 default options, 1, 3, 6 months, you can also set a custom time frame.

Edit Attendance

As an admin, you can edit the attendance details of the employees on sumHR.

Go to Company Directory (under HR Tools)

Click on the employee whose attendance details you want to edit. Select More
Options and then choose View Attendance Log. You can then click ‘Edit’ option on the respective date rows.

We are sure these enhancements of the sumHR attendance feature would make your HR management tasks a lot easier. Feel free to share your feedback/suggestions in the comments section below.

Here are a few reasons for grooming employees for leadership:

Performance & Productivity
Though remuneration is one of the key reasons for people to come and work in a startup, offering them a chance to lead will surely have an effect on their productivity, a positive one that is. Many organizations, especially startups and small businesses have seen an increase in performance from individuals who were being groomed to take a leadership role at the organization. These individuals, who are inspired, also tend to motivate their teams to better and thus increase productivity.

Loyalty
Various studies have shown that the average time a person stays at the same job has come down drastically. Job-hopping is not looked down upon as it used to be. Organization now have to find ways through which they can retain good talent. When you are grooming employees to take leadership positions in the future, you are giving them a solid reason to be loyal. With so much information available, employees too have become averse to the traditional ‘bonuses’ handed out to them. However, when you offer them a chance to be a part of the decision making process, employees tend to be loyal.

Increase Morale
A few days ago, we had published a post on the important values of HR management and how embedding leadership development is very vital to startups and small businesses. One of the reasons was that it affects the employee morale. When an organization, of whatever size, has a staff that is high on morale, it sure affects the growth in a good way. And when you are grooming employees to take leadership roles in the future, they would be eager and happy to work in such an environment.

Different companies use different tactics to get good leadership. Feel free to share your thoughts about it in the comments section below.

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So, how can startups use HR software for managing teams and freelancers/consultants?

Work from Home
Job seekers prefer organizations that allow them to work from home, one of the main reasons being a good work-life balance. Though a great thing to offer employees, this arrangement brings its own sets of challenges. However, using HR software like sumHR, you can effectively manage this kind of a workforce. The HR personnel can use the Attendance feature and enable work from home employees to log in attendance, and thus keep a track of the time spent on work. Though work from home employees usually come to office for monthly meetings, you can use the Streams feature to keep them updated about the regular events that they might want to attend. These employees can also make good use of the Directory feature to find the contact details of other employees in the company to coordinate with them whenever needed. You can also keep a track of the employee salaries, using the Employee database feature.

Freelancers/Consultants
Offices these days can’t do without freelancers and consultants, as it is a win-win situation for both. Managing freelancers is no easy task as they are spread out across geographies in certain cases. Using HR software, a startup or a small business can easily manage this kind of a workforce. For example, sumHR enables you to not only have different departments but also keep an entry as self-service or non-self service. Thus, you can easily manage the salaries of consultants, and even freelancers wherever required. Startups can also use the Groups feature to keep the communication going. This would also enable the freelancers to communicate with each other and have an office-kind of a feel, even though it’s virtual.

Of course, it goes without saying that sumHR is an awesome tool for HR managers of small businesses and startups to manage their in-house employees. Feel free to share your inputs about managing your work from home personnel.

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Practical Talent Management
Time and again, management gurus and experts have cited that having a brand name attracts talent but is not good enough to retain it. The same goes for startups. Being well funded or having a promising product or services doesn’t guarantee that the top performers will stay. Thus, a startup has to practically manage talent, especially the ones who have leadership qualities.

Though most employees in a startup usually have more than a single role, the top performers can be given decision-making tasks. You can also sit and discuss their career path in the company. In addition, you can have clearly defined career paths for all your employees.

Rewards and Appraisals
When it comes to performance appraisals and rewards for managers, things that are taken into account are usually their key performance indicators, targets, growth, etc. Many high-performing managers are given huge monetary incentives. However, that is not just enough for fostering an atmosphere for imbibing leadership.

It is also about offering the right kind of rewards / incentives. In addition, the top leadership should be incentivized to find and nurture the high-potential employees who can be the leaders of tomorrow. At sumHR, we are developing a robust performance management system for startups and small businesses.

Embedding Leadership Development
Be it a billion-dollar company with lakhs of employees or a million-dollar startup / small business with just 10 employees, both need leadership for growth of the business and company. However, leaders these days don’t just have to stop at that. They have to ensure that the individuals who run the business are keyed up and enthusiastic as well as develop their leadership skills.

While big corporations are beginning to nurture leadership in talent, small businesses and startups too are showing an inclination towards it. For startups, it becomes ever more so important to imbibe leadership-related functions as a part of the job responsibilities and enable their employees to grow with them.

A company should be profitable and that’s what matters. Feel free to share your HR management principles and methodologies with the community in the comments section below.

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So, what can entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses learn from athletes?

Don’t Burn Yourself Out
One difference that you can easily spot when comparing big companies and startups is that work hours are long for both, employees and the senior management. Many first time entrepreneurs, excited by the newfound challenges and rewards, work really long hours. A good athlete is the one who knows his/her limitations and when to stop the practice sessions. Same goes for the entrepreneur!

Assess & Evaluate
The same way an athlete measures the timings and tries to better it every time, as an entrepreneur you too should assess and evaluate the metrics. Be it recruitment, HR management, or operations, have formal procedures in place to gather and store data. You can then use the information obtained after thoroughly analyzing the data to make decisions and then better your own record.

Coach
Not just sports teams have coaches. Individual athletes too have coaches, someone experienced who guides them and informs the competitors’ weaknesses. As an entrepreneur, it can be of great help if you have someone who can coach and mentor you. Running a business is not an easy task, especially when it comes to taking strategic decisions that would have major implications in the future.

Never Ever Quit!
The greatest athletes and sportspersons have been the ones who kept on going when others stopped. In spite of failing numerous times, the greatest athletes kept on trying and innovating. This is something to replicate as for every successful startup there are tens of other startups that fail. As an entrepreneur, you shouldn’t give up, whether you come across failure when launching a product/service or for the whole venture itself.

Entrepreneurs can learn many things from athletes as such, but these are the ones that we can exactly draw parallel to. Feel free to share your learning from athletes and sportspersons in the comments section below.

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But as a Startup/SMB, why does a performance management and appraisal system matter?

Efficiency
For small business and startups, especially the latter, HR management activities such as attendance management and leave management are documented on paper or maybe a spreadsheet. However, these are inefficient and time consuming methods. The same goes for methods for performance appraisals. Many startups either keep it subjective or download a basic form off the web, get it filled and that’s about it! As a company that is growing, it becomes difficult to manage the increasing number of personnel, and systems are needed to ensure there are no mistakes. A software for performance management and appraisal enables on organization to bring in more efficiency, especially for growing companies.

Data, Analysis, Data
When companies use subjective methods to appraise their employees, there are many questions that remained unanswered, either completely or partially. When a performance appraisal is made more objective, it enables the HR to make better decisions. The best way to implement appraisals that are objective is to use performance management and appraisal software. Both the sides, the company that is appraising and the employee who is getting appraised, can carry it out objectively and then use the numbers for analysis and improvement. While the employee benefits from his appraisal analysis, the organization can use the data of all the employees for broader analysis and better HR management.

More Features
When employee-related tasks such a performance management and appraisals are automated, there are several advantages that a small business and startup gets. Generally, appraisals take place during a particular period. However, using performance management and appraisal systems you can carry out appraisals for an employee any time of the year, and maybe twice in a year depending on the employee. In addition, you can streamline the process. Many startups have a setup where the manager sits in one location while the employee sits in another location. Instead of couriering back and forth appraisal forms, both can use the system.

At sumHR too our engineers are building a performance management and appraisal system that will be integrated in our cloud-based software.

What are your expectations from a performance management and appraisal software? Use the comments section below to share your views.

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Anyways, here are 5 ways to create an awesome company culture:

Vision
As the leader of the organization, you need to have a vision as to where your organization is going. There has to be a goal. And when you share this with your employees, they too should be in tandem with the vision that you have set and will have a set direction to work.

Interaction
An organization is somewhat of a living entity. And that’s why there should be a lot of interaction amongst all its stakeholders. The employees and teams and the management should communicate regularly, for matters that are of formal nature as well as informal, such as extra-curricular activities.

Non-monetary Rewards
Money is not the only motivation for employees these days, particularly in startups. As an entrepreneur if you want your startup to have an awesome work culture, make sure your employees feel the same by offering them something extra in addition to their salaries. It could be rewards, recognition, a better work-life balance, or even regular reviews!

Transparency
Compared to industrial behemoths, startups usually have a culture that is transparent because of the flat-structure they follow. However, there are times when there is a lack of transparency, especially when decisions that pertain to HR policies are taken. When there is more transparency, there is more trust and thus more motivation.

Hiring Tactics
Hiring the right candidate for your startup is one of the most important things that leads to creating an awesome work culture. Every company, whether it is big or small, has its own unique culture. As a leader you have to ensure that individuals who are capable of carrying forward your principles, ethics, vision, etc are hired. A right profile with wrong attitude can be more counterproductive to your progress.

The points mentioned will enable you to create an awesome company culture for your employees. You can also share your ideas in the comments section on what makes your company’s culture so different and awesome.

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Below are three rules that startups usually use to destroy their company culture:

No Cell Phones
More often than not, startups end up instilling policies that are a reflection of a vintage era. The ‘No Cell Phones at Work’ policy is one of them. In India, many employers have a master-slave mentality and frown at employees who use cell phones during work, the reason being that it is the employer who pays the employee for their time and they shouldn’t be ‘misusing’ it. Yes, it is true that cell phones may prove to be a distraction. However, that depends on the person who uses it. In fact, shutting out a person completely from the outside world could have its set of repercussions. The employee could miss a medical emergency call that may be related to his/her loved one.

Banning Social Media
Many startups, especially the ones who scale quickly in terms of employee strength, have a knack of implementing rules that are downright draconian. Social media is banned in many offices these days and even startups have started to follow suit. Most of them use software that blocks such sites. Just like cell phones, social media too can be a distraction. Nevertheless, blocking of websites can be counter-intuitive as a lot of information these days is available on the social web and employees may end up missing out on something important when researching.

Hierarchies
As teams expand and more and more people join the organization, there is a need to streamline the workflows. However, many startups falter over here by instilling a military-style hierarchy that often leads to uncomfortable situations, especially if the employees have worked together before the policy was implemented. In many startups in India, there have been cases where employees have been asked to refer their ‘superiors’ as Sir or Madam! Startups have to be careful when it comes to managing human capital, and having a strict hierarchical structure could do more harm than good to the organization as well as its employer brand image.

Startups usually implement these three HR management rules/policies when they are scaling and end up hurting themselves. Do share views about your similar startup experience in the comments section below.

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Click to enlarge

We have just launched the Attendance feature for sumHR HR software. Users will now be able to record and save their Clock In and Clock Out times. We are sure you would be excited to try out the new feature.

As an Admin, you will have to first set it up for your users, according to your company policies and structure. To do this:

Go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Shifts (Under Attendance) to create the shifts.

You can define the Shift Name, Shift Timings, and the employees who will work in that shift. In case, the shift timings are such that they encompass two different days, then select the Next Day option. You can also define the Grace Time for late marks as well as the time duration before/after which an employee can punch in/out. Click Submit to create the shift.

The Attendance management system also allows you to restrict the login to a particular IP address.

Go to Setup Company (under Manage, Left Navigation bar) >> Log Option (Under Attendance) to add IP addresses.

Click on the Add IP button to enter the Network Name, IP address range, and the Shifts. Click Submit.

And that’s not all! We are also working to accommodate different time zones, statistics, email notifications, color identifiers, editing of logs by HR/Admin, linking with leaves and company holidays, etc.

Do let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.