How should you go about selecting the right technology solution for your workforce?
HR and top business executives do realise technology solutions are important to their human capital management (HCM) initiatives. However, finding the right HCM solution that suits the organisation’s specific requirements can be a daunting and frustrating task for most companies. Here are some key issues to consider.
Establishing a business case
It is important for new buyers to carefully evaluate their organisation’s needs and establish a case for technology acquisition. Some important points to analyse and establish are:
a. Pain points: Establish what unproductive HR processes are and how automation will help.
b. Urgent vs. incremental improvement: What are the urgent areas of improvement and which are the ones that can afford gradual or incremental automation?
c. Current technology solutions: Would the current solutions become redundant or can they still work with the new solution?
d. End result: What are the long and short term objectives of technology acquisition and how those can be measured?
e. Cost/benefit analysis: Is the investment justified?
Meeting specific requirements
Is the software capable of accommodating company’s specific HR processes and policy rules? For example, a company wants the system to support its unique leave plans, benefits plans and overtime rules. HR should ask if the technology is capable of evaluating each eligibility activity and apply the necessary combination of rules, messages, prompts, and options, specifically designed to meet the exact requirements desired.
If the above requirements require a customisation effort, it becomes critical to evaluate the development cost and future maintenance effort.
Integrated vs. multiple solutions
It is important to check if the software offers all HR functionalities as a one-stop solution or if it requires integration with other solutions. If the choice is of multiple solutions, then you need to consider your data management strategy. Would HR want to obtain data from various sources, or build interfaces between various solutions, enabling data exchanges? In this scenario, would the new software be able to coexist with previous legacy systems and still have the capability to integrate?
Security levels
It is critical to determine what security measures are built into the HR information technology, such as daily backups, backup servers, and added protective layers. How would system prevent information from being lost or accessed by unauthorised personnel? Would HR be able to decide who is allowed access to the HR information system and to what degree?
Scalability
HR should assess the technology’s ability to meet future requirements of the company in relation to expansion of employee numbers, offices and locations, changes in HR policy and rules. HR should analyse these factors to ensure that the company’s long term investment in technology is well-protected.
Implementation scope and effort
HR should clearly establish the scope of automation and decide on what needs to be automated as a priority and by when.
HR should also ascertain up front the level of training and technical expertise that will be required and the amount of time expected. The implementation process and planning should be determined along with the roles and responsibilities of the vendor. HR can then determine specific tasks and resources that may be required, plus estimate the cost of internal resources deployment and upskilling of users.
Future maintenance
It is important to ascertain what types of maintenance and upkeep would be required for the HCM solution. Does the system offer easy-to-use capabilities that HR can use to configure simple changes? Would there be additional change management costs?
Regardless of any functional requirements, HR needs to correctly evaluate the appropriateness of the software for the operation and for the organisation’s needs. Not doing so often leads to reduced productivity, excessive operational cost or, worst, a failed systems implementation.
Ritu Bharadwaj
Project manager
ObTech Asia Pacific
rbharadwaj@obtechglobal.com
