ocurements solutions for financial managers 1 WHITE PAPER ON-BOARDING WITH BPM Human Resources Business Process Management Solutions BonitaSoft democratizes business process management (BPM) by bringing powerful, easy- to- integrate, and user- friendly, open source BPM to organizations of all sizes and industries. With the Bonita Open Solution, organizations can model, automate and optimize process workflows in Finance, Human Resources, Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, E- Government, and more. The fastest- growing BPM provider, BonitaSoft has more than 1,500,000 downloads, 400 customers and 15,000 community members.
2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. AUDIENCE... 2 2. INTRODUCTION... 3 2.1. OVERCOMING HUMAN RESOURCES PROCESS CHALLENGES... 3 2.2. DELIVERING HUMAN RESOURCE SOLUTIONS WITH BONITASOFT. 5 2.2.1. PRODUCT FEATURES AND BENEFITS... 5 2.2.2. SERVICES: SUPPORT, ADVICE, AND CONSULTING... 6 3. ON-BOARDING PROCESS OVERVIEW... 6 4. METHODOLOGY... 8 4.1. DRIVE THE ON-BOARDING PROCESS... 9 4.2. MONITOR THE ON-BOARDING PROCESS... 10 4.3. OPTIMIZE THE ON-BOARDING PROCESS... 11 5. TECHNOLOGY... 11 5.1. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT (BPM)... 12 5.1.1. BPM FOR DRIVE... 12 5.1.2. BPM FOR MONITOR... 13 5.1.3. BPM FOR OPTIMIZE... 13 5.2. DASHBOARDS... 14 5.2.1. DASHBOARD FOR MONITORING PROGRESS... 14 5.2.2. DASHBOARD FOR PROVIDING A HOLISTIC VIEW... 15 5.2.3. DASHBOARDS TO OPTIMIZE... 15 6. EXAMPLE PROCESS... 16 6.1. ORCHESTRATING THE ON-BOARDING PROCESS AT HIGH LEVEL. 17 6.2. BUILDING THE DETAILS... 17 6.3. MONITORING THE PROCESS... 18 7. CONCLUSION... 19 8. NEXT STEPS... 19 1. AUDIENCE This whitepaper is intended for Human Resources (HR) managers who are interested in measuring and optimizing their processes. An on- boarding process is provided as an example.
3 2. INTRODUCTION 2.1. OVERCOMING HUMAN RESOURCES PROCESS CHALLENGES With processes like recruiting, onboarding, payroll, performance reviews, and vacation requests, HR managers are under more scrutiny than ever before. They therefore need to ensure their processes are efficiently managed and measured. However, processes are implemented differently from one organization to another, and packaged HR applications are both costly to acquire and implement as well as constrained in flexibility. In addition, the various processes are dependent upon other departments and systems. On- boarding is a key process for Human Resources managers today. The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) describes on- boarding as helping new employees adjust to their jobs by establishing better relationships to increase satisfaction, clarifying expectations and objectives to improve performance, and providing support to help reduce unwanted turnover. Behind this is a myriad of processes to perform such as: obtaining an e- mail address and laptop from the IT department, receiving a login to the CRM system, signing- up for payroll with the accounting department, enrolling in the company health plan with the insurance provider, receiving job training within the employee s department from an external provider, etc. è Figure 1.. The importance of on- boarding Source: Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) Figure 2 (below) describes some high- level concepts that Human Resource managers typically take into account with respect to on- boarding. Practically speaking, this representation can be expressed in terms of processes (i.e., inputs and outputs), and those processes may be broken down into many smaller processes in a methodical way to yield more granular control and measurement.
4 è Figure 2. A research- based model of on- boarding Source: Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) It s desirable to capture and automate the processes, precisely as the HR manager requires, and implement those as an application that can then be integrated with other systems as needed and finally measured against key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are increasingly the commonly accepted gauge to monitor and drive success in corporate departments, and of course human resources is no exception. Human resources processes need to be measured in a methodical manner to not only drive value of the human resources department but also to deliver accountability, ensure solid governance, and ultimately build credibility throughout the organization. In order to deliver such results, the first step is to methodically capture and define the business processes behind what is to be measured. Business Process Management software can help not only in capturing the processes but also in measuring the performance of those processes in reports and dashboards that can be easily tracked by the appropriate stakeholders.
5 2.2. DELIVERING HUMAN RESOURCE SOLUTIONS WITH BONITASOFT BonitaSoft offers a full range of Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) editions and services, as well as system integrator partners to overcome the challenges described in the prior section. 2.2.1. PRODUCT FEATURES AND BENEFITS BonitaSoft s BPMS product editions include features for business process modeling, application design, dashboards, and deployment. The open source edition of the suite is called Bonita Open Solution (BOS), and BOS is appropriate for building your first projects. BonitaSoft s three commercial editions - called Teamwork, Efficiency, and Performance - add increasing levels of functionality in the form of an annual subscription that includes technical support. Both the Efficiency and Performance Editions include best practices business process model templates such as the On- Boarding process template described in this white paper. An overview of key features and benefits for all BonitaSoft BPMS editions follows: Business Process Modeling Business users can easily define business processes using a user- friendly graphical interface and an intuitive industry standard notation called BPMN2. This enables a business person to easily define the process that can also be easily understood by the technical team that will implement the process as an application. Application Design and Generation BonitaSoft s suite enables application designers to quickly and easily build web application forms with the look- and- feel desired, directly based upon the business process model. Connectors Another challenge with deploying BPM solutions today is that typical BPM products do not provide easy ways to interact with other corporate systems. In a practical sense, this is very limiting because most business processes require interaction not only with people but also corporate systems. BonitaSoft and its community provides a library of hundreds of connectors with external systems such as email, applications, and other corporate systems to ensure that the business processes can interact with corporate systems in a practical and useful way.
6 Process Template Best Practices The BonitaSoft BPMS commercial editions called Efficiency and Performance add best- practices process templates for Human Resources including: recruitment, on- boarding, performance review, payroll, and vacation requests. These process templates give you a head start in deploying applications which perfectly fit your business. BonitaSoft and its system integrator partners can help you customize the process templates and corresponding applications to your requirements. Dashboards As described in the prior section, ultimately Human Resource managers need to monitor the progress of business processes. This is achieved in BonitaSoft products with a feature called Business Activity Monitoring (BAM). BAM provides reporting of KPIs on business processes within a dashboard. With these dashboards, Human Resources managers can be assured that they can track business objectives against the realities of the day and take corrective action as required. 2.2.2. SERVICES: SUPPORT, ADVICE, AND CONSULTING The commercial editions of BOS include technical support to help with your product questions and any issues that may arise. To meet your project requirements and deadlines, BonitaSoft offers advisory services of best- practices for using BonitaSoft products, and its system integrator partners can deliver end- to- end services. These services ensure a complete solution, either based upon existing process templates or by adding completely new ones. 3. ON-BOARDING PROCESS OVERVIEW The following example of on- boarding describes the process itself and how it may be implemented with a Business Process Management Solution (BPMS). BPMS can generate an application for the process as well as deliver mechanisms to measure the performance. For example, let s consider Mike and Jim, two contractors hired to finish a four- week project. Mike was on- boarded the first day and started producing work the same day. As for Jim, he was on- boarded a week later and thus started working on his tasks a week later. The late on- boarding for Jim is a 25% loss to the bottom line, that is, one week of delay out of the project duration of four weeks. The purpose of this paper is to explore how a BPMS (which includes reporting and dashboards capabilities) can help reduce the 25% loss to nearly zero.
7 Ideally, HR managers should be able to open a browser, type the employee s name in a text box, choose who to involve in helping with the on- boarding processes and then click a button that is called On- Board. Once done, the HR manager can simply wait for the employee to send a thank you email for being on- boarded successfully. Between clicking the On- Board button and the thank you email, HR managers should be able to see who is helping with the on- boarding and how far they are into the process. This allows HR managers to predict when the new hires will be on- boarded and start to perform their job. If there is any issue, the HR manager should be immediately notified and be able to easily connect with the person in charge to take corrective action. A report of all the activities should be available to the HR managers so that they can analyze the data in any shape or form to better understand the process. This scenario shows how BPM software can service the business goal of expanding the team efficiently and predictably in order to grow the bottom line. The figure below provides an illustration of this on- boarding vision. è Figure 3. The vision of building an on- boarding process is to make it as simple as possible, show progress, and forecast the hiring date
8 The vision just described of an On- Board button is not at all a fantasy, and it should not be; it is rather a necessity. Broken on- boarding processes should not be tolerated but rather continuously improved. For example, incomplete reports based upon partially completed web forms; reports complemented with emails and instant message conversations; and reports manually created by spending hours wading through spreadsheets are all too common in HR departments today. Most HR managers have requirements to report to their management on progress and having a broken on- boarding process makes the task of reporting to upper management extremely difficult and time consuming. Even worse than reporting to upper management is dealing with legal compliance requirements in situations where the legal HR processes are not consistent for all the employees. On the surface, technology is being used in a variety of ways (e.g., web forms, email, spreadsheets, etc.); however the problem is that the technology is not used in a cohesive way to help HR managers be more efficient in growing the bottom line. Successful HR managers require a robust on- boarding solution that is controllable, visible and streamlined. Hence, there are three main factors of such a solution: methodology, a technology to execute the methodology, and a set of best practices business scenarios, or use cases and templates based upon others experience. The following three sections will describe the methodology, technology, and an example process as a use case. è Figure 4. To build a successful on- boarding process, HR managers need to have a methodology, a technology to accelerate and execute the methodology, and Use Cases to learn from other s experiences 4. METHODOLOGY In order to build a robust on- boarding process there are three gears to the methodology. First is the ability to Drive the on- boarding process. Second is the ability to Monitor the progress of each component or sub- process, and the third is the control to Optimize it. The following sections explore each gear or factor in more detail.
9 è Figure 5. The three gears to on- boarding success: Drive, Monitor, and Optimize 4.1. DRIVE THE ON-BOARDING PROCESS Building the holy grail process that can fit every company and every department s needs is neither possible nor necessary. On the other hand, building a process that is flexible and can incorporate other processes proves to be advantageous. The core aspect of Drive is for the HR manager to define which departments are to be involved in the on- boarding process and still comply with the policies and regulations. For example, setting a different process or a different path, called an exception path, within the process can incorporate new employees who will be working virtually. The exception path may allow the HR manager to skip adding the office manager - who sets up cubicles and workstations - to the on- boarding process. However, complying with the company s policy of providing orientation should still be mandatory and not an option to skip. è Figure 6. Whiteboard example of on- boarding process to reflect an exception path
10 4.2. MONITOR THE ON-BOARDING PROCESS There are three aspects of monitoring the on- boarding process. The first aspect is the active notification for alerting the HR manager of current and potential issues with on- boarding new employees. The second aspect is the ability to monitor the progress of on- boarding new employees. The third aspect is the ability to understand the holistic view of on- boarding new employees. Active Notification Active notification is a procedure that allows HR managers to be notified with issues as they arise. The purpose behind having an active notification procedure is to alert the HR manager as early as possible of problems. Typically HR managers are well versed with adding new employees, but various issues rise from other employees performing specific tasks within the on- boarding process. For example, lack of equipment and lack of necessary paper work are common examples that bring things off track. An active notification procedure allows HR managers to take a corrective course of action as issues arise, which then expedites the on- boarding process. Monitoring Progress A report that shows a list of employees being currently on- boarded and the progress of each individual on- boarding process is vital for estimating cost, predicting potential issues and forecasting start date for each individual new hire. In the following section we will discuss KPIs that are important to the success of the on- boarding process. Monitoring the progress is a key element in producing and visualizing such KPIs. Holistic View The holistic view of the system provides insight into the entire on- boarding process from inception to end; from the day the new hire signs the contract until they become fully productive. One possible example could be a system view that shows the HR manager how an entire department is performing in relevance to the on- boarding process (i.e. IT and on- boarding, legal and on- boarding, etc.). Another example is a financial view that shows the total cost of adding a new position with certain skills. Having a holistic view of the on- boarding process has the following advantages: It enables overall optimization of the process (will be discussed in the next section); and It allows HR managers to understand the performance of the on- boarding process in relevance to other business units.
11 4.3. OPTIMIZE THE ON-BOARDING PROCESS There are two forces that affect virtually every process an HR manager designs. The first force is the HR managers knowledge growth: HR managers gain deeper understanding of their own organization in terms of corporate culture and business models. The second force is the general business dynamics, including details such as regulations, changes in the economic climate, etc. Such forces constantly affect the performance of the on- boarding process in terms of cost of on- boarding new employees and on- boarding time. Therefore it is absolutely crucial to constantly consider ways to optimize the on- boarding process in reference to internal and external changes in the business environment. As explained earlier in this white paper, the three elements of the on- boarding methodology can be considered as gears. In other words, to be able to optimize a process the HR manager needs to be able to drive it and to be able to acquire data from monitoring the on- boarding process. Once a sufficient amount of data is obtained and presented, HR managers can easily crank the numbers into decision. In the optimization stage, HR managers seek better ways to lower the cost and shorten the time of the on- boarding process. In addition, HR managers seek ways to scale the on- boarding process. For example, the cost of on- boarding one employee should be close to on- boarding ten employees when calculated per capita. Finally, HR managers seek ways to streamline the on- boarding for it to be executed by junior HR associates. In other words, the HR manager designs the on- boarding process and the associated staff can execute it. 5. TECHNOLOGY There is an old saying that a fool with a tool is still a fool. Without an experienced HR manager, it will be quite difficult for the on- boarding process to succeed regardless of the technology being used. This is not to discount the importance of leveraging the right technology and choosing the right provider but to emphasize that having an experienced HR manager is paramount to the success of building an automated and robust on- boarding process. Business Process Management (BPM) in conjunction with reporting and dashboard technologies plays a vital role in building a successful on- boarding process. BPM and dashboards should improve the following two KPIs to: Reduce on- boarding time to an absolute minimum; and Reduce cost of adding new employees to an absolute minimum. From an operational standpoint BPM and dashboards should also:
12 Control or be able to drive the on- boarding process in accordance with business and regulatory needs (for example, addressing country localization issues); Provide visibility into to all aspects of the on- boarding process so it can be monitored and then optimized ; and Streamline the on- boarding process. Building a process that is orchestrated or driven by the HR manager but can be executed via junior employees. In the following sections, we will focus on understanding the advantages of using BPM and dashboards in building a successful on- boarding process. In addition, we will discuss the advantages of technologies that incorporate documentation and templates as part of their automation process. The role of BPM and dashboards is to support the methodology. BPM can help with Drive and Monitor while dashboards can help with both Monitor and Optimize. 5.1. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT (BPM) 5.1.1. BPM FOR DRIVE Drive gives the HR manager the flexibility to orchestrate the process by being able to define which departments are to be involved, make exceptions and ensure compliance with policies and regulations. Such flexibility in designing the on- boarding process requires a robust communication framework. The HR manager needs to communicate the process to other stakeholders during both its design and executions. Therefore, for a BPM technology to support the Drive aspect of the methodology, it must be able to support an effective communications framework. Successful organizations use BPM technology to visualize processes in a standard manner. Leveraging BPM standard notation (BPMN) can ensure that a process is understood and well communicated by all stakeholders. A process model should be accessible to stakeholders during the design phase and also available during the on- boarding process. For example, while the HR manager is designing the on- boarding process, other stakeholders should be able to review and provide feedback on the process. In addition, while other employees are performing various tasks to on- board the new hires, they should be able to understand how their work fits into the bigger picture of on- boarding. Bonita Studio is a user friendly modeling tool for HR managers to build customized processes depending on the business unit s need.
13 In a few clicks, users can build models just like on a white board è Figure 7. Bonita Studio allows business users to build models easily An HR manager can allow exceptions to optimize the process è Figure 8. Bonita Studio allows the HR manager to orchestrate an on- boarding process to expidite the process 5.1.2. BPM FOR MONITOR As discussed earlier, BPM provides active notification to alert the HR manager with issues related to the on- boarding process as they occur. While active notification plays an important role in reducing the on- boarding time, it increases the number of alerts or notifications raised to HR. 5.1.3. BPM FOR OPTIMIZE The following sections will explore the role of dashboards in highlighting problem areas in the on- boarding process. Once such information is available in the
14 dashboard, the HR manager can use the BPM process modeling tool to fine- tune the process to achieve maximum performance. For example, once the dashboard indicates that there is a high cost incurred in setting up a workspace, the HR manager can alter the process accordingly. The section on Dashboards to optimize, below, provides further details. 5.2. DASHBOARDS 5.2.1. DASHBOARD FOR MONITORING PROGRESS è Figure 9. Bonita User Experience provides a number of prebuilt reports and a dashboard interface The dashboard solution should include different prebuilt reports that can measure important aspects of business operations: people, tasks, system information, etc. In addition, adding KPIs on a business processes should require minimal technical skills. HR managers should be able to easily use existing reports, and manipulate them with desired parameters to measure cost and performance.
15 5.2.2. DASHBOARD FOR PROVIDING A HOLISTIC VIEW Obtaining a holistic view of the on- boarding process should be possible using the dashboard interface, which should not require any IT skills to leverage existing BonitaSoft dashboard reports. Reports are generated based on BPM data BonitaSoft s BPM Once KPIs are defined, Bonita extracts the data into reports è Figure 10. From BPM to dashboards using BonitaSoft 5.2.3. DASHBOARDS TO OPTIMIZE On- boarding BPM processes built using Bonita Studio Optimize is the natural next step in using BOS. Dashboards are used to monitor the on- boarding process by providing active notifications, progress and a holistic view. As indicated earlier, monitoring (using dashboards) provides a comprehensive set of reports that the HR manager can use to further optimize the process. In the Optimize stage, the HR manager can leverage dashboard capabilities of reporting to understand of weaknesses and strengths. For example, when scaling up the on- boarding process to add more employees, the HR manager might find that setting up the workplace is incurring higher cost. The HR Manager may therefore add more resources to setup the workplace or create a shared workplace, which might contribute to lowering the on- boarding cost. Dashboards can also be leveraged to optimize the on- boarding process for scalability. For example, certain dashboard reports can create checklists which are suitable for auditing work performed by HR associates helping with on- boarding new hires. The core goal of dashboards is to help the HR manager to compare the current on- boarding process with business objectives and to help ensure that the process is running in the most optimal. In other words, the dashboard should highlight problem areas and allow the HR manager to fine- tune the on- boarding process for better performance.
16 è Figure 11. A process that has been optimized based on dashboard data 6. EXAMPLE PROCESS Using Bonita Studio to whiteboard or orchestrate a process does not require detailed technical skills. The following conceptual exercise demonstrates how to build an on- boarding process. The exercise starts at the highest conceptual level and then explores the details. As a separate exercise out of scope of this white paper, the business process model will need to be implemented within the IT infrastructure. The implementation of the process, connecting to backend systems, and building web application forms all require certain technical skills, and that s why it s important to engage a technical team for deployment of the process model.
17 6.1. ORCHESTRATING THE ON-BOARDING PROCESS AT HIGH LEVEL The first step is for the HR manager to build the high- level on- boarding process using Bonita Studio's simple drag- and- drop palette. For example, in the figure below, the HR manager can build a process that ensures the new hire submits all the necessary paper work before notifying various business units that are involved in the on- boarding process. Finally, the welcome letter to the new hire will not be submitted until all the tasks assigned to business units are done. è Figure 12. Models are built via drag- and- drop with the palate inside Bonita Studio 6.2. BUILDING THE DETAILS Once the high- level process is built, users can add more details for each individual step and link them with the parent high level model. The figure below demonstrates building the details of the HR notification step of the high level model (built in the previous step). The high level model contains a step called Notify HR Generalist, and the detailed model explains the various tasks required by the HR generalist of Prepare new employee packet, Send welcome letter, etc.
18 While orchestrating the on- boarding process the HR manager can build a detailed model for each individual step in the high level model. è Figure 13. Detailed model containing required steps for the HR generalist to perform 6.3. MONITORING THE PROCESS Once the orchestration of the on- boarding process is completed at both a high- level as well as at a detailed level, the technical team can be involved to build connectors to other systems and web application forms to complete the building of the application. Once IT completes enriching the on- boarding process with technical implementation details and deploys the process, the HR manager can monitor the on- boarding process either by leveraging the pre- built dashboard reports that come within the suite or building customized ones with the help of IT.
19 è Figure 14. A sample web form that can be built using the BonitaSoft suite 7. CONCLUSION This whitepaper has described the challenges HR managers face on a daily basis, and it has taken the on- boarding process as a specific example as to how business process management software can help. A proven methodology (Drive, Monitor, and Optimize) was described to systematically build an optimized on- boarding solution. The role of the HR manager is paramount in the success of the on- boarding process, to provide expertise and to turn reports into decisions that can help in building a better on- boarding process. The appropriate tools allow the HR manager to maximize his or her efficiency and for the organization to scale the business effectively. BonitaSoft offers an end- to- end BPMS to overcome the challenges posed around building, deploying, and measuring processes for Human Resources managers. 8. NEXT STEPS To attain optimal business solutions, it s important for the business manager and technical team to work in tandem. We invite you and your IT team counterparts
20 to download BonitaSoft s BPM suite from the web site (www.bonitasoft.com) and to use the sample on- boarding process described in this white paper. For the technical audience there is a wealth of technical information that can be found at the community site (www.bonitasoft.org). Contact BonitaSoft today (http:///services/inquiries) to learn more information about our Subscription Pack with advanced features and annual technical support. The BonitaSoft BPMS commercial editions called Efficiency and Performance include best- practices process templates for Human Resources including: recruitment, on- boarding, performance review, payroll, and vacation requests. These process templates give you a head- start in deploying applications which perfectly fit your business. BonitaSoft and its system integrator partners can help you customize the process templates and corresponding applications to your requirements. Finally, BonitaSoft partners with system integrators who can build and host BPM solutions for HR professionals. These partners may be found on the BonitaSoft.com website: http:///partners/consulting- system- integrators- partners.
ocurements solutions for financial managers 21 HEADQUARTERS GRENOBLE, FRANCE 32, rue Gustave Eiffel 38000 Grenoble EMEA, ASIA & LATIN AMERICA PARIS, FRANCE 73, rue de Sèvres 92100 Boulogne NORTH AMERICA SAN FRANCISCO, USA 51 Federal St. Suite 305 San Francisco, CA 94107 BonitaSoft democratizes business process management (BPM) by bringing powerful, easy- to- integrate, and user- friendly, open source BPM to organizations of all sizes and industries. With the Bonita Open Solution, organizations can model, automate and optimize process workflows in Finance, Human Resources, Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, E- Government, and more. The fastest- growing BPM provider, BonitaSoft has more than 1,500,000 downloads, 400 customers and 15,000 community members.