While ignored for decades, new legislation in South Africa has entrenched the rights of employees, employers’ responsibilities, and the consequences to the latter should they fail to comply. Fortunately, there are advanced HR solutions that can assist companies in meeting and maintaining compliance with the nation’s labour laws and avoid the penalties that can be imposed under the relevant legal framework.

Currently, that framework consists of three principal acts: the Labour Relations Act of 1995 (LRA), the Basic Conditions of Employment Act of 1997 (BCEA), and the Employment Equity Act of 1998 (EEA). However, each of these acts is subject to frequent additions and amendments that can make it increasingly challenging for a company to remain abreast of its legal obligations to the constantly evolving legislation and avoid costly penalties, possible legal action, and the risk of long-term damage to its reputation.

Fusion Software can offer businesses a lifeline to mitigate these risks. By automating the human resource management function, its comprehensive software solution can reduce the incidence of human error and provide a means to ensure companies are kept informed of all relevant changes to local labour legislation as and when they are introduced.

How Automated HR Solutions Work

Maintaining accurate employee records is one of the principal requirements of the nation’s labour laws. Mandatory documentation includes contracts, payslips, records of hours worked, and outstanding leave. An automated HR system can generate and store up-to-date records without the need for time-consuming and error-prone manual entry.

Such documentation complies fully with the required legal standards. For example, BCEA regulations state that employee attendance records must be kept for three years. To ensure compliance, these and all relevant documents can be easily retrieved for audit purposes or dispute resolution. Other essential business functions supported by our automated HR solutions include:

• Staff Onboarding and Training: Linking records of new staff appointments with the company’s orientation requirements, relevant job descriptions, and vocational training needs ensures the onboarding process is completed timeously and efficiently and new employees are fully prepared and competent to assume their designated roles. Later, this facility could also be used to manage any disciplinary action, termination, resignation, and retirement proceedings.

• Leave Management: South African labour laws detail the leave entitlement of employees during sickness and for vacation purposes, with which employers are obliged to comply. Automating the authorisation, categorisation, allocation, and recording of leave by individual staff members ensures HR managers comply with those requirements. 

• Expense Claims Management: While labour legislation requires all authorised expenses incurred by employees to be reimbursed timeously and in full, this is an area where fraudulent claims could be a problem. However, as specialists in automated HR solutions, we at Fusion Software have included safeguards like the ability to attach documents, upload photos of receipts and the associated invoices, and capture expenses against specified projects, marking them as billable or non-billable.

• Support for Mobile Devices: A convenient mobile app enables the user to remotely capture details of leave and expenses and receive approval using a mobile phone or tablet.

Automating critical human resource functions with our HR solutions will ensure full compliance with South African labour laws and offer numerous advantages over outdated and unreliable manual alternatives. Contact us for more information.