A lot goes into managing your workforce. It can be challenging to manage employee performance, time tracking, and payroll, all while keeping your employees happy and engaged. Using an HCM platform can help you simplify these processes so you can spend less time on administration and put your focus back on the more people-centered HR functions.

An HCM platform can be a helpful tool for all businesses, but behavioral health and human services organizations often stand to benefit the most from the right HCM tool. Here’s what you need to know about HCM platforms and how they can help behavioral health organizations.

What Is an HCM Platform?

A human capital management platform, or HCM platform, is an HR software solution designed to help organizations keep track of their essential human capital management functions, including recruiting, time tracking, payroll, and performance management. Using an HCM platform can help you improve your overall workforce management by optimizing your workflows and providing all of the tools you need to support the entire employee life cycle in one centralized system.

HCM Platform Features 

HCM platforms are comprehensive solutions that can be used to automate or manage a large number of HR processes. Here are some of the top features that you can find in an HCM software tool:

Position Control

Position Control is a valuable tool for workforce planning, hiring, and managing labor budgets. Administrators can use Position Control to organize and view workforce data by position rather than by individual employees. Reviewing the data in this manner can give organizations a clearer view of their labor budget, hiring needs, and current organizational structure. 

It can also account for currently unfilled roles when creating your budget and can measure your actual incurred labor costs against your projected labor costs. This is especially helpful in the behavioral health and human services field, as many organizations within the industry have hourly staff who frequently incur overtime, such as nurses or caseworkers. It can be helpful to see where you are spending more than your budget allows on overtime and to identify any departments that need extra labor support. 

Hiring an additional employee may cut back on those overtime costs while also preventing worker burnout. Burnout is a growing issue in the behavioral health services field. A study by Westchester Jewish Community Services found that 71% of their staff were experiencing a high level of burnout. This is not unusual within the field, and using tools like Position Control to track hiring needs, current vacancies, and other workforce data can help leaders address this issue.

It’s important to note that you won’t find Position Control in every HCM platform. Some offer position management, which is more of an add-on to employee-based systems rather than a truly position-based solution. 

Employee Data Management

Your HCM platform can act as your electronic employee records where you store employee information, including new hire paperwork, employee performance documentation, and more. Most HCM platforms offer some level of data storage or human resource information system (HRIS) functionality. Still, not all of them provide the proper employee data management solutions for behavioral health and human services organizations.

One key concern for behavioral health organizations is keeping track of employees’ credentials and licenses. An HCM platform can help automate this process with tools such as Position Control that notify the company and employees when license expiration dates are approaching. This prevents licensing from falling through the cracks. It can be easy to forget about an upcoming renewal deadline when there’s so much else going on, but letting a license or credential lapse can lead to compliance and legal issues for both the employee and organization.

Reporting and Analytics

HCM platforms feature business intelligence reporting tools that can give you an in-depth look at your workforce. Many HCM platforms also offer customized reporting tools so you can access the exact information that you need for informed, data-driven decision-making. Since behavioral health and human services organizations often operate with limited resources due to staffing shortages or financial limitations, detailed reporting is essential for making decisions on how to best allocate your resources.

Time and Attendance Tools

A standard time clock may work for on-premise employees, but to meet the demands of the entire workforce you’ll likely need a more flexible time and attendance tool. Field-based staff such as caseworkers who perform services at clients’ homes or telehealth providers working from their own home need a way to clock in when they’re away from the office. The solution is an HCM platform with web-based time tracking tools and a mobile app. These features ensure that employees get paid for all the time they work. Also, such features can assist with tardiness,  absence management, and electronic visit verification (EVV). 

In addition to basic attendance management tools, HCM platforms can help simplify the hour allocation process if you have employees who work across different departments, locations, or programs or if you offer shift differential for overnight or weekend shifts. A top HCM platform can help calculate these differentials and automate the hour allocation process to make sure that hours and compensation are recorded correctly.

Payroll Processing

Paying your employees accurately and on time is imperative. Not all HCM systems offer payroll processing, but the ones that do can greatly alleviate the payroll burden on HR managers. Having an integrated system that manages timekeeping, benefits, and payroll all in one place can improve the efficiency of the payroll process because all the data you need is already in the system.  

Talent Acquisition Support

HCM platforms streamline the recruiting and onboarding processes by eliminating the need for duplicate data entry and the use of multiple systems. Instead of using a separate applicant tracking system and then having to re-input that data into your primary human resource management system once a hiring decision is made, you can use an all-in-one solution for a more seamless candidate and HR experience.

Benefits Administration

While your employees spend their time taking care of their patients’ health and well-being, it’s important to help them access care for their own health needs. HCM systems can help organizations optimize their benefits management processes by allowing them to be managed in one central system. Employee health insurance, vision and dental, 401(k)s, and more can all be managed within a single platform. This reduces redundancies and makes it easier for employees to review, select, and make changes to their benefits enrollment.

Performance Management

HCM platforms can also act as learning management tools and performance tracking solutions. In an HCM platform, managers and HR teams can manage employees’ learning and development objectives, performance reviews, and training goals in one central location. Performance management plays an important role not only in ensuring that employees are getting their jobs done well, but also in boosting job satisfaction and employee retention. Employees who have opportunities to learn and grow in their roles tend to be more engaged.

Benefits of a Unified HCM Platform

HCM platforms produce the best results—and the best user experience for both HR administrators and employees—when they are unified and comprehensive. A unified HCM platform is one that contains all of the above features in a single software solution. This is preferable to modular systems, where you have to log into a bunch of different modules to complete HR tasks or search for the information you need. 

A unified HCM platform also greatly improves the employee self-service experience. Employees won’t need to remember different logins or learn multiple systems in order to view their pay stubs, time sheets, benefits information, or performance metrics.

In addition, using a unified system can help prevent issues with your HR data. Having separate systems makes it difficult to maintain accurate data. The separate systems often don’t integrate together well enough to allow for a proper flow of data. Things can also get confusing when the data in different systems does not match up. A unified employee management system makes it easy to compare data and keep employee data up to date.

The Best Unified HCM System For Behavioral Health Organizations 

HCM systems can simplify your core HR processes and provide a better employee experience. From talent management to business intelligence, you can find a wide range of helpful features in an HCM platform. Enjoy the benefits of a unified HCM platform with ContinuumCloud, and start managing all of your HCM functions in one centralized system. 

ContinuumCloud’s unified HCM system is the only human capital management solution designed to meet the unique needs of behavioral health and human services providers. Contact us to learn how ContinuumCloud’s HCM service can help your organization boost employee engagement, increase productivity, and improve resource allocation.