The Cezanne HR April release includes several new features for its HR solution. The development team has added some new notifications to ensure that HR teams and managers do not miss important events. Cezanne also highlighted three new notifications for HR teams. HR can configurable each of the three notifications ensuring they are sent to the appropriate person at the correct time.
There are also new ways to capture payroll information, though the press release did not elaborate with any details, and further information was not available.
Push into the USA
Perhaps signalling that Cezanne is making a bigger push into the US, it also announced the extension of the SMS functionality to cover the US. SMS messaging was launched in October 2020. It enables HR to quickly define, send and track SMS text messages using numbers stored in Cezanne HR. Supported by the AWS infrastructure, it can send messages to more than 120 countries, according to the original release. What isn’t clear is whether the US was omitted from that original list or whether only certain mobiles from specific countries are supported. Such as those that Cezanne HR operates in. This announcement ensures that all US employees can receive texts, though.
During the pandemic, many organisations turned to text messaging to keep employees informed. A recent blog by Shandel McAuliffe, Head of Content at Cezanne HR, highlighted six ways that HR teams can use the SMS tool.
- Site closure
- Heath and Safety issue
- The introduction of an important process
- Unexpected business changes
- Celebration messages
- Showing appreciation
The April update also adds new notifications to help busy HR teams and line managers stay on top of important events. These include expiring fit notes, licencing and disciplinary follow-up. As with the scores of notifications already available in Cezanne HR, the HR team can configure who receives the notifications and when they are sent out.
The first widget – Who’s off
Cezanne has unveiled the first of what its promises are several widgets that organisations can embed quickly into the self-service dashboard. Cezanne HR has continued to update the functionality of the dashboards. In December, it enabled customers to customize the look and feel. It has now produced a “Who’s off” widget that enables users to see when their colleagues are away quickly.
The widget, configurable by HR, enables employees, managers, or HR to see when appropriate colleagues are away and why. The widget will flag whether the co-worker is on annual leave, off sick, training, maternity leave, or something else. The configuration enables HR teams to ensure that only appropriate team members can see the relevant information. The widget supports filters so that managers can see employee absences by location or department.
John Hixon, Director of R&D at Cezanne HR, commented: “Own-branded HR dashboards that bring together personally meaningful data with up-to-date company information are invaluable, especially for distributed workforces or where employees are working remotely. The more often you can connect your employee with your company in a positive way, the more the company builds loyalty. We launched a new set of personalisation tools for Cezanne HR’s employee dashboards in December, and we’ve been delighted with the response.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
The additional support for US-based mobile phones is intriguing, firstly that it implies Cezanne HR does not support every country. Secondly, it may be about to push harder into the US market. The new widget, while useful, is significant as being the first of several. It will be interesting to see what Cezanne HR introduces in the coming months. This is not a huge update from Cezanne HR. Hopefully, it can introduce more widgets now the first one is released.
