By
James D. Witschger
For some managers, automation (computerization, software, equipment, etc.) is the answer to every business problem. The standard argument is that automation is a one-time charge, you do not have ongoing payroll taxes and “it’s cool.” In reality, automation merely makes existing processes faster and, in some cases, more accurate. If you have a faulty manual process and you automate it, you will have a faulty automated process. If the faulty process was taking you nowhere, automation will simply help you get there faster. In addition, those who are quick to play the automation card often do not correctly assess the real business problem.
As a case study, let’s consider an employee self-service implementation.
Employee self-service, for all the hype and cost, is nothing more than a methodology for communicating information between employees and human resources. Regardless of the loftiness of a given organization’s high technology, employee self-service is simply a faster and more efficient way of doing what was being done before. If an organization has been effective in transmitting information to employees and in collecting information from them via forms and other paper methods, then employee self-service is a great technology that will automate the process using electronic forms and reports. If an organization has not been effective in the process of collecting and distributing employee information, automation will make the business ineffective on a more immediate basis.
Let’s look at an example. ABC Company has 250 employees and a single human resources professional we'll call Mary. Mary meets with the senior staff and indicates that her effectiveness is highly diminished by the constant requests for information from the 250 employees. Mary spends the bulk of her day answering questions about benefits and vacation time for the general employee population. Mary has little time to serve management and address crucial human resources issues that leave the company at risk. Mary is a highly trained and highly paid professional essentially performing the duties of a help-desk clerk. (Please note that the industry standard ratio for employees to HR professionals is about 100 to 1.) The essential business problem at ABC Company is that the HR department is substantially understaffed.
To empower Mary and to increase her effectiveness, the senior staff approves a $50,000 project to implement an employee self-service program to operate on the company’s existing intranet. The employee self-service will make employee information more readily available and more accurate. (Note that this does not address the essential business problem.) Six months later, the long awaited ESS program is rolled out. Management is thrilled because it believes they solved a critical business problem without increasing head-count. The IT department is happy because it has implemented another “state-of-the-art” project (and “it’s cool”). The employees are happy because now they can go on-line instantly to see how much vacation time they have on the books.
However, two weeks after implementation, Mary is back with the senior staff indicating that her effectiveness is now highly diminished by the constant need to keep the information that feeds the ESS program up to date. Mary is no more effective as a human resources professional after the implementation than she was before. Instead, she is essentially performing an automated version of the same job she was performing before. The automation worked, but it did not solve the essential business problem. ABC Company spent six months and $50,000 to automate a process (make it faster and more accurate) that was working just fine before. From a risk management vantage point, ABC Company is just as vulnerable as it was before.
ABC Company, like many organizations today, has assumed that a technology band-aid will correct a larger organizational issue. The “quick to automate” mentality at ABC Company caused its leaders to incorrectly assess the problem and to spend a substantial sum to automate a process that was adequate in non-automated form. There were no complaints about the availability of the information or its accuracy. Mary performed that job perfectly. The complaint was that Mary did not have time to perform two jobs. She needed help and management gave her automation.
In actuality, ABC Company is still understaffed in the human resources department and key human resources tasks are still not being performed. Instead of implementing an employee self-service program, ABC Company could have used its money far more effectively in hiring an administrative assistant for Mary. The administrative assistant would focus on the employee requests and Mary could focus on proactive human resources issues. Given a little ingenuity and a dedicated focus, Mary’s assistant would probably streamline the process and provide vital input into the eventual deployment of an employee self-service program.
The moral of the story is simple. Automation is not the only answer. Sometimes, the tried and true practice of increasing staff is all that is required.
© 2003 James D. Witschger. Used by permission.
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Author Bio: James Witschger has 23 years' experience in software development and over 14 years' in human resources software development, sales and marketing. He is the co-founder of Technical Difference, Inc., a privately held corporation that publishes People-Trak, a PC-based Human Resource Information System.
Contact info: www.p eople-trak.com or call 1-800-809-5731.
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