Paychex adds four new features to HCM platform

Paychex has added four new features to Paychex Flex, its human capital management and payroll administration platform, the payroll and HR company said Monday.

The new additions — performance management and workflow approval tools, real-time analytics and an events calendar — are designed to help employers get a “competitive edge when it comes to meeting the HR and talent management requirements of today’s demanding business environment,” says Tom Hammond, vice president of corporate strategy and product management at Paychex.

The new performance management tool gives employees the ability to select their preferred review process. For example, workers can select quarterly or monthly reviews with their manager. It also provides a template for employers who may be looking to jumpstart a review process.

Paychex says it has made adjustments to its real-time analytics tool, which provides users with data on hiring and turnover trends. Employers are now able to look more deeply into trends within their organization, including areas that are contributing to turnover. Then employers can compare their data with the more than 600,000 organizations using Paychex’s platform. All company information is anonymous, Paychex says, and is broken down by region, company size and industry.

Paychex also added an events calendar tool to Paychex Flex, which tracks everything from employees’ birthdays to merit increases, and a workflow approval process, which allows HR administrators to approve compensation changes, and other self-service actions, on the platform.

“The goal of this release is to help our customers simplify the complexities of finding and retaining the right talent, optimizing employee performance and maximizing organizational productivity,” Hammond says.

The new updates come after the company last September added a web-based learning management system to Paychex Flex, which allows employers to test their workers’ skills through pre-loaded online training modules. The basic version of the learning system offers six standard training libraries: business skills, HR compliance, sales and service, leadership and management, software and workplace safety.

“Performance management has changed from an annual event to an ongoing activity,” Hammond told Employee Benefit News in September. “There’s no employee that you could ever speak to that doesn’t want to know exactly where they are at a certain point in time.”