In today’s fast-paced, dynamic, and ever-changing business landscape, managing your organization’s most vital asset—its people and personnel data—has never been more critical in maintaining a robust organizational structure and enabling stronger employee engagement.
Enter SAP Human Capital Management (HCM), a dynamic enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that has redefined how companies approach the intricate world of human resources management. SAP HCM isn’t just another software; it’s a strategic ally that orchestrates the entire employee lifecycle from recruitment to retirement.
This article will discuss the key components and advantages of SAP HCM, how it helps companies streamline their core HR operations and optimizes workforce management, and where our team of expert SAP consultants can come in to help.
What Does HCM Stand For?
Human Capital Management (HCM) refers to the approach companies take to manage their most important assets: their people.
HCM software offers intelligent workforce management capabilities that enable organizations across industries to transform their traditional administrative tasks and HR processes, including recruiting, onboarding, payroll, compensation, personnel development, performance management, and more.
With a fully integrated suite of technologies that enables better employee management and engagement from hire to retire, HCM solutions make it easier for companies to manage employee data, gain insights into core personnel administration tasks, and reduce overall maintenance costs.
Understanding the Need for Human Capital Management Software
Modern human capital management solutions enable companies to leverage intelligent technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools and chatbots, to automate core HR processes, improve personnel master data management, and enhance overall decision-making.
Here are a few critical business areas covered in modern human capital management solutions:
Talent management and retention
- Effective professional learning and development opportunities to retain and develop employees
- Work-life solutions that enable better engagement and deliver more personalized experiences
- Proactive succession planning features to increase bench strength and enhance leadership
- Accurate candidate sourcing to accelerate recruiting and hiring processes and ensure the right employees are in the right positions
Better business agility
- Tailor core HR processes to meet ever-changing business and industry requirements
- Ensure proper alignment between people strategy and critical business objectives
- Adjust critical organization management strategies to align with workforce changes
- Leverage real-time workforce insights to anticipate changes and improve forecasting accuracy
Streamlined workflows
- Combine disparate areas of an existing human resources management system in one location
- Leverage intelligent employee and manager self-service tools to accelerate HR management
- Enable more informed workforce decisions through intelligent workforce analytics and connections
- Automate manual HR processes across the local and global enterprise landscape
Optimized organizational management
- Establish a pay-for-performance company culture across teams and departments
- Improve time and labor management, enhance scheduling efficiency, and track related expenses
- Manage expenses and total costs for specific projects across the organization
- Establish a balance between monetary and non-monetary rewards to improve personnel cost planning and compensation allocation
What is SAP Human Resources (HR)?
SAP Human Capital Management (SAP HCM) is SAP’s all-inclusive human resource management system (SAP HRMS), which provides innovative human resources solutions to address critical workforce needs and build a stronger connection between HR and business operations.
With SAP HCM and HXM solutions, like the SuccessFactors Human Experience Management suite, companies can build stronger connections between HR management and other critical business operations, support the complete employee lifecycle, and drive sustainable growth in the long run.
Intelligent SAP HR solutions enable organizations in any industry to:
- Create, manage, and maintain a sustainable workforce
- Understand what employees need, what motivates them, and how they work
- Accelerate business growth to keep up with critical industry changes and trends over time
- Gain better insights into core operations and objectives across the HR department
- Assign the right people to the right positions at the right time
- Improve employee engagement and provide meaningful experiences
- Align employee motivation with company-wide objectives
Key Components of SAP Human Resource Management System
Innovation is at the heart of everything SAP does (including its HCM module). Because human resources management is one of the most critical organizational processes, SAP emphasizes building a module with the right tools and functionality to help manage employee data, improve employee engagement, and optimize HR operations.
SAP HCM solutions offer a comprehensive HCM suite designed to understand what motivates employees, offer improved support throughout the entire employee lifecycle, and provide the HR analytics tools and resources needed to accelerate HR processes.
1) SAP Business Technology Platform
With in-built connections to the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), organizations can automate critical HR tasks, accelerate business innovation, and increase employee engagement by accommodating how, when, and where employees work.
Companies can also consolidate core integrations, APIs, connectors, and best practices in one unified platform, improving business agility, employee engagement, and total return on investment.
2) People Analytics
The SAP HR Suite provides personalized insights and intelligent people analytics capabilities to help companies strengthen core HR leadership, enable more effective action plans, and reduce the risk of critical workforce disruptions.
By enabling more efficient organizational management and empowering users to make better decisions, SAP Human Capital Management solutions can facilitate better business outcomes through comprehensive insights, advanced reporting, and streamlined data management.
3) Talent Management
SAP HCM makes it easier for organizations to improve employee learning efficiency and agility by providing simplified hiring experiences, enhancing recruiting and hiring accuracy, and establishing development opportunities that help gain and retain better talent over time.
Intuiritve employee engagement and management capabilities also enable companies to build better relationships between managers and employees and give employees total visibility into their entire workforce experience, including transparent compensation packages, personnel management objectives, and more.
4) Core HR and Payroll
From personnel time management to payroll tracking, shift management, global benefits, training cost management, and more, SAP HCM simplifies the entire workforce landscape and enables companies to reduce total costs and improve HR service delivery across teams.
The SAP Human Capital Management Suite also delivers real-time insights and end-to-end service experiences to align critical HR and business strategies, standardize HR operations, and improve overall employee and system productivity.
SAP HR Payroll can help employees:
- Manage automatic wage calculation and computation of special payments
- Process gross and net retroactive accounting information
- Reliably exchange financial data with banks, insurance agencies, etc.
5) Employee Experience Management
By enabling users to collect employee feedback and manage critical performance data in a unified location, SAP HCM helps companies drive consistent user engagement and retention and identify areas of improvement in real time.
Employees can leverage core SAP HCM offerings to identify optimal benefits packages and drive workforce improvements based on current insights, feedback, and driver analysis metrics.
6) Time Management
SAP HR Time Management offers improved time tracking and management capabilities, helping organizations track project time booking, manage human capital costs, and calculate valuable profit and loss statements. Here are a few of the key features of the module:
- Progress of process documentation
- Time recording and analysis
- Invoice processing
- Human cost monitoring (i.e., per-time booking for projects)
- Shift and absence management
- Timesheet and data collection
The SAP Time Management module also uses the Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS) tool to help employees record working times and tasks. The CATS SAP HR tool allows users to keep all time tracking information in one place, including monitoring project processes, employee payment, and invoice creation. With the CATS SAP HR Time Management tool, your organization can improve data integration processes, provide more accurate time data, keep that data in a centralized system, and ease the burden on your time administrators.
7) Learning Solutions
The SAP Learning Solution provides a new way for employees, trainers, and administrators to complete tasks, participate in training courses, and improve their engagement and experience. As a comprehensive solution that can be integrated into other business software, the module helps to reduce costs and simplify user access requirements for training measures and courses.
SAP Learning Solution also offers customized learning (or teaching) environments that are dependent on an employee’s organizational role: Learning Portal, Instructor Portal, Training Management, Authoring Environment, and Course Administrator Portal. This way, all employees have access to the best environment for their needs and can complete their tasks with improved accuracy and productivity.
8) E-Recruiting
SAP E-Recruiting not only accelerates an organization’s employee recruitment process, but it also contains functional recruitment instruments that make it easier to attract and retain high-quality employees. The E-Recruiting solution offers three main features to help you outline and organization recruitment processes throughout your organization:
- Applicant Tracking
- Requisition Management
- Job Opportunity Publication
This application also provides integration capabilities that allow your internal HR and Talent Management systems to work with recruitment processes and infrastructure, promoting improved collaboration between your organizational systems.
Top 5 Advantages of Human Capital Management in SAP
Here’s a closer look at the main advantages of SAP HCM software for users:
Streamlined HR Processes:
SAP HCM helps companies automate and streamline their most critical HR processes, including recruitment, onboarding, time management, performance management, payroll accounting, and more.
With better workflow management and connected HR processes, SAP HCM users can increase efficiency, reduce administrative burdens, and improve accuracy across their HR-related tasks.
Data-Driven Decision Making:
By leveraging SAP HCM solutions, companies can access robust reporting and analytics tools to facilitate real-time data management and improve decision-making across teams.
Access to real-time data on workforce performance and organizational demographics enables organizations to make more informed decisions that optimize their workforce and better align their workflows with strategic goals.
Talent Management:
The SAP HCM Suite helps organizations identify and develop their top talent by leveraging tools for performance appraisal, skill development, and succession planning.
This ensures the right people are in the right roles at the right time and prepares them for future leadership positions.
Compliance and Legal Support:
SAP HCM helps organizations maintain compliance with labor laws and regulations and reduce the risk of any legal issues or significant fines. This kind of compliance support is crucial for companies managing a global workforce, as regulations can vary significantly from one region to another.
Enhanced Employee Engagement:
Employee self-service portals and mobile app functionality within SAP HCM empower employees to manage their own information, request time off, and access important HR documents whenever and wherever they need them.
By giving employees more control over their own information, tasks, and experiences, companies can improve employee engagement and satisfaction, enhance overall productivity, and increase employee retention in the long run.
How Can We Help?
Whether you need help creating dynamic processes to improve business agility, additional support implementing or integrating a new personnel administration module in your existing landscape, or just an extra hand getting started on your SAP journey, Surety Systems can help.
Our senior-level, US-based SAP consultant team has the skills, experience, and proven track record of success to handle all your most critical project needs and help you maximize your long-term investment.
Getting Started with Us
Interested in learning how SAP HCM functionality can improve the efficiency of your existing human resources processes or enable efficient implementation of new HR innovations and strategies? Ready to get started on a project with our team of expert SAP consultants?
Contact us today for more information!
