
FAQ
Questions about Human Resources
The term ‘onboarding’ refers to all the activities and measures taken to integrate a new employee into the organisation and their work.
Good onboarding is crucial for both parties:
As an employer, you want your new employees to be able to contribute to the organisation as quickly as possible – that’s why you hired them!
As an employee, you want to feel comfortable in the team as quickly as possible, have access to the right equipment and be productive as quickly as possible. After all, you took the job because you thought and hoped it would be a pleasant one, and the same goes for the organisation.
Numerous surveys and studies confirm just how damaging (and costly!) poor induction processes are. They increase productivity time (the time it takes for someone to settle in), lead to a higher turnover rate (especially in the first few months), create stress, etc.
For more information about mpleo’s onboarding features, please contact our sales team.
Well-being at work and social cohesion have been hot topics for years. The figures for burnout, depression and all kinds of stress-related complaints are not exactly rosy. In recent years, for example, there have been a number of press reports on the sharp rise in burn-out and depression: in May 2021, a 40% increase in four years was reported. The Corona crisis has also been a source of stress and anxiety. As a result of working from home, many people are also experiencing a blurring between work and private life. Surveys show that many work harder and longer than at the office, and feel less connected to their colleagues and the organisation.
Research shows that social cohesion (also known as ‘social bonding’) is a very important factor. Social cohesion has many positive effects: it increases happiness, contributes to good health, reduces feelings of negativity and so on. In the workplace too, social cohesion is essential. It encourages cooperation and acts as a good counterweight to stress.
How can you increase this connection? There are a number of easily accessible tips:
- Keep people talking to each other. People and teams who only exchange e-mails and instant messages all day will end up feeling less and less connected. Every manager needs to make good agreements with his or her team on this.
- Most importantly, make sure that there is also ‘coffee time’ during meetings. Talking about this and that, how the weekend went, how the children are, is not a waste of time. Without these informal moments, people have the feeling that they can only talk to each other about work.
- As a manager, regularly take the time to ask how your team members are doing. How are they feeling? How are they getting on with their work (at home)? What gives them energy?
- If possible, organise fun team activities (outside too!).
- Communicate regularly across the business, sharing good news such as new customer wins, birthdays, organisational milestones, etc. It’s important to share and celebrate successes together. Nothing makes people happier than positive feedback and the feeling of being able to score points together.
Updating personal data such as addresses, telephone numbers, family situations, etc. is often a real challenge. With mpleo, however, it’s child’s play! All employees can consult their own file via the self-service portal, and make changes if necessary. HR receives automatic notifications of requested changes, and must approve them first. The complete version history is also kept. In this way, you make it a shared responsibility and save both time and quality.
Continuous learning and development is very important, both for the organisation and for the individual employee. After all, as an organisation, you need and want to continue to develop and ensure that people are not just ‘able to keep up’ but actively contribute to creating the desired future. As an employee, on the other hand, the opportunity to learn and develop is an important motivating factor. But how can you, as an organisation, get people to take the wheel themselves and actively engage in their own growth and development? Learning and development shouldn’t just be a ‘push’ from HR to employees.
A few tips:
- Start from the fact that people want to develop. Organisations that start from the negative premise that people should be ‘forced’ to take training courses, for example, may find that people are not very enthusiastic about their training. You reap what you sow.
- Present learning as something positive. All too often, training and apprenticeship programmes are positioned as ‘improvement programmes’, as a means of remedying weaknesses. Think about it: ‘Oh, interesting, a course on negotiation techniques, that could take me to the next level! Developing from strengths is much more effective and enjoyable than starting from what’s not good enough and/or what’s lacking.’
- Actively ask employees what they themselves would like to learn/develop. This provides invaluable insights, as it also clarifies how the employee sees themselves developing, what energises them and what they want to do.
- Provide the appropriate facilities and tools. For example, a clear training catalogue, a system for querying training requests, an e-learning platform for distance learning, etc. Digital tools can be a great help in this respect.
For more information about our soft HR modules, please contact our account managers.
Many organisations and contexts have compulsory training courses. Think, for example, of a certificate for forklift truck drivers, or training and exams to become a recognised insurance broker. How do you, as an organisation, ensure that legislation and any union agreements are respected?
- Firstly, make sure you have a clear overview of which training courses are compulsory for whom and how long certain training courses/certificates are valid.
- Secondly, provide the appropriate facilities and tools. Microsoft Excel, for example, is not the right tool for managing and tracking training courses and certificates. Training management software such as mpleo can be a great help in this respect. It allows you to specify the training required for each employee, plan training sessions, enrol employees, monitor their attendance, issue certificates if necessary, etc.
Please contact us if you would like more information about mpleo’s e-learning and training modules.
Above, we have already talked about the importance of learning and development. Recruiting and selecting the right people is just as strategic and essential to an organisation’s development. To do this, we first need to know :
- What talents, skills and competencies are needed to achieve the company’s vision, mission and strategy.
- What talents, skills and competencies are already present in the organisation.
- What gaps, if any, can be filled through training.
Only then do we have all the information we need to analyse the missing roles/profiles (set of skills and talents). Once we have this, we can proceed with strategic recruitment.
HR doesn’t have to go through this (complex) exercise alone. Conversations with management about the desired future direction, for example, can provide insight into what will be needed to achieve ambitions. Conversations with line managers and heads of department can also contribute to this and provide an insight into what is already in place.
If we want HR to play a strategic role in the organisation, we first need to ensure that it doesn’t waste time on unnecessary manual processes, systems that don’t communicate with each other, manual data entry and so on. In other words, we first need to ensure that the operational side of HR is working as efficiently as possible.
We often see organisations that, for example, manage training in Microsoft Excel, or that have to use two or even three different systems to record the presence and absence (leave, sickness, overtime, etc.) of employees. In doing so, they waste precious time and energy, which cannot be used for more strategic issues, such as determining which profiles still need to be recruited and which training courses need to be organised.
What’s more, we often find that all human resources responsibilities are entrusted to the HR department (personnel files, recording leave and sickness, appraisal interviews, training, etc.). This is not necessarily the case: many issues can fall (partly) under the responsibility of line managers. Line managers can easily deal with requests for leave, ensure that a sick note is uploaded, and so on. Many things can even be done by employees, for example:
- Updating your personal file
- Downloading sick notes
- Registering for training courses
- And so on
Of course, you need to have the right systems and processes in place to do this. At mpleo, we’ve already helped more than 700 employers centralise and automate their personnel data and processes. Make an appointment with one of our account managers to see for yourself the added value of a comprehensive HR system with self-service portals for your employees and line managers.
Commercial questions
Mpleo is the name of our 360-degree HR software platform.
Whether you’re looking for a system to support you in ‘hard’ HR (attendance and absence management, payroll, expenses, etc.) or ‘soft’ HR (recruitment, training, performance management, etc.), Mpleo offers you a complete solution.
Mpleo offers you a complete solution. It enables you to manage the entire employee career path and all related HR aspects from a single platform. This is made possible by the 19 modules that make up mpleo. For more information, please contact us.
A very good and justified question!
First of all, many software tools offer only part of the solution. For example, they contain “hard HR” aspects (e.g. personnel files, attendance and absence, payroll administration, etc.), but no “soft HR” modules (e.g. training management and talent and performance management). The reverse is also often true – “soft HR” modules without “hard HR”.
What sets mpleo apart is that it is a 360-degree solution covering all aspects of HR, from recruitment to payroll and talent and performance management. With mpleo, organizations have a complete solution in hand. They can manage everything from a single system, instead of being “forced” to work with different tools. Having everything in a single system creates a unique advantage: it provides a 360-degree view of your employees. What’s more, it also helps to simplify your personnel management processes. Finally, it also facilitates reporting.
Secondly, mpleo is a modular system.
Mpleo is a complete package, but we don’t force our customers to buy everything at once (“all or nothing”). On the contrary: mpleo is made up of several modules, and you choose which of them you want to activate/implement for your organization. For example, if you already have a solution for attendance and absence management, you don’t have to buy this module from us. This option is not available for many other tools.
Thirdly, mpleo is more customizable.
Not only can modules be chosen freely, but within each module there are numerous customization options. For the absence management module, for example, we always work with our customers to determine what types of absence are required, who needs to approve leave, what reports are needed, and so on. We can go much further than most of the all-or-nothing tools mentioned above.
Yes, of course! What’s more, we advise everyone to schedule a demonstration with one of our account managers to get a good idea of mpleo’s features and the added value they can bring to your organization. This also gives you the opportunity to ask important questions directly.
Absolutely not! As mentioned in the first point of this FAQ page, mpleo is distinguished by (among other things) the modular nature of its platform. You choose the modules you wish to activate according to your needs and budget.
Absolutely! Many of our customers start with a certain bundle of basic modules and develop their mpleo environment step by step over the following months and years.
During a personal meeting, our account managers will be happy to show you the functions and possibilities of the various modules. Then, together, we’ll look at what’s needed to meet your needs and wishes. If you already have a list of criteria (often referred to as “technical requirements”), please let us know and we’ll give you our comments point by point.
Yes, we do! Our discount structure is very transparent. For a concrete quotation, please contact our sales team.
Yes, there is! We have a support team to assist you in your daily use of mpleo, wherever your manipulations don’t produce the expected results.
Our support service is included in the annual license and maintenance fee. So the counter doesn’t go off as soon as you ask a question. For example, you can contact us free of charge if you have questions about a particular feature. What’s more, our support team also deals with questions that are not included in the price – find out more below.
Included:
- Assistance with technical problems
- Questions about functionality
- User rights and access issues
- Questions about reporting functions
Technical/functional questions
By default, mpleo supports Dutch, French, English, German and Spanish. Each user can change the display language at any time. By default, mpleo is displayed in the user’s native language (as defined in their personal data sheet). If required, we can also add an additional language to your mpleo environment – to be determined by mutual agreement.
Yes, you can! Generally speaking, there are three ways of linking mpleo to other systems:
- A formal interface between mpleo and the other system concerned (e.g. the payroll link we have with many social secretariats).
- A link via our open and secure APIs: APIs enable specific fields to be called up from mpleo and transmitted to another tool. The reverse direction is also possible (from the other tool to mpleo), provided the other tool supports it.
- Link via CSV import/export: With this option, we can establish a link with almost any other system. In other words, every day (or several times a day) a CSV file is created from mpleo data, which is then sent via SFTP to the external tool for loading.
We have payroll interfaces with many different social secretariats, and are constantly building new ones. So our customers are free to choose the social secretariat they wish to work with. It’s important to know that mpleo does not calculate payroll itself: our platform simply acts as an intermediary between our customer and the payroll engine of their social secretariat. There are also two different types of link – the next question develops this point.
For further information and specific questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
A master interface means that you only have to enter data in one place, namely mpleo. In the background, this data is then sent to your social secretariat for a whole host of calculations, and the results are sent back to mpleo. This gives the end user the impression of having a single system, whereas technically there are two. This is why we often speak of “bidirectional traffic” when we talk about a master interface. A tool doesn’t just send data to another tool, it also receives it.
A slave interface is one-way traffic. One tool receives OR sends data to another tool, but not both. As far as the salary link with mpleo is concerned, this means that, as an end user, you must always use two systems, namely mpleo and your social secretariat’s tool.
You can always contact our sales team for more information on this subject.
We have payroll links with many different social secretariats. So if you change supplier, you can continue to use mpleo. Please contact our sales team if you have any specific questions.
Depending on the type of link (interface) and the social secretariat you work with, this may or may not be possible.
For more information on your specific context, please contact our sales team.
Yes, it can! We’ve set up this link for many of our customers. It enables mpleo items such as training courses, events, etc., to be transferred to the e-mail application so that people can view and manage their calendar in one place.
Single sign-on is possible, and we support several possibilities: Azure-AD, ADFS, and Auth0.
Yes, you can! Employees can easily record the day(s) they cycled to work, and this data is then included in salary processing (in the case of a master interface – see below).
Mpleo offers many standard reports and dashboards to make your life easier. In addition, custom reports can be created and made available by default. Finally, all mpleo data can be exported and/or used for reporting. Everything in mpleo can also be removed. You can choose from different file formats: CSV, Excel and PDF. Our account managers will be happy to explain in more detail.
Mpleo can be accessed from any device, be it a computer, tablet or smartphone. Cle is possible because mpleo is entirely browser-based. Compare it to Facebook or LinkedIn: it’s simply a website you surf on. So we haven’t developed a separate smartphone application.
The fact that mpleo is a kind of website has the important advantage that your employees don’t need to install a separate application. After all, not every employee has a business cell phone, and even if they do, not everyone wants to install apps like that. What’s more, we avoid the need for employees to set up VPN connections before they can use mpleo.
Mpleo automatically keeps a log of all the important elements that can influence payroll, for example. So you can easily keep track of things.
What’s more, mpleo keeps all historical versions up to date, such as contract statuses, materials, and so on. So you never lose any data. An example: for an employee who has been in service for 10 years, you can see which cars this person has had, which badge numbers, which contracts, which appraisals, and so on.
Our performance management module makes it possible. If you have any specific questions on this subject, please don’t hesitate to contact us at sales@mpleo.com