Are Your HR Systems in Good Health?

By Julie Abbott, Senior HR Consultant

Our HR Systems are often taken for granted; they are what they are, they do what they do. However, they can be or should be a pivotal part of our HR strategy and delivery. Let me expand.

To turn your HR vision into operational reality, it is necessary that people, processes and technology (your HR system) are all working together and more importantly, pulling in the right direction. The issue we face however, is how easy it is to change each of these components. For example, it is easy to change a process, but “operationalising” that process in your HR system could take months or even years to accomplish. The result is that over time your people, processes and systems become out of sync; no longer supporting each other, and in the worst case, actually working against each other.

It is often difficult to take a step back and validate the health/alignment of your HR systems, but such a process is essential. It will enable you to move forward; quicker and better aligned processes save time and money.

Strategic Alignment & Roadmap
The first stage of any health check is to evaluate how your current HR systems are aligned to and supporting your HR strategy and your roadmap for evolving this:

• Does your system work in line with your current & future organisational structure?
• Does it support dispersed geographies while providing central control?
• Is it enabling me to streamline processes or is it restricting change?
• Is it aligned to our roadmap for empowering managers and enabling self-service?
• Is it supporting some of the initiatives we have such as eRecruitment, Talent Management, Flexible Benefits, etc?

The simplest approach to this is to make a list of your core HR strategies, goals and objectives and even some of the initiatives you intend to develop over the coming year. Next to each of these items categorise the value/alignment of your current HR systems:

Aligned – Fully supports this goal or objective
Not Aligned – Not currently aligned but can be changed or modified
Restriction – Not possible to support this objective in our current system

This simple exercise will give you an instant snapshot of the health of your current HR systems and whether they are fit, healthy and supporting your needs, a little out of shape but with work can be back to full health, or unfortunately have been outgrown and now in a position of not fit for purpose.

Operational Alignment
The next step is to drill down on the health of your HR systems in terms of each of the elements of people, processes and technology and review not only how each element is being supported, but how closely they are aligned. Use the following as guidance, however, this is far from an exhaustive checklist:

People:
• How are your systems helping your HR and Payroll department to improve the service that it delivers to your customers, i.e. employees and managers?
• Do your users feel they are getting the most our of your HR systems?
• What challenges and issues do your users face when using these systems?

Processes:
• Identify which are the key HR and Payroll processes that impact the business and departmental objectives and evaluate whether the HR systems are supporting these. • Identify processes that you feel could be improved and evaluate how your HR system can support the improvement of these processes. • Identify where other tools such as spreadsheets, paper-based forms or online documents are being used to support processes and why these cannot be part of your HR system.

Technology
• Do you have full understanding of what has been implemented and the capabilities available within your HR system? • Is your current system reliable and always available when you need it?

These types of health checks are something we provide on a regular basis to our clients evaluating their deployments of Oracle HCM. If you would like to discuss with us further the value of a HR Systems Healthcheck in your UK organisation, please contact John Brownhill on +44 (0)1372 860 740 or email him at john.brownhill@symatrix.com