Zoho announced a major update to its HR management system, Zoho People 4.0. This new version has significantly enhanced the core functionality of the application, providing employers with a centralised, integrated system that facilitates better connectivity between HR and employees. It allows HR departments to manage custom services, tailor complex leave policies to specific workplace scenarios, run advanced analytics, and handle employee queries through a centralised case-management system.
“Over the past decade, Zoho People has enabled HR departments across the globe to manage attendance, leave, performance, documents and forms from a single platform,” said Raja Ramasamy, product manager for Zoho People. “With this new version, we have set the bar higher by focusing on the ways technology can help the HR team do their work more efficiently, and also support better employee experience. The case-management feature, for example, allows HR admins to streamline employee issues and address them quickly, while enabling employees to have a better visibility into the status of their query,” adds Ramasamy.
Here are some of the key features of Zoho People 4.0:
Case management: This feature allows HR personnel to track and handle employee queries easily and efficiently. Having a single module for queries makes it easier for employees to ask questions or register complaints about various services. Admins can then assign either individuals or teams to handle different service categories. All the back-and-forth about a query will then take place in the comments, making follow-up simpler. The HR team can upload FAQs, policy papers, and other documents for each category that employees can refer to before posting their queries.
Service builder: People 4.0’s intuitive drag-and-drop form builder makes it easy for HR admins to launch new internal services. In a matter of minutes, admins can create a fully-functional request system, with proper approvals, permissions, and automated workflows for follow-up actions.
Leave customisation: Zoho People’s leave management feature can now be fully customised to suit the complex and unique policies and regulations organisations must follow. HR admins can configure dynamic leave policies based on a variety of criteria like an employee’s joining date, their experience and more. Multiple leave policies can be configured under a single leave type. Admins can also use advanced features, such as prorate accruals and setting rules to carry forward or encash leaves.
Advanced analytics: Zoho People is now integrated with Zoho Reports to provide organisations with advanced analytics, such as hiring and attrition rate reports. This integration comes with a wide range of pre-defined reports, as well as the option to create custom reports with an easy drag-and-drop builder. These reports can be grouped and viewed together as a dashboard to ensure managers and decision makers have a complete picture of the HR operations, all from a single page.
Employee self-service: The self-service portal in the new version is packed with more modules such as attendance, leave, and timesheet empowering employees to manage their own administrative tasks. Managers can also temporarily delegate approvals to another user if they will be unavailable for a set period of time.
Dashboard: The dashboard is now more interactive, enabling both managers and employees to do everyday actions, such as mark attendance, log time and check approvals, all from a single consolidated view.
Job scheduling: Zoho People’s enhanced timesheet module allows managers to schedule jobs, track time, and even clone previous jobs for recurring positions, making it easy to handle different projects. The Scheduled vs. Worked Hours report offers a picture of how closely employees havve adhered to the schedule laid out by management.
Zoho People 4.0 is available immediately for all new users. Existing users will be migrated to the new version in phases over the next few months. Zoho One customers will be able to deploy Zoho People through the Zoho One Admin Panel. After the 15-day free trial, Zoho People’s pricing starts at Rs 50 per user per month when billed annually.
Zoho is the operating system for businesses — a single online platform capable of running an entire business. With apps in nearly every major business category, including sales, marketing, customer support, accounting and back office operations, and an array of productivity and collaboration tools.
