HR Technology

Can HR Technology save HR Departments

 [ Rob Scott writes:]

Will technology be the saviour of the HR profession? Human Capital management remains constrained by its own shackles, and seems to be struggling to move into its new transformed state of being a real strategic player in the organisation. Research shows that there is a definite move by most large organisation to transform Human resources management, but I still see much of this “wave” spinning off the back of technology change.

One of the reasons for this transformation via technology is the fact that HR is still largely administrative in nature, and until HR departments take real ownership of technology and streamline how the technology is used, many organisations will simply not allow HR to play a different and more strategic role in the organisation.

One of the issues I have grappled with in HR software, is it’s continued level of complexity. We still need resources in  HR departments to “Help Line Manage” the software. This is a crazy situation ~ and on top of it all HR often points towards the level of competence of the line manager and his lack of desire to manage people effectively as the reason for not using HR technology tools. I think we need to rethink the source of the problem.

The fact that we still need to put line managers through HR technology training tells an important story. Why have we not progressed to a point that using HR software is so intuitive that you merely have to know its there to use and using it is as simple as following on-line prompts. Using the organisational HR system should be like going to an ATM to draw money or using your on-line banking system ~ you never went on a training course to use those tools! ~ no wonder line manager and employees get frustrated with HR technology.

OK, so I hear you all shouting that ESS and MSS does make using the software easy, and I concede that this is partly true in theory. My personal experience with some very large organisations is that the tools are still underutilised and often do not support visibility of what is happening during transactions, which creates confusion and delays. Also when the transaction does happen, then core data is wrong eg. the Org structure is incorrect or a cost centre is old etc. In the end the line manager reverts back to someone in the HR department to help him sort out the problem. In short I still think the general experience for line managers is not pleasant. Another reason to doubt the effectiveness of ESS & MSS is that not too many HR departments have downsized (by 15-20%)with the introduction of these tools.

If the basic HR administrative systems are still too complicated then I suspect the more “strategic” HR components that are using HR technology eg. Talent management, Recruitment, Performance Management, Development planning etc. are facing an even bigger challenge.

So what is the answer? ~ Firstly we need to rethink HR’s approach to what is logical, and radically redefine processes so that it will make following an HR process (through technology) child’s play (I like Steve Job’s view on technology ” If a 5 year old can’t use it, its too complicated”).

Secondly I think HR vendors need a mind-shift. The development focus of HR tools is still strongly focused on collecting employee or applicant data and using it in a linear fashion. Getting the data is important, but I would like to see vendors spending far more effort in making their tools intuitive, calculating ,self learning and predictive. We need software that can provide more definite answers to a user and can take out the guessing work.

Thirdly we need a lot more HR folk that don’t think in a traditional fashion about HR or HR technology. This is why we are seeing many organisations hiring non-HR trained people into HR departments ~ it is  to challenge the conventional thinking, which HR itself has not been good at. These new-age HR resources need to take on the task of putting technology on the top of the HR agenda, ensuring it is fully intertwined into how HR operates.

Future HR is not the “cry on my shoulder” department any longer, and that is a big jump for many traditionalist. Their role is to provide services to the organisation that will make it more competitive through its people resources. HR technology is the catalyst for HR to get out of the administrative trap and move into a value adding role – but the HR mind-set must change!

Human Resources Management Systems – Have they added any Value?

[Rob Scott]

Sixteen years ago, I was slaving away with the implementation of a Human Resources Information System – it was great, this new tool was going to add enormous value to the ailing HR department. We would be able to extract information quickly, make decisions decisively and spur the organisation to greater heights – everyone would hail the HR department as a value-adding component of the business.

How wrong we were!  Nothing really changed. We still argued why information was not correct, why we couldn’t get the reports out that we really needed, we still used spreadsheets to plan and calculate salary increases, and management still believed that the payroll system was still the source of all accuracy.

Human Resource departments were the Change Leadership custodians – surely we would understand that roles needed to change, people re-oriented and trained to utilize the new HR system. That didn’t work either; instead we saw the emergence of HR system super-users – who ended up extracting information on request for  “I-don’t-know-how-to” HR staff.

More than a decade later, having been involved in many more HR system implementations including the
illustrious “Best-Of Breeds” and ERP systems, I am compelled to ask whether the situation has changed significantly from those trail blazing days gone by. The HR systems certainly changed – they became technically more powerful, graphically pleasing, table driven in design and functionally integrated, not to mention web enabled and providing unlimited accessibility options. But have these HR tools added any real value to organisations besides making the HR department administratively more efficient and providing a reason for their existence? – The answer is in most cases a definite no.

In a recent article in the Business day, the CEO of Dimension Data was quoted as saying that HR departments have no place in his organisations and it was the first thing to go when they acquired new companies. Why would a CEO of a high-tech company, that makes its’ money from technology make such a statement? – Simple, HR is not adding to the bottom line, and you don’t need an HR department to run an administrative system.

Herein lies the answer to why HR systems have not added any real value – Human Resources systems have been acquired and moulded around administrative activities such as ensuring accurate personal and job data, staff development activities such as career planning and training adminstration, time collection, labour relations data collection, benefit and leave management, health and safety data and so the list goes on. The focus has been on ensuring that information is collected timeously at the point of activity, and that the data is accurate. With accurate data on hand, the HR department is able to extract accurate reports, deliver on all the statutory requirements and aggregate information into apparently useful statistical and trend reports.

No one will repudiate that this information is important, but surely these outputs are far from the expected return on investment from a HR information system, which can run into millions of Rands to purchase and implement.

Most HR software vendors sell their product on its’ functional strength, claiming that their product offers “Best operating practices”, is “Best-of-Breed” or use some other catchy phrase to attract their customers. The reality is that most of the more reputable HR systems offer similar functionality and content, and if the function is not available now, it will be in the next release. The vendors selling approach endorses the functional approach to Human Resources Management with the underlying view that using all the functional abilities of the system, real value will be added to the organisation.

Human Resource Management Systems mirror HR effectiveness in organisations. If HR staff members are not offering real value to their customers, then the HR system will not become the value-adding tool so many HR departments expect. It is only when HR functions become part of a “Hire-to-Retire” business process, move away from their functional silo mindset and can prove their value add through suitable business measurements will an HR system provide substantial benefits to the organisation.

The HR fraternity has traditionally considered their customers to be the employees of their organisations, but as organisations expand vertically and horizontally, connect to other organisations through e-business mechanisms, so HR functions across organisations need to “connect” with each other. HR Management needs to challenge their own paradigms and boundaries to keep pace with the value-add expectation of their function. Future HR boundaries will include competitors, traditional external customers and the all-important employee.

The low value-add delivery of most HR systems in organisations reflects the paradigm that HR departments are stuck in. Unless organisations are prepared to shake up their HR views, their valuable Human Resources system will continue to add no real value.

But here is the really interesting thing. I wrote this article 4 years ago for ITWeb, and my perception of many HR department system usage has not changed significantly from then – there has to be a huge opportunity out there to fix this situation and help HR to add real value.