Organization Visualization

Zoho announced Zoho People, its human resource management application for companies that want to run their businesses online.

People joins Zoho’s suite of business applications, including Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Projects, and Zoho DB. The new offering is ideal for small and medium businesses (SMBs) with 50+ employees.

“Zoho People is one of our first department-specific offerings,” said Raju Vegesna, Zoho evangelist. “Unlike other SaaS players, Zoho uniquely delivers online productivity apps, business apps, and now department-specific apps under a single umbrella. As we often say, we want to be the IT department for SMBs. This means we have to offer business applications along with productivity and collaboration applications.”

HR for the People
Purchasing and deploying most HR applications can cost anywhere from $10,000 to over $100,000, a steep price for cost-conscious organizations that need to streamline their HR departments. With Zoho People, organizations can avoid that expense with an online, self-service HR application that is both enterprise grade and cost effective.

Zoho People targets HR teams within organizations with over 50 employees. Currently available in beta release, the application will be constantly improved in response to customer feedback. Today, Zoho People includes several modules that streamline human resources management.

The Organization Definition Module lets users define the structure of the organization – including departments, roles, and employee details – by dragging and dropping nodes on a tree-style organization chart. Employees can be added individually or imported from an existing source.

The Recruitment Module eases the hiring process in an organization by automating the steps from searching for candidates in the resume database to recruiting new employees. This module allows managers to raise job requirements for posting on the Website by administrators. Features include posting positions currently open within the organization, position requirements, candidate consideration and qualification, and job offers made. Resumes can be added to the module’s resume database, searched during openings and re-categorized.

The Forms Module contains various pre-created, commonly-used forms for tasks in any organization, like a leave form, a travel request form and an expense report form. This module includes 28 forms by default. With Zoho Creator integration, this module allows administrators to create and add new forms, or customize existing forms to fit an organization’s needs.

The Checklist Module lets administrators automate a series of business processes and define the flow based on any content that is added, modified, or removed from Zoho People. Tasks can automatically be assigned to different individuals, groups or departments based on defined workflow. For example, a check list for a new hire might include the HR department enrolling the new hire in a benefits plan, the purchasing department buying a laptop, and the IT department configuring the laptop for use.

The Self-Service Module lets employees and managers define and update their personal information; access and submit company forms, such as expense reports; and review organization policies and procedures. Managers can also define job openings and organize their team structure. Employees can submit information to the HR department using defined reports. This module also holds information on compensation and different regulatory compliances for your organization.

No two businesses are alike. To give users maximum flexibility, Zoho People is completely customizable. Zoho has integrated Zoho Creator into Zoho People, so users can customize every aspect of the application – from the user interface to forms and content – to reflect each organization’s business processes and identity.

Zoho plans to tightly integrate Zoho People with Zoho business. For example, modules such as the Self-Service Module, which can be used by departments other than Human Resources, will be available to Zoho Business users.

For more information on Zoho contact Marisa Lam mlam@techmarket.com at TECHMarket Communications.