Transforming Human Resources with People-Friendly Technologies Brought to you by
Investing in SAP ERP Human Capital Management (SAP ERP HCM) is an important first step in modernizing your human resources operation. But introducing a few employee self-services is just the beginning of a true HR transformation. To really take on the challenges that plague HR, you need a technology partner that can optimize your HCM infrastructure and centralize your activities in an inviting, easy-to-use HR portal with a wide array of mobile-friendly self-services. It s a move that will make your staff feel more engaged and free up HR to do what they do best recruit top talent, develop potential, drive collaboration, and provide state-of-the-art training and support. 65% 65% of HR executives said they wanted to play a more strategic role in their organizations. Source: Bersin & Associates Talent Challenges Survey, 2011. In a recent poll, 65% of HR executives said they wanted to play a more strategic role in their organizations. 1 So, what s standing in their way? Piles of paperwork! The harsh reality is that HR spends 70-80% of its time on low-value, administrative tasks. 2 This is why the first step in transforming human resources is getting rid of tedious, paper-based processes. HCM software offers companies a way out of the old HR conundrum with an intuitive, user-friendly interface that automates administrative tasks and eliminates paperwork. By optimizing HCM to specific company needs, leading HR organizations are able to streamline everything from onboarding procedures, open enrollment, and vacation requests to more complex jobs like change management, employee development, and process improvements. This not only relieves HR of its administrative burden, but it saves a lot of money as well. HCM-based technologies offer another benefit too they help employees feel more engaged. This is a big plus when you consider that employee engagement is actually the #1 goal of global HR executives. 3 After all, engaged employees feel more connected and are 37% more likely to stick around. 4 Companies with high employee engagement also have nearly three times the average operating margin. 5 01
What s Driving the Move to New HR Technologies? As today s workers show up with smart phones and tablets, many are alarmed by how many paper-based processes still rule the day in HR. Last year alone, consumers purchased roughly a billion smartphones. 6 So, why are almost 80% of HR technology investments eight years and older? 7 Why can t HR provide mobile access to basic services employees need? Why can t simple tasks like vacation requests or expense reports be automated in the same way people handle their personal calendars or online banking? As executives feel the mounting frustration with outdated processes, there s growing pressure to change to develop tools that can make work processes faster, easier, and more engaging. What s Required to Make the Transition? A successful HR transformation needs to streamline the way your organization manages tasks like onboarding, benefits, time management, personnel administration, and employee development. To do this right, you need a centralized HR Task Center offering a variety of selfservices and access to a help desk. An HR Task Center is a social Intranet or HR portal that employees can access directly from their desktop, Outlook client, or mobile device. The best task centers provide an engaging user experience that make it easy for managers to approve invoices, purchase requisitions, and vacation requests in real-time and with complete context. They also give employees access to self-services and help desk support. Self-Services make it easy for staff to take care of their own HR administration. All the necessary tools and information are provided to execute HR tasks and access prior transactions. This does more than save HR a great deal of time and paperwork, it allows employees (especially managers) to respond to workflow requests quickly and make important decisions when they re on the go. Help Desk functionality lets employees get in touch with HR by phone or chat in the instances when live interaction is required. It also lets employees create their own cases or send email questions, many of which can be answered with auto-responses. 80% 80% of organizations that have reengineered their HR processes report the outcome was above their expectations. Source: Towers Watson, HR Service Delivery and Technology Survey Executive Summary, 2013. What s Standing in the Way of Adoption? Many of today s senior HR executives are either not technology-focused or too preoccupied with leadership matters to pay attention to HR modernization. More junior HR staff may simply not have time to get involved due to their ever-growing to-do lists. (In one recent survey, 56% of respondents said their HR staff is required to approve even the most basic HR transactions. 8 ) Despite the fact that HCM technologies can help HR drive efficiency, build culture, and retain top talent, many in HR still perceive technology adoption as an IT responsibility. As Sitrion Chief People Officer Nancy Gill points out, The missed opportunity is that people see this as a systems project versus an organizational development and culture change initiative. Even in large organizations that run SAP ERP HCM, HR executives often fear the cost and added complexity of adopting still more technology. Many perceive the SAP user experience as not being well suited for a non-hr audience. (Studies show that 80% of employees only use basic SAP functions like expense tracking, time reporting, and task approvals. 9 ) Executives may also see SAP as expensive to upgrade or customize especially when mobile connectivity is needed. If You re Not on Board, You re Falling Behind When you re buried in paperwork, the idea that technology will make your life easier doesn t always resonate. But it s exactly those physical stacks of paper that are keeping HR from attaining its higher goals. If you re not fully committed to HR transformation, you re falling behind competitors that are using it to drive employee productivity and engagement, save time and money, and possibly even steal your top talent. It s time to stop managing manual processes, creating custom reports, and responding to the same questions over and over again. It s time to look up and take note of what s happening out there. Towers Watson has projected that 36% of organizations will make structural, technology-based changes to HR in 2013 and 2014. 10 And CedarCrestone research reveals that automated HR service delivery will jump from 44% to 72% in the next three years, with 25% of companies planning to implement mobile HR technology within 12-18 months. 11 The results of HR transformation speak for themselves. In fact, 80% of organizations that have reengineered their HR processes report the outcome was above their expectations. 12 Replacing tired old processes with new technologies offers distinct advantages that add up to real money. If you re not giving employees mobile access to basic HR services, you re now at a distinct disadvantage. 02
Making the Move Can Be Easy with the Right Vendor If your business has the SAP ERP HCM platform, various third-party solutions are available for transforming the way you handle HR administration. Choosing the right solution for your needs, however, is critical. Look for a vendor that can provide a smooth implementation process and a solution that integrates well with your ERP platform and other software. You want a single interface that simplifies the way employees take on everyday decisions and routines so they re more efficient and productive wherever they are. Find an intuitive system that makes it easy to edit and share any type of administration so you can start experiencing the benefits on Day 1. What s In It for HR and Your Business at Large? When you move to a more automated HR approach, your organization will immediately begin to experience a domino effect of benefits. Greater Focus on Strategic Objectives The right HCM-based solution will make your employees feel more engaged. It will also give your HR team the time to pursue even greater employee engagement by implementing tools that facilitate information sharing, collaboration, and innovation. HR will also be free to spend more time pursuing strategic priorities such as recruiting, developing leaders, identifying potential, and communicating company objectives. Time and Money Savings According to CFO.com, the average cost of manual benefits enrollment is $109.48 compared to just $21.79 when employees enroll themselves that s an 80% savings. 13 The Cedar Group has estimated that by eliminating manual, paper-intensive processes, the implementation of HR self-services reduces costs by $9.00 per employee per month. For a 5,000 person company, that s a savings of $540,000 per year. 14 When looking at specific tasks like performance appraisals, salary changes and job requisition creation, CedarCrestone research shows that companies can expect process savings from 20% to more than 80%, with automated benefits enrollment providing the highest savings. 15 Creating a more efficient workflow can save your company in a variety of ways. By eliminating manual, value-draining processes and allowing staff to handle their own needs, you create a more flexible, personalized workplace that stimulates greater collaboration and employee retention. As Gartner points out: Building a stable foundation for improved HR administration can significantly cut HR costs, and will lead to better employee service successful shared-service projects often lead to cost reductions of 30%. 16 Mobile Advantages To maximize user adoption and employee productivity, it s important to give employees mobile access to the new HCM-based tools you introduce. This keeps your workflow moving faster and your employees more engaged. Integrating social functionality can help these tools gain traction even faster. CedarCrestone reports that this combination improves employee adoption by 25% and manager adoption by 50%. 17 Building a stable foundation for improved HR administration can significantly cut HR costs, and will lead to better employee service successful shared-service projects often lead to cost reductions of 30%. Gartner 03
HR Transformation with Sitrion If your business runs on the SAP platform, Sitrion provides one of the best integrated and most cost-effective HR transformation solutions available. Sitrion leverages the powerful SAP back end to produce a user-friendly portal for all of your HR-related activities. As Sitrion Vice President Markus Dopp puts it: We help optimize sharing and collaboration with a centralized solution that integrates conversations, documents, self-services, email, mobile access, expertise, innovation and more. Easy Implementation and Integration with SAP Combining the Sitrion front end with the SAP back end offers you a simplified interface with a complete array of self-services backed by help desk support. Because it s so intuitive, users can just jump in and start using the selfservice portal with little or no training. Rather than force a wholesale change on the way you do business, Sitrion simply adds contextual tools that help employees become more engaged and collaborative. Sitrion can help you expand your services to include onboarding and training as well. You also have the flexibility to address special compliance requirements by integrating SAP data with your interface or by storing scanned documents in searchable databases. Going Mobile without All the Headaches Sitrion simplifies BYOD. Employees just download one native app on either their personal or corporate device of choice, log in with their company credentials, and gain immediate access to a range of HR self-services. This same app can connect them to other systems as well, including a company-wide social portal that keeps them more engaged with people and developments across your organization. Thanks to simple authentication and strong security protocols, you re assured of easy, highly secure access to HR and other business processes without the need for mobile device management (MDM) or complex mobile infrastructure. Using Your SharePoint-based Intranet to Optimize Your SAP Experience Whether you use Microsoft SharePoint extensively or not, having it installed across your enterprise can provide a big advantage as you adopt new HR solutions. Sitrion can help you integrate SharePoint with your SAP environment to create an optimized HCM user experience. Since you re able to access and execute your HR processes in the same place you store and exchange other documents, it s easy to create a fluid user experience and roll out new selfservices quickly. In all likelihood, your employees will have no idea they re working in an SAP or SharePoint context. Because Sitrion helps you combine the best of the collaborative power of SharePoint and the transactional efficiency of SAP, you re able to avoid costly upgrades when you patch your SAP instance. Sitrion also helps you eliminate SAP infrastructure implementations like SAP Portal by leveraging more affordable.net developers. By taking this approach, a Fortune 500 Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) company is now saving $500,000 per year on their web-based portal and HCM module upgrades. Start Experiencing the Benefits on Day One Greater focus on strategic objectives Time and money savings Mobile advantages 04
Take the Next Step The world of HR is changing fast. If you re ready to put a stop to paper-based HR processes and inefficient workarounds, it s time to start looking into your best options. To learn more about how Sitrion solutions can help you save money and create a more engaged, productive, and collaborative corporate culture, visit www.sitrion.com or watch a live product demonstration. Contact us at sales@sitrion.com and 877-SITRION. 1 Bersin & Associates Talent Challenges Survey, 2011. 2 Gartner, HR Service Delivery, 2008. 3 CEB HR Leadership Council, 2014 HR Priorities at Midsize Companies, 2013. 4 NewsGator Collective Benchmark Survey, 2013. 5 Towers Watson, Global Workforce Study, 2012. 6 CCS Insight, Analyst Report, 2013. 7 IDC presentation at HR Tech Conference, 2013. 8 Towers Watson, HR Service Delivery and Technology Survey Executive Summary Report, 2013. 9 SAP Insider, February 20, 2014. 10 Towers Watson, HR Service Delivery and Technology Survey Executive Summary, 2013. 11 CedarCrestone 2013 2014 HR Systems Survey. 12 Towers Watson, HR Service Delivery and Technology Survey Executive Summary, 2013. 13 Florida Underwriter, The Brave New World of Online Benefit Administration, 2010. 14 Delphia Consulting, 6 Considerations When Implementing Employee Self-Service Technology, 2013. (Savings formula: 5,000 x $9/mo x 12.) 15 CedarCrestone, The Value of HR Technologies, 2008. 16 Gartner, Hype Cycle for Human Capital Management Software, 2013. 17 CedarCrestone, 2013 2014 HR Systems Survey White Paper, 16th Annual Edition. At Sitrion, we help employees to get their job done better every day. In a complex enterprise world, we enable an engaged workforce to stay connected, make smart decisions and be productive. Leveraging their investments in SAP or SharePoint, millions of users depend on us to drive innovation, discover untapped expertise and simplify business processes. Follow us on Twitter @sitrion and at www.sitrion.com. To find out more about Sitrion s solutions visit www.sitrion.com or tune into a live product demonstration at www.sitrion.com/demos. 2014 Sitrion 05