Maximizing the benefits of HR technology is only possible if you have a clear view of your brand promise, cultural values, and the employee experience you want to provide. This is why HR should be in the lead when implementing HRIT solutions. Instead of thinking of it as a burden, use it as an advantage, advise Els van Mierop, Change Management Consulting Lead, and Philippe Piso, Senior Project Manager at SuccessDay.
During SuccessDay’s well-attended roundtable discussion “People, Planet, Profit and Tech—defining your culture“ during CHRO Day on November 16 at Kasteel de Wittenburg in Wassenaar, participants shared their experiences with HRIT implementations from different vendors.
Your HRIT system is an integral part of your corporate culture
According to van Mierop, once it’s been decided that the time has come for an IT transformation, the impact of HR technology on culture is often overlooked. And in her opinion, that’s a shame, because HRIT can provide a better employee experience by connecting it to an organization’s brand, values, and strategy.
“Prior to implementation, carefully consider, `Who you are as a company and how is that being reflected in your employee experience?’ And in turn, how is this supported by your HR technology? After all, culture is defined by how people do things together.
Everyone in your company works with your systems every day. And your HRIT system is part of the team that delivers HR services. Think of the system as an HR consultant sitting at your table. The system can make a difference in the way people do things together, making it an integral part of your corporate culture.”
Put your employee experience first
It is therefore imperative to link your culture and employee experience to your HR technology transformation. This non-technical side of tech was discussed at length during the roundtable discussion. Issues discussed included using Design Principles and defining the Moments that Matter in the employee journey.
You want your managers and employees to be excited about an HRIT transformation
“You want your managers and employees to be excited about an HRIT transformation. After all, they are the users of the system, your data, and your processes. In other words, you will have to create a celebration of your HR experience,” advises van Mierop.
However, not nearly enough organizations realize the importance of the employee journey in an HRIT implementation. ” They often only experience it once they are in the process of implementation. You get all kinds of questions from the implementation partner and think, ‘Oops, I hadn’t thought about that one.’ But then you’re already in a pressure cooker because the system must be implemented within a few months. If you don’t have a central starting point by then, you’re really too late.” Also, the system often pushes best practices that don’t align at all with how you want to be as an organization. If your organization wants to be lean and mean and values trust, it will not make sense to set up the processes in the HRIT system such that a request for a day off must be approved by four people. Van Mierop: ” Delegate authorizations in this case as low as possible in the organization.”
IT is a means to an end—not an end in itself
Having established the desired employee journey, the process standards can be established. As much as possible is standardized, so that the organization becomes truly unified, and the company’s values are reflected in the system.
A female CHRO who works for a company—operating in several countries and created after several mergers—emphasizes that this can be a hell of a job. Van Mierop agrees but emphasizes that it is essential to make good agreements with each other about this in advance.
A big bang is rarely a good idea… the change impact is simply too great.
SuccessDay has already helped many organizations through this process. Piso emphasizes that it is only at the very last step that technology comes in. “Once it has been established who needs what from his or her role for the Moments that Matter, we look at how we can facilitate this from within the system.
By the way, some things are better done face-to-face, especially if you want to keep it as personal as possible. The system is never an end in itself and is always supportive. Using an IT system to enforce a culture never works.”
Platform agnostic
Which system is the best fit for an organization depends on the type of company, its size, how many countries you operate in, what you want the system to do, what your future plans are, and quite a few other factors.
“Immerse yourself in what’s available on the market and spend enough time drawing up your requirements—use organization-specific use cases during the selection process,” says Piso. The Eindhoven-based company assists organizations during vendor selection, among other things. It is platform-agnostic and works completely independently. “We stand next to our customers and try to unburden them as much as possible,” he says.
One of the important aspects in vendor selection is cost. The investments involved are quite substantial. The implementation is usually spread over several years and not all modules need to be purchased at once.
Change impact is too great
“Do it step-by-step, especially if you still need to get business on board. And a big bang is rarely a good idea,” Van Mierop advises. You often get the system live, but the change impact is simply too great.
One of CHROs participating in the round table switched to a new HRIT system five years ago—to his complete satisfaction. He states that once a particular package has been chosen, it is often still possible to negotiate sharply on price.
If the supplier sees us sitting at the table, they already know they have to make concessions
“We wanted the best platform for our organization and the choice eventually fell on a particular HCM package. We then asked about the various options, and suddenly there are a lot more possibilities price-wise than we imagined.” SuccessDay can also provide this for customers who request it.
Piso: “Indeed, there is much more to negotiate than you think. If the supplier sees us sitting at the table, they already know they have to make concessions on price, because we know exactly what the possibilities are. The same applies to contract extensions, by the way.”
Advantage or burden
At the end of the session, the chair asks whether the participating CHROs see HRIT as an advantage or a burden. Almost everyone present in the room sees it as an advantage or even a necessity. Although there are some who maintain it is a nuisance. Van Mierop advises companies to give HRIT a seat at the table.
“If you want to get the most out of your system, you have to treat the system like an HR consultant. And if it doesn’t work well, you must go back to the drawing board. You do the same with people, don’t you? Actually, it’s weird that organizations often keep slogging along with a crap system.”
As far as she is concerned, redesigning the system can be avoided by taking sufficient time for the preliminary process and thus having an eye for the culture, values and employee experience and translating this into the HRIT system.
“There is of course a limit to what you can do with ones and zeros, but a lot more than you think is possible in such an HRIT system. We can unburden our customers, because often the people who are in the project team have to do this work on top of their full-time jobs, and that is really not feasible.”
Continually adapting
Van Mierop concludes that the ideal all-in-one system is a utopia. “Every system has its pros and cons, and every organization is different. Try to capture as much as possible in the ideal HRIT system for your organization. Occasionally you may have to switch to a best of breed system for certain components, but only for business reasons.
You should choose the system that best suits your organization and is reasonably future-proof. Also keep in mind that you have to constantly adjust the system because your organization, the marketplace and strategy are also constantly changing.”
Involve the business from the beginning. And not only upper management, but also the work force
As a piece of advice, she wants to pass along that an HRIT implementation should never be exclusive to HR. “Involve the business from the beginning. And not only upper management, but also the work force. Because they have to start working with the system. With change management in mind, it’s important that the business is leading, and HR is the facilitator. That makes the transformation just a little bit easier.”
The CHRO who experienced a successful HRIT implementation five years ago concludes with a final piece of advice: “Don’t be afraid. Hang in there. And don’t go back to the way things were. Don’t create workarounds because you’ll be worse off. Hang in there because the results will be worth it!”
Text: Ester Schop | Photography: Mandy Brander | Illustration: Studio van Laar
