Microsoft 365 as an HR Management System

HR Management System Solutions in SharePoint: A 2024 Update with Infowise Ultimate Forms

In 2019, we highlighted how SharePoint, combined with Infowise Ultimate Forms, could transform HR processes. Since then, Ultimate Forms has evolved significantly, offering even more streamlined and customizable solutions for HR departments, enhancing various HR functions such as onboarding and performance evaluations.

This update reflects the latest developments and provides valuable resources to help you explore these capabilities. HR professionals can greatly benefit from these tools by improving processes, increasing productivity, and enabling strategic decision-making.

Revolutionizing HR with SharePoint and Ultimate Forms

Infowise Ultimate Forms leverages SharePoint’s robust platform to optimize human resources processes and empower HR teams to:

• Simplify Recruitment: Automate the collection and processing of job applications, track candidates, and manage interview schedules with ease.

• Enhance Onboarding: Create tailored onboarding experiences with custom workflows, digital forms, and document management.

• Streamline Training and LMS: Centralize training materials, track employee progress, and manage certifications seamlessly.

• Optimize Evaluation and Feedback: Use customizable forms and workflows to gather, analyze, and act on employee performance data.

• Standardize SOP Management: Easily share and update Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to ensure compliance and consistency.
  
  

  Access more than 400 Free HR Solutions Templates Here

Nowadays, because of the growing competition, businesses need to opt-out for cost-effective solutions to maximize growth and maintain or improve their rank in the market. Microsoft 365 is one of the most cost-effective solutions that work seamlessly to provide various HR services, including recruiting and onboarding, performance management, employee engagement, leave management, employee administration, etc. You can subscribe to Microsoft 365 for a monthly fee and even add Dynamics 365 in your subscription to further enhance the functionality of Microsoft 365.

Here is an overview of some of the useful Microsoft 365 applications that can aid in HR management.

MS Teams

Employee onboarding, recruitment, and leave management are essential activities for the HR department; they require a lot of coordination, parallel operations, and timely execution. There are two sets of people that the HR department has to work with for employee onboarding and recruitment, the new hire themselves, and the internal departments that contribute to the onboarding activities. Emails are used to coordinate with others; too many emails can flood the inbox and mix-up the topics, leading to delayed responses, which can cause inefficiency. 

Microsoft 365's Microsoft Teams app effectively resolves this issue; it allows the HR department to correspond with others without using emails, enhancing task management within MS Teams.

The HR department can create the onboarding and recruitment team in Microsoft 365 by adding the point of contact from each department as members. Working with MS Teams is simple; post what you want to communicate as a conversation, and all the team members will receive a notification about it. Only the team members can see and respond to the conversation similar to personal chat apps like WhatsApp and Messenger. Compliance and archival allow new Team members to view past discussions and back-up everything on OneDrive. MS Teams also helps manage and analyze HR data, driving strategic initiatives and improving HR processes. MS team provides a built-in shared files folder where you can upload files, and every team member will be able to see it. The planner tab in the Teams app allows you to create a shared task list inside the Teams app in Microsoft 365, and you can also set a deadline and assign the task to the responsible authority. The tasks can be categorized in buckets(departments); everyone can view the progress report of the functions.

Yammer

Yammer in Microsoft 365 allows the HR department to communicate with the new hires in real-time regarding onboarding schedules, venues, and logistics. Yammer is a social network that enables you to create a group and add new hires, where you can post the details. New hires will be able to see the posts and like, comment, and share them. New hires can post questions or share learnings with each other. HR professionals can use Yammer for effective onboarding communication, ensuring that new hires are well-informed and engaged from day one.

Sway

Another useful tool that makes Microsoft 365 a remarkable solution for onboarding is Sway. It allows you to create professional webpages where you can post the onboarding schedule, without the need of an IT specialist. You just have to add content (pictures, text, and links), and Sway will manage the formatting automatically for you. Microsoft 365's Sway not only creates the webpage; it also publishes it, and if you are not satisfied with the design, you can change it by using the Remix! Button. You can create a shareable link or a QR code to share your webpage with others. Using Sway for onboarding is a strategic aspect of human capital management, enhancing the onboarding process and improving organizational performance.

Skype for Business

Skype for business is another excellent tool for effective communication; it allows the CEO or the department head to give a welcome address to the new hires even if they aren't in the same location. The Q&A feature on Skype for business allows the new hires to post questions and get answers. The hiring manager can conduct video interviews using Skype for Business. HR professionals can also use Skype for Business to facilitate effective communication and collaboration within the organization.

Forms

To monitor the quality of onboarding training programs, the HR department requires to get feedback from the new hires. Forms in Microsoft 365 allows you to add a question and create the forms online. HR management can share the link with the new hires, post it on Yammer, or generate a QR code at the end of the presentation to capture real-time feedback. Participants can fill the form using any browser on their mobile device, and the trainer/HR management will be able to see the data and analytics in real-time. The HR team can also create quizzes to test the knowledge of candidates or to test what experience did the employees gained from the training. HRM can create a poll as well that can help select favourable options regarding different decisions. Analyzing this HR data can enhance HR analytics and decision-making, leading to improved HR processes and outcomes.

Power BI

Power BI is an analytics service that is based on the cloud, enabling the HR team to visualize and analyze HR data with higher speed, understanding, and efficiency. The Get & Transform option allows the HR management to import data from multiple systems and turn it into interactive dashboards by using formatting, graphs, charts. MyAnalytics will enable employees to learn about their productivity; only employees can see their data in this feature. Workplace Analytics, on the other hand, is used to evaluate team productivity, it pulls the information from MyAnalytics while keeping the individual's information private. Power BI can significantly enhance human resources by providing insights into HR analytics, improving employee management, onboarding, and performance evaluation.

Conclusion

These are just some of the commonly used apps for HR management; there are many other apps in Microsoft 365. When integrated with Dynamics 365 Human Resources, Microsoft 365 becomes a high performing HRMS, enhancing workforce management and streamlining HR processes. Microsoft Dynamics plays a crucial role in HR management by optimizing HR functions and driving employee engagement through its comprehensive features. You can subscribe for a monthly fee of $9.99, and if you want, then you can even upgrade your package by choosing apps that are independent of the selected deployment option. Integrating payroll providers further enhances HR processes by facilitating payroll management, budgets, and tax filings, ensuring compliance and operational efficiency. It is a valuable tool that can substantially increase the efficiency of your business processes.

Infowise

At Infowise, we serve as a strategic partner, assisting public and private enterprises in their digital transformation endeavours with our scalable, smart, and robust tools, software, and applications, including those designed for human resource management.

Our product Infowise Ultimate Forms contains 19 SharePoint components developed to give you the power to innovate, automate, and scale up your processes. Our product has been designed for optimum interoperability and seamless integration within SharePoint. Altogether, it constitutes the structural foundation for digitization and facilitate your transition to digital transformation.

Click here to download Infowise Ultimate Forms 30-days free trial. After you've installed Infowise Ultimate Forms, go ahead and create an unlimited number of Business Process Applications. Or even better, do you want to start with a ready template? Great, click here and install the ready-to-use template from our vast business process solution library, re-purpose to service your needs.