Alsbridge,Payroll, HR, Self Service, Outsourcing

Help Yourself to HR: How to Make Sure Payroll and HR Self Service Really Delivers

Help Yourself to HR: How to Make Sure Payroll and HR Self Service Really Delivers

By Jill Stabler, Senior Consultant, Alsbridge plc

Many organisations, whether through the creation of in-house shared service programmes or through partnering with an outsourced service provider, have tapped into the cost savings and efficiencies driven by HR Employee Self Service (ESS), and Manager Self Service (MSS). Managers and employees now enjoy unprecedented control over, and speedy access to, HR and Payroll data. Self service in its most common form spans activities such as online payslip viewing, personal details updates, organisational changes, new hire and termination administration…. the list goes on. Yet many of those who have implemented self service continue to experience issues, not in terms of technical problems, but rather an ongoing struggle with the significant cultural change required to make a real success of devolving responsibility for HR matters to the wider organisation. What then can be done to make sure that Payroll and HR self service really delivers?

Take a pulse check
Many organisations forge ahead with ESS and MSS on the basis of understandable logic: ‘it saves time, and money and leaves less room for error – it lets people take ownership of data and employee events to make sure that things happen right, and on time’. And this statement is true, but there is a key prerequisite for making it so, your organisation has to understand, use, and appreciate the value of the self-service functionality you offer to it. If this is not the case, your investment will not pay off. So, before going ahead on the assumption that self-service will be viewed as a benefit, go out and talk to your key stakeholders and gage popular opinion on the subject. Perhaps hold one to one interviews with a representative cross-section and focus group meetings among other activities to learn about what the prospective end-user’s baseline views really are. This will give you an invaluable insight and preview into the preconceptions and attitudes you will be dealing with when your project begins, and should feed into key stages of planning – forewarned is after all forearmed.

Recognise the extent of the change
Only you have taken your pulse check you will know to what extent, you will need to manage such a significant cultural change in your organisation’s methods of working with HR. It is easy to assume that step changes in the way people work will naturally follow on from a significant technology change, especially if you  yourself have been slowly adapting to the concept of the change throughout the natural project planning lifecycle. However, the introduction of self-service HR signifies a massive cultural change, the impact of which cannot be underestimated. To do this will prejudice the success of your initiative greatly. Put simply you want to devolve work which has traditionally been performed, validated or facilitated by HR back out to your organisation’s employees and managers. You are proposing to withdraw administrative support, and take away the comfort factor of HR ‘handholding’ through key HR processes. To expect all of your stakeholders to be thrilled at the prospect and to jump on board immediately and with no concerted change management planning would be naïve.

Manage the change
Change Management is a valid and valuable work stream within any HR transformation, but especially in self-service implementation as the change touches so many. This means that the change must be proactively managed, rather than reacted to, by which time the damage will already have been done. Self service success by its very nature depends upon the participation of the majority of employees within an organisation – it simply will not work without this buy-in. It then follows that managing the change is imperative – do not expect success if you do not dedicate time and effort to doing this. One of the most positive steps you can take toward a successful transition to ESS and MSS is to allocate project leadership and resource accordingly. Make plans to manage your change and stick to them – they always pay off.

Set clear expectations
It sounds obvious. However, many self-service implementations don’t reap the benefits they ought to because an organisation’s leadership is simply not willing to reinforce expectations of employees, and especially of management. This of course links in to effective change management which will ensure that you have your leaders on board and willing to reinforce the message. Self-service compliance by managers should be viewed in the same way as other ‘housekeeping’ activities such as filing expense reports or billing customers promptly. After all, self-service implementation is about driving out cost and, by giving direct ownership of data to the organisation, reducing margin for error leading to increased efficiency. Both of the latter should be standard expectations for today’s managers so contributing to achieving them should not come as a surprise and certainly not form the basis of any kind of objection or obstruction. Explained in such terms, any level of opposition becomes hard to justify.

HR transformation can be a bone of contention in whatever form it takes, but self-service implementation does seem to be the most contentious form of it, whatever the type of organisation concerned. To maximise your chances of a smooth success, this must be recognised and planned for accordingly. Even the most fastidiously planned for and project managed implementation can fall flat if it is suddenly sprung surprise like on users along with messages of its greatness. Many people by nature need time to adjust to change and to really own and use a new method of working they also need to know that their views, needs and opinions have been listened to and taken into account. Don’t miss the irreplaceable opportunity to create a change for the better that your people really buy into and advocate, rather than a culture shock that they ill-understand and resent. Your self-service success depends on it.

About the Author
Jill Stabler is a Senior Consultant with Alsbridge plc, the award winning advisors on outsourcing, shared services and offshoring.  Jill can be contacted at jill.stabler@alsbridge.eu