A best practice vs a best system.

A best practice vs a best system.

As information technology is here to stay in HR and its role in future HR execution will increase evermore, I thought it might be a good idea to add a blog every now and then about the role of HR-IT in HR. Shortcuts will be taken and assumptions will be made in my postings but always with the idea to better understand the pitfalls in HR-IT.

This posting describes pitfall # 1…

A best practice vs a best system.

The title of this blog is a quote made by Dave Ulrich, HR guru extraordinaire. The quote is a prelude and inspiration to this blog, and perhaps many to come.

Ever wondered why ERP projects do not reach their full potential?

As PeopleSoft consultant I encounter many organisations that wish to implement their old ways of doing things in a new application (or additional module, upgrade etc). This goes as far as wanting to redesign part of the application by (i.e.) removing fields, changing field labels, changing workflows or page layouts to make the new install look as much like their old HR application as possible and HR processes to remain the same. Organisations seem to be more than willing to take the additional investments involved, while being adverse to budgeting additional funds to actually change their way of conducting HR.

Truth be told, I am not at all against building bespoke work in a vanilla application. I do feel however it must be done for the right reasons. Adversity to change is not one of them.

The end result of such a project is that a brand new application is implemented, but the optimum level of real progress for HR has not been reached. Some might even go as far as calling such a project a success.

Many organizations think implementing an ERP application alone will bring real change to the way they are conducting their HR. Expecting HR to become more efficient and deliver a higher quality of service at the same time.

Real change can never be achieved by only making new HR-IT available in any organization. (Yes I’ve said it!)

So if implementing a new application alone does not do the trick, is there a better approach?
It starts with the realization that a best system is needed.
When Ulrich made his quote, he did not imply an IT system. In Ulrich’s mind an ERP application like Oracle, SAP or PeopleSoft (can’t recall him mentioning Microsoft funny enough) is a best practice.

A best system is the sum total of all that needs changing in your organization to bring about real change in your HR organization.

Here’s a list of suggestions:
o Consider your future needs
A change project of this magnitude takes time. Avoid the risk of ending up with an outdated project deliverable.
o Changing your HR services catalogue
Re-evaluate all the services HR is delivering in your organisation. Will all services remain in the to-be situation?
o Changing your HR processes
Re-evaluate all of your HR processes. With it comes the difficult task to re-shuffle responsibilities in your organization and mapping standard delivered ERP processes on your process catalogue.
o Changing your HR organization
Once the HR catalogue and processes are re-evaluated it is time to map these on your existing HR organisation. Will all roles remain? Do new responsibilities emerge? What about headcount?
o Consider a change readiness evaluation
Is your organization ready to take the big step? What needs to be done to have the projected change accepted by all involved? (including your external vendors)
o Visit a friendly neighbour
HR is a generic process for the most part. No need to start from scratch.

So what about SaaS applications then? How do they fit into this story? To be honest, I have not figured it out yet. But it can’t be accidental that Oracle decided not to offer its state of the art Fusion applications as a multi tenant SaaS. Who knows? Larry might even agree with me :-)!

Greetz,
Ramon Schliszka

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