Baraza HCM incorporates a suitable Recruitment Module, which allows the HR department to coordinate the entire recruitment process into a simplified and verifiable workflow. The recruitment workflow will undertake requisite procedures from gathering candidate information to candidate shortlisting, interview sessions, and finally, the candidate selection. To improve efficiency, the recruitment management module offers an applicant tracking system that can receive or reject applicants automatically based on some predefined criteria. This feature is critical when dealing with vast volumes of applicants which should be processed within a limited timeframe from which to select the most suitable talent.

Baraza HCM has an effective Employee Management Module which supports organisations and HR professionals to control and supervise the employee profiles and their personal information including employee background information, contact details, previous experience details, qualification details, skills and job-related information such as salary details, tax, and banking information, employee position, performance evaluation, disciplinary details, insurance, and loan plans and much more. Furthermore, the Baraza HCM readily provides an employee self-service portal to strengthen the accountability of employees. The employee self-service portal is beneficial to staff who can receive messages and updates through simple and timely notifications. The employee self-service portal offers a window for staff to initiate certain processes including Leave application, Advance requests and generation and printing of personal reports including P9 forms.

Baraza HCM Payroll Module runs a crucial yet repetitive monthly process that would otherwise be a headache to the HR department. Save for efficiently processing pay, compute and retain relevant taxes and deductions, the Payroll Module is an engine for managing compensations and benefits including salary allowances and overtime work rates. Fully integrated within Baraza HCM, the Payroll Module minimises manual data entry and reduces human error because the information is all collected from a single source.

Baraza HCM Attendance Management Module supports HR in managing the daily attendance monitoring activities of its entire staff. The platform supports various modes of attendance including manual identification, barcode scanner, Kiosk mode, and GPS presence. Critical for on-sight jobs and support for shift management, the attendance module allows managers to regularly generate and examine attendance reports through attendance logs.

Baraza HCM Leave Management module is important for both colleagues and the HR department to have an insight into who is present and who is absent and the reason behind the absenteeism. All types of time off, such as vacations, sick off, maternity, casual, and other types of paid and unpaid time off, are tracked by the module. Furthermore, the Baraza HCM Leave Management Module supports various leave types, policies and holidays. Both staff and management can view the leave balances and can plan their time off accordingly. The module allows employees to apply for leave from anywhere using a dedicated mobile app or desktop web app. Likewise, relevant immediate and responsible personnel are able to approve or reject leave applications from anywhere and at any time. The complete leave analysis of the organisation is available from a single dashboard including tracking of individual leave history and publishing of organisation-wide leave schedules.

Baraza HCM Performance Management Module allows HR to objectively analyse employees and by extension the organisational performance. This unbiased analysis of employee performance supported by actual data empowers the HR to take suitable decisions for promotions, training or other actions relevant to the advancement of the organisation. The appraisal and assessment process is standard and transparent for both the staff and management which allows for fair scores across the entire organisation. The various reports generated support HR to understand the overall productivity ratio of individual employees.

Baraza HCM Dashboard & Reporting Module displays a deep insight into the most critical HR parameters of the organisation at a glance. The Dashboard publishes the most relevant and informative data aspects of HR for the convenience of users, employees and management. Services including notices, reminders and announcements are effectively communicated to all staff via the Dashboard. The Reporting Module includes the generation of any sort of information data from the system concerning the HR aspects of the organisation including statutory, regulatory, contractual and training reports required not only for compliance purposes but more important for decision-making and growth.

Almost everyone can relate to the challenge of going to work when someone is not willing, acting indifferent and showing an inattentive disposition to their colleagues and the tasks at hand. Working five and in some cases six days a week, eight hours a day, can have a serious toll on your body and at worse lead to burnout. Out of frustrations from the reality of work, the fear of being subjected to work all the days of his life without rest drove Pinocchio to strike dead, his mentor “The Talking Cricket” with a hammer.

Knowing the importance of rest and the social nature of human beings, work culture has been designed to allow employees to take leave from work in order to productively continue giving their best at work. By law, workers are entitled to various forms of leave. In Kenya for instance, the labour laws allow employees at least 21 paid Annual leave days. We are all susceptible to fatigue from many days of exhausting work, and it’s only befitting that we occasionally take a few days off to rest and rejuvenate.

We all know that time never waits for anyone. It is therefore up to us to manage our social life intertwined with our work lives. It is not unique to be with colleagues who keep fidgeting and twisting, lacking concentration due to continuous days of work. Taking time off from work to attend to private or recreational pastimes has shown that affected staff comes back from leave re-energized and inspired to continue delivering positively at work.

Another type of leave that is more of a necessity is sick leave. There are times when the body gets sick and staff would need to visit the hospital for treatment. Parents and caregivers appreciate sick leave very much, particularly for the young ones who are often susceptible to common cold and other diseases. In Kenya, we also enjoy maternity leave. New mothers are entitled to 3 months paid leave following birth, so as to give undivided attention to the newborn. Interestingly, male colleagues are also entitled to 2-weeks of paternity leave to enjoy the gift of being a dad!

Research has shown that having compassion as a value makes a large difference in establishing a healthy organisational culture. Compassionate Leave is given to staff who have gone through trauma such as the loss of a loved one and goes a long way to reassure colleagues of a workplace full of support and human care. Of course, we love our privacy and at certain times, we are not able to communicate our reasons to request leave. In their wisdom, psychologists entrenched leave of absence in our workplaces for our benefit. Imagine having to explain to your boss that you need to attend to your personal side hustle, a reality of our times, which though not recognised in our normal workplaces requires your direct involvement!

Our last leave to consider is compulsory leave, which is an administrative time-off given to staff to allow room for objective investigations into one’s professional conduct.

Appreciating the benefit of leave and offs, whether paid or unpaid, is very important to both staff and employers so as to account for time in employment. The Baraza Leave Management System is a comprehensive Human Capital tool, accessible online and mobile, designed for organisations to oversee Leaves and Time-offs in a structured form to support organizational work time