What is an Employment Operating System?

Before smartphones, we could still surf the world wide web… so long as someone else wasn’t using the landline at the same time of course (cue the dial up tune song). And if you ever got lost on the winding roads of rural NZ without a paper map to guide you, well…you were pretty much out of luck.

Up until now, managing employment and HR admin painted a very similar picture.

But just as the arrival of the smartphone redefined our personal lives in the early noughties, a groundbreaking approach to employment – the Employment Operating System – is set to transform the professional lives of employers, business owners, and HR managers for good.

Employment systems that go from all over the place, to just one place.

Employers often struggle with juggling multiple tools that don’t integrate, making business management inefficient and time-consuming. One platform for payroll, a lawyer for employment law advice, several agencies for recruitment, multiple spreadsheets for leave requests, cabinets for employee paperwork – the list goes on.

It’s not that these methods and tools don’t work – it’s that they don’t work well, and they don’t work together. An Employment OS removes the parts of this approach that slow down productivity, eating away at your time, money – and sanity.

It’s one seamless employment solution that brings HR, recruitment, and payroll into one central place.

What are the key features of an Employment Operating System?

When we say that an Employment OS covers everything, we mean it. It’s the first end-to-end employment solution created to help businesses of every size thrive:

• Core HR: Manage contracts, policies, onboarding, leave, and HR compliance from one centralised hub.
• Intelligent payroll: Automate payroll deductions, taxes, centralise employee information and so much more.
• Employee engagement: Build a positive culture with tools for recognition, surveys, and wellbeing programmes.
• Recruitment and onboarding: Cut down your time-to-hire, access a global talent pool and never post a job ad again.
• Powerful insights and analytics: Gain powerful insights to inform your business decisions.
• On demand support: lean on our HR Advisory service whenever you need it.
• IT and data security: Protect sensitive information with custom access controls and integrations.

Find out the details about each feature below, and if you’re ready to jump on board – talk to our team today.

Core HR – payroll, leave, policies, certifications, contracts

Imagine you’re on the cusp of hiring your ideal candidate for a pivotal role in your business. You’re anxious for them to sign the employment agreement ASAP, because the role is vital for your business plans next quarter.  You send them the paperwork to complete and return to you… but they don’t have a printer, and it will be at least a few days before they can get their hands on one.  It may seem like a minor inconvenience, but when candidates are juggling multiple offers and you desperately need more hands on deck – it’s one more delay you really don’t need.

With our Employment OS, all of your core HR tasks and obligations can be managed through our powerful HR software – no printer required. From sending out job offers and getting contracts signed, to managing leave requests, assigning workplace policy modules and compliance reporting, you’ll have all the tools you need for the entire employee lifecycle.

Recruit, onboard and offboard new team members with ease, all from the same platform. With built-in contracts, policies, and HR templates, it’s the game changer you didn’t know you needed.

A recruitment and onboarding experience remembered for all the right reasons

First impressions matter – and that’s why our Employment OS incorporates hiring and onboarding tools along with core HR features.

Hire faster, smarter with SmartMatch

Tired of paying and praying for expensive job ads, then flicking through hundreds of CVs, only to realise that no one quite fits the bill?

Get ahead of your hiring needs with our SmartMatch tool. Whether you’re ready to hire immediately or may need more hands on deck in future, our SmartMatch builds you shortlists of job-ready candidates, tailored to your business needs that you can tap into whenever the need arises.

Simply enter the job title and location of your vacancy (whether here or abroad) and watch the matches roll in. Review their profiles, get in touch directly and if everything aligns, onboard them in seconds with customisable contracts and e-signing functionality.

But don’t just take our word for it. As SmartMatch customer and HR Manager Daniel explains:

“There’s a very good reply rate from people in the SmartMatch talent pool. If we connect via SmartMatch we try to send messages to 10 people, and approximately eight of them will reply. We’ve found that many people who apply through other job boards don’t reply to our email on the next steps.”

Secure international hires with our Employer of Record Service

To support you hiring internationally, our built-in Employer of Record service ensures you can manage compliance, payroll, and contracts for international hires – without needing to set up local entities.

Onboard new hires with ease

Our digital onboarding system helps you welcome new team members with ease. With our Employment OS, you get built-in onboarding support that ensures your newbies know exactly what to expect from each week.

Assign essential workplace policies in a few simple clicks, and enable new hires to sign and return them to you in a matter of minutes. No more printer disasters or delays – just straightforward, simple onboarding.

What’s more, our Employment OS integrates seamlessly with popular software like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, so you can seamlessly set up and manage new employee email accounts and give them access to everything they’ll need in their new role.

Intelligent payroll

Picture this: your go-to payroll person is away on sick leave, and a team member jumps in to cover them. It all goes fine as far as you can tell… but you later find out several staff are overdue public holiday pay. Now, you’re facing an unhappy team, and your payroll expert has a big mess to clean up.

This is a common experience for small businesses trying to do payroll manually. Our automated payroll function makes a world of difference, giving you automated warnings and reminders about public holiday pay.

Plus, you can seamlessly manage KiwiSaver contributions, pay slips, student loan repayments and taxes.

Seamlessly manage rosters and leave

Emails, spreadsheets, texts, pen and paper – these are just some of the tools traditionally used to create and manage rosters. But these tools are static, inflexible, and clunky. Plus, because they’re disconnected from all your other systems, it’s difficult to stay up to date with changes as the need arises.

With our Employment OS leave management software, you’ll never be caught short again. Get a complete view of your team’s availability, assign shifts, review shift swap requests and approve shift bids and leave requests. Employees can self-manage leave requests, timesheets, and pay slips through the Employment Hero Work app.

Use pre-built and custom dashboards to make data-driven staffing decisions that account for staff performance, labour costs and the needs of the business.

Boost employee engagement to retain top talent

Retaining valuable staff can be tricky, and that’s especially true for small businesses with even smaller budgets. The key is finding ways to keep staff engaged and satisfied with their working environment beyond pay rises (and free fruit).

Within our Employment OS, you’ll find several connected tools that help you reward and recognise your team, conduct employee satisfaction surveys, set goals, and share company updates through our purpose-built employee engagement tools.

You can even access specialist wellbeing support for staff with our Employee Assistance Programme and exclusive benefits.

Employee training and development

Give yourself compliance confidence and keep your team engaged with our integrated learning management system (LMS). Our built-in LMS helps you assign workplace policies to staff for digital signing, track their progress, and even create tailored learning pathways. Build a knowledgeable workforce with customised content, all from one platform.

Performance reviews and management

When you’re busy running the day to day operations of a business, it can be hard to find the time for performance reviews and performance management. And yet, it’s a vital part of business success.

Our performance management tools, provide everything you need to build a high performance team culture.

Design custom performance reviews, set individual and team targets, and develop feedback loops to ensure everyone is on track to achieve their goals.

You can even manage the offboarding process, with clear, comprehensive pre-built checklists and support to give you confidence you’re ticking all the right boxes.

Harness insights and analytics for better business decisions

Our powerful reporting tools help you make informed decisions by gaining insights into team performance, engagement, and costs with pre-built and custom reports.

Through our digital asset register, you can assign and track company assets like laptops, tools, and vehicles efficiently. Our custom report builder helps create detailed HR reports, and compliance reporting features help you identify risks and address compliance issues before they become a problem.

On demand support through our HR Advisory service

Struggling to keep track of all things employment law? Need quick, actionable advice on a workplace issue – but don’t have the funds for a lawyer right now?

access unlimited HR, payroll, and employment guidance from qualified professionals with our in-house HR Advisory service. Be confident you’re meeting your employer obligations through actionable guidance via phone or email during business hours, Monday – Friday (excluding public holidays).

Strengthen your IT and data security

We take the data security of our customers and partners seriously, protecting sensitive business information with custom access controls, a passkey feature, and single sign-on (SSO) technology.

Our dedication to protecting customer data is reflected in our internationally recognised certifications. In fact, we’re the only vendor in our space to hold all three information security certifications – ISO 27001 (Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection), ISO 27017 (Cloud Security) and ISO 27018 (Protection of Personally Identifiable Information in the Cloud).

What’s more, our Employment OS seamlessly integrates with accounting, payment, and other tools to ensure the security of all your data.

How can you get started with an Employment Operating System?

Whether you’re a small team of 10 or a growing team of 500, we’ve got plans and pricing to suit your needs.

Employment Unlimited – Best value

• Ideal for established businesses looking for one powerful employment system that covers every stage of the employment lifecycle – from HR, recruitment and payroll through to HR advisory.
• Access our entire suite of AI driven tools and other advanced features. Move away from disjointed and clunky systems that don’t talk to each other.
• Access everything you need to support your team with ease.

Employment Plus

• Designed for growing businesses looking to improve their employee experience using advanced automation.
• Streamline hiring, retention, employee development, and payroll with AI-driven insights.
• Enhance your team’s productivity so you can focus on growth and retention.

Employment Lite

• Great for SMEs wanting to consolidate HR and payroll.
• Automate hiring, payments and daily admin.
• Streamline processes using AI, say goodbye to time-consuming, tedious paperwork.

The future of employment is here: are you coming with us?

In our not so distant past, landlines and desk phones kept us in the loop at home and work. If you were really lucky, you might’ve had a pager or a ‘car phone’ when you were on the go.

Though each tool did its job, together they were clunky, inflexible, and inconvenient.

Then, Smartphones revolutionised how we communicate, navigate, and organise our lives. Now, the Employment Operating System is transforming our business lives, too.

With the Employment OS, you can manage every aspect of employment – from recruitment and onboarding to payroll and performance – seamlessly, efficiently, and all in one place.

We think it’s time to say goodbye to the ‘dial up’ approach to employment management, and hello to a modern, integrated solution. Don’t you?

Book a demo today or talk to one of our sales specialists.