HR employee support services – help yourself
Sometimes, it’s good to make the most of the opportunity that a new challenge gives you.
For instance, a client of ours – a major multinational engineering company – was recently introducing a new site in Manila in the Philippines, at which several key internal services would be centralized. The organization decided it would be a good idea at the same time to establish a new, standardized target operating model for its HR function worldwide. This model needed to be developed at pace, because it had to be in place to support a pre-set go-live date for the Workday platform.
Changing the culture
The new model envisaged by the company ran counter to its own internal culture at the time. Employees were accustomed to making direct, person-to-person contact with members of the HR team to resolve their queries. It was an approach that was neither as efficient nor as scalable as it might be, and so the new platform our client sought needed not only to address these shortcomings, but also to be designed in such a way as to encourage staff members to change their own behavior and expectations.
ESOAR in action
The task lent itself very well to Capgemini’s enterprise models, and in particular to our ESOAR approach. For example:
- We standardized and optimized the service loads across our client’s entire global operations
- We also standardized and optimized the FAQs, building global and local libraries of responses, and eliminating redundant or repeated questions and answers
- We defined and standardized the employee experience we wanted to deliver across various specialist groups, including a fast-track concierge group for employees at different levels who meet certain criteria.
In addition, we automated a shift in channel strategy. The direct-contact approach was replaced by a tiered model:
- Level 1 is portal-based, enabling employees to self-serve, with FAQs and a search facility. This resolves most queries
- Level 2 gives the option of live webchats with members of the help desk team
- Level 3 is for those exceptions that can’t be resolved by the first two levels, and consists of direct emails and calls.
Right now, we and our client feel that the first four elements of ESOAR, up to and including automation, are more than sufficient to meet evolving needs, although we can also envisage future applications for robotized processes – chatbots, for example.
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The learning journey
What has emerged from our work is a unified HR helpdesk, staffed entirely by Capgemini, serving our client’s employees around the clock in 8–11 languages. The technology platform on which it is based is ServiceNow, and we contributed to its design. It’s able to answer all their questions, and to do so seamlessly, by which I mean the service feels to users as though it were being provided internally. Access to the service has now been rolled out in over 60 countries, and more will be coming on stream in the near future. So, too, will new services, including facilities to onboard new team members.
It’s often the case that the focus of success stories – and this project has indeed been successful – is on increased efficiency and control. While that’s to some extent true in this instance, with reducing numbers of calls and emails, what’s more interesting and important is that much of the value is being derived in terms of enhanced experience. An organization that has been fairly traditional in its internal communications has learned to be much more interactive. It’s engaging enthusiastically with new approaches, and people seem to be getting a buzz out of being able to take more ownership of the resolution of their own issues and queries.
And Capgemini? We’ve been learning too. We’re learning we can be comfortable with our transformation models, that they’re fit for purpose, and that we can spend time focusing, as we have done here, on their applicability in individual instances.
You might say we’ve designed and built the car, and that the main thing our client needed to do was to help us familiarize ourselves with the streets of their home town. By working together in this way, we’ve been able to take them where they need to go on their evolving HR journey.
The outcomes
- From contract signing to live multinational rollout of a new HR helpdesk platform in
just five months - Xxx xxxx
- More points are needed here
- Xxx xxxx
Anjali Pendlebury-Green is an expert in the field of HR outsourcing and transformation, specializing in delivering HR solutions that leverage global outsourcing platforms, leading edge technology, stack offers, and process standardization. Anjali has led award-winning HRO teams for large multinational companies with a special focus on the manufacturing sector.
How to build an HR platform – that streamlines billing
Service Delivery Manager, Capgemini’s Business Services
When you’re developing a new approach to a process, the parallel to building in the physical world is perfectly clear. In both cases, you need to have a plan. You need to have suitable raw materials, which you put in the hands of capable and experienced people. And you need to build on firm foundations.
It’s an analogy that is especially well suited to a certain client of ours. This Fortune 500 company operates in engineering, architecture, and related areas. It’s a global business, responsible for some of the world’s most iconic buildings.
Keeping track of time
In 2017 we worked with our client on a digital tool to track and optimize workflow in invoicing. The benefits that accrued were considerable – cash flow improved by several million dollars, and there was much greater process transparency. As a result, we were asked to turn our attention to HR administration issues.
Timesheets were a particular problem. Contract workers had to submit their hours, receive a Labor Correction & Transfer Form (LCT) from our client, and then print, sign, and scan it before sending it to their own contract manager for approval. The manager then had to reprint it, countersign it, and send it back to our client. The whole process was taking over four days.
To complicate matters even further, there were different forms for different work scenarios, and any mistake in completing the form – entering a wrong project code, for instance – created a lengthy new paper trail.
ESOAR in action
As with any building project, our client needed a plan. We worked closely with the team to examine, codify, and then re-engineer the entire process using our ESOAR methodology. It was a plan that was indeed built on firm foundations.
Our ESOAR methodology helped us identify opportunities to eliminate tasks up front, and to standardize and optimize process steps. It also indicated the potential use of technology to automate and robotize tasks within the process. Indeed, around 80% of the entire function is now automated, with information being fed directly into the ERP system: only the exceptions (which are now much less common) require human intervention.
The working team we established eliminated the need to print and provide a signature on the LCT, ensuring no manual and paper-based tasks were required.
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Good news for everyone
The result of our ESOAR assessment was the development of iLabor – a user-friendly, digital platform that enables contract workers to report their working hours accurately in one simple workflow, and to make any changes or corrections to their timesheets quickly and effectively.
The multiple forms have been standardized and replaced by a single, online form that accommodates all scenarios and all necessary approvals, substantially improving efficiency. We also designed iLabor to provide different menus, in line with each user’s access rights and his or her role in the application.
The outcomes
Recording and tracking time-sheet corrections online enables our client to bill and collect revenue from its own customers faster, eliminating the main cause for untimely payments to contractors.
By leveraging our ESOAR methodology to develop and implement the iLabor platform, Capgemini has delivered a range of tangible business outcomes, including:
- A reduction in end-to-end processing time from four to two days
- A 70% reduction in processing time per request
- A total of 723 hours saved in the process across the organization
- A significant reduction in the amount of paper used through elimination of printing and scanning
- Anytime and anywhere accessibility through smart phone
- Significant cost savings.
The results have been both welcome and substantial for everyone involved. They are the result of good planning, great teamwork, and the judicious application of skill – which is of course exactly the approach to which any client in the construction and architecture industry is accustomed.
Dennis Kaushik helps client drive cost efficiencies via robotic process automation, process improvements, and resource/location optimization.
How to improve processes and motivate people
Senior Engagement Manager,
Capgemini’s Business Services
Business isn’t just business. There’s a human element to revenues and to profits, and if people feel their efforts aren’t sufficiently recognized and rewarded, those numbers will take a hit.
That’s why sales compensation systems are so important. It’s not just about how much people are paid for the results they achieve – it’s about the nature of the process involved. If it’s slow and cumbersome, it can take the shine off someone’s success. They may feel less like replicating it next quarter – and if that happens, the whole business is affected.
Sales challenge
This was a situation faced by one of our clients. Sales representatives of this global IT company were being rewarded for their work, but the legacy compensation system was time-consuming and complicated. This made it difficult for them not just to keep track of their own achievements, but to access sales performance data as a whole.
The company therefore wanted to introduce a new sales compensation system that would provide immediate and real-time access to sales performance data and other compensation information – improving employee motivation, shortening response times, and increasing the availability of information for its sales people.
ESOAR in action
We started by making a thorough examination of the existing sales compensation procedure, so as to identify not just where the problems were, but what each stage of the current process was aiming to achieve. This enabled us to see how each aspect of ESOAR might be applied in turn. (Those words “in turn” are important: we’ve found that, employed in the right sequence, ESOAR elements can deliver cumulative benefits.)
Working closely with our client and with a major software provider, we developed a new platform that transformed the entire sales compensation technology environment and improved data visibility, enabling the easy and timely access to sales performance, and a consequent improvement in motivation across the sales force.
The recommendations we made and the actions we took along the way are too many to be covered comprehensively in this article, so here are just some of the key elements of our approach:
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Reasons to be cheerful
The new platform provides integrated sales compensation information and services to approximately 8,500 sales employees worldwide, delivering reduced turnaround time, real-time access to sales data, and more rapid reporting.
In addition, the new platform also has the capability to serve our client’s sales teams with chatbots to deliver an improved experience.
It isn’t just our client business that is happy – its our salespeople, too.
The outcomes
Our ESOAR methodology has delivered a range of tangible business outcomes for our client, including:
- Enhanced business and IT process efficiency
- Process standardization and optimization
- A significant reduction in operational cost
- Timely delivery of key sales performance data
- Automation resulted in:
- Reduction in turnaround time for compensation target letter generation
- Reduction in data load errors, thereby increasing data accuracy
- A four-hour payment file-check process automated to a 15-minute check
- Accrual file preparation was a 12-hour activity which is now completed in 10 minutes.
Farhad Kanga is a senior engagement manager, providing operations’ support to the client’s sales compensation enablement team.
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