Multi-site communications can often pose a problem for larger holiday park operators. Whether this concerns visual merchandising or health & safety, training or operations, miscommunication can cost companies huge amounts.
We asked Chris Thomas, from HR software programmers Inform People, about how using the right software package can help to keep large organisations running smoothly and effectively…
Q&A with Chris Thomas from Inform People, HR software provider
What are the main issues employers face when overseeing different teams with different responsibilities?
“You know when a company grows to have multiple sites and it encounters problems with its ‘information supply chain’?
“Well, what we do is deliver automated online systems for effective communications, consistent compliance and ensure best practice operating standards.
“We help employers tackle this by harnassing automation of tasks, communications and issuing policies. This way managers can monitor what is and is not being done and not worry about what needs to be issued to people to be completed.
“Inform People knits all the existing systems together to give a holistic solution that pulls health & safety, operations and learning & development together in a way that no other systems can match. We do this by setting cross-department rules and giving businesses a better picture of how their sites are performing.”
Is Inform People suitable for any size of organisation, or is there a “sweet spot” that the HR software is most useful for?
“In retail and hospitality we say the sweet spot is companies with 40+ remote sites from a centralised head office. They will probably interact with the public as their customer base and have an annual turnover of £100million+, although we do work with smaller companies and build upon the foundations from different industries.”
Who are your biggest customers and how have you helped them to manage staff?
“Our biggest customers, for example, are JD Sports which employ 36,000 staff in 11 countries. We also manage online and offline learning hospitality businesses including Nandos.
“Our work with these companies includes health and safety audits, policies and risk assessments. Our learning and development software provides training, skills sharing and storage of useful documents for employees. We also offer visual merchandising and marketing via audits and communications.”
In the “gig economy” there is often a high turnover of staff – we’re likely to see that even more post-lockdown. Is Inform People suitable for employers with a high staff turnover?
“Inform People is specifically designed for this! We provide a very easy-to-use system that looks to automate, then assign key tasks to make sure they are done by the right person at the right time.
“All of the tasks are set up in advance and senior managers set the rules so when new people start they just need the URl, username and password to get all the information they need to do their job.”
What have you got planned for the future to help employers?
“We are continually improving systems – one development was allowing users to select the language they want and their system is then available fully translated to each employee’s requirements.”
