Transforming HR

The Advantage of a Multi-Tier Approach

to Delivering HR Services

The Advantage of a Multi-Tier Approach to Delivering HR Services

The Challenge of HR Transformation

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about transforming the Human Resources
function to be a true business partner. Generally defined, HR transformation means
spending less time on administration and transactions, and more time on adding
value as close as possible to the business units. Easier said than done and the
reason is simple: Most HR talent is typically too busy answering administrative
questions and providing HR services to take on more strategic roles. In fact,
according to an October 2008 Gartner Report, HR organizations spend as much as
70-80% of their time dealing with administrative activities and employee/manager
questions and issues.
To achieve HR transformation, it is vital that HR separate administrative and service
delivery operations from its strategic work. Again easier said than done. The
reason? Todays economy has forced many HR organizations to operate with a
smaller budget and reduced staff. Yet all HR professionals working during the last
recession after the dot.com bubble burst learned a lesson: to turn things around,
and to maintain productivity and loyalty, it is important to continue to engage
employees, and provide quality HR services, even during the toughest of economic
times.
And, therein lies the question: How do you provide a high level of HR services with
the minimum number of people and dollars? For that answer, many organizations
are turning to technologies that provide better delivery of HR services, with
fewer people, and lower hard-dollar costs. There are many models for HR service
delivery the best known is from CedarCrestone and is available in their annual
CedarCrestone HR Systems Survey (for a copy of the latest CedarCrestone survey
go to www.cedarcrestone.com).

Portal Framework
Help Desk
Call Tracking
Case Management
HR Knowledgebase
SCM

Identity Management
Single Sign-on

Analytics
Data Warehouse

CRM
FIN

Performance Excellence
Service Delivery Excellence
Administrative Excellence

Core HRMS/ERP Foundation

Data for Roles, Personalization
Position Mgmt and Competencies

Self Service Transactions

ERP
Third-party Vendors
HCM Apps
Talent Acquisition Mgmt
Competency Mgmt
Learning Mgmt
Compensation Mgmt
Performance Mgmt
Succession Planning
Career Planning

Figure 1: CedarCrestone HR Service Delivery Excellence Model

The Advantage of a Multi-Tier Approach to Delivering HR Services

Although the model may vary slightly, in general, HR service delivery includes
solutions for Portals, HR Knowledgebases (which may or may not include employee
communications and benefits decision support), onboarding orchestration
technology, employee/manager self-service applications and HR-shared
services/case management tools. In all models, the components will
connect with HRIS and related solutions (i.e. payroll, benefits). These tools allow
HR to truly do more with less, providing quality services to the workforce while
playing a leadership role.
The key behind the recent growth in the deployment of these solutions is that
by harnessing the power of todays HR service delivery applications, organizations
can adopt a multi-tier approach to service delivery. This approach helps ensure the
success of HR transformation initiatives, creates a more loyal, engaged workforce,
allows HR to free its talent from daily inquiries and reduces costs. Lets take a look
at the multi-tier approach.

The Multitier Approach to HR Service Delivery

What if your employees could get their own answers to HR questions 80-90% of the
time or more? What if the majority of remaining inquiries could be managed with an
in-house HR Shared Services Center handling the highest number of calls with the
minimum number of customer service representatives (CSRs)? And, what if fewer than
10% of employee inquiries were escalated to HR experts? Thats the idea behind a
multi-tier HR service delivery model. (See Figure 2.)

Tier 0:
Employee gets own
response & completes
own transactions
on portal

Tier 1:
Ticket to shared
services center,
call center
or helpdesk

Tier 2:
Escalate
to experts

66%

28%

6%

Figure 2: Multi-tier approach

The Advantage of a Multi-Tier Approach to Delivering HR Services

As the diagram shows, Tier 0 service delivery is when an employee or manager

uses an HR portal and self-service solutions to answer their own questions and
complete their own transactions. Todays highly-evolved HR service delivery
platforms include personalized, searchable knowledgebases making HR
portals more conducive to providing fast, relevant information and therefore
increasing usage and effectiveness.
By deploying a personalized, searchable portal with communications connected to selfservice transactions, a key performance indicator of 66% is achievable (KPIs from the
previously mentioned October 2008 Gartner report), meaning that 66% of inquiries
should be able to be resolved by the employee or line manager at the portal level.
For those issues that cannot be resolved at the Tier 0 level, Tier 1 of the multi-tier
service delivery approach involves escalating inquiries to an HR Shared
Services Center (SSC), help desk or call center (depending on the size and
decentralization of the organization). The key here is that the SSC and portal share
the same knowledgebase which is personalized for every employee. With access
to the same knowledgebase and the employees personalized information, CSRs
are able to resolve issues quickly typically on the first call allowing more calls to
be managed with fewer reps. Best practice KPIs indicate that 28% of issues that are
escalated to Tier 1 can be resolved at this level.
Only when an issue cannot be resolved at Tier 0 or Tier 1 is it escalated to HR
experts on the various topics and domains. In this model, no more than 6% of issues
escalate to this tier.
The same 2008 Gartner report concludes: A properly implemented multi-tier model
expands the use of self-service applications, leverages less-expensive service center
agents (while still providing a high level of service) and reduces the amount of time
HR subject matter experts spend answering routine questions, freeing up their time
to spend on more value-added activities.

A More Effective Way to Deliver HR Services

When it comes to human capital management software, most of the
focus in recent years has been on talent management applications. These
applications play a crucial role.The focus appears to be shifting to include HR service
delivery as well. This is good news for HR and HR transformation because:
1. HR transformation initiatives are less successful when HR service delivery
resources are also responsible for HR strategy.
2. Employers in todays economy are challenging HR to operate with fewer
resources and slashed budgets, and doing so without sacrificing the quality of
services provided to the workforce.
3. HR must meet the expectations of employees. These solutions are not just for
tough economic times. They are about engaging and meeting the expectations
of todays internet-savvy workforce. Even those who work in the field or on
shop floors without daily internet access on the job go home to shop on
eBay, pay their bills online, email friends, check the weather, plan a vacation, etc.
At home, using Yahoo!, Google and other search engines, your employees are
never more than two clicks away from the information they need, when they need it.
Whats more, many popular internet sites are personalized to the users, and
presenting them only with information that is relevant to them, allowing them
to complete transactions (buy a book, book travel) in the same session as
finding and receiving the information.

The Advantage of a Multi-Tier Approach to Delivering HR Services

This is the expectation workers bring with them to the job when they access your
portal. Some of the questions your employees might be asking are
If Amazon.com knows who I am, how come my employer doesnt?
How come I have to log in and out of several systems just to complete a
transaction, like choosing a new plan option during open enrollment?
These employees do not want to call HR any more than HR wants to use its talent
to answer such questions. But without effective service delivery technologies, the
frustration grows, exasperating employees and managers and interfering with true
HR transformation.
So now, lets look at the technologies in the new HR service delivery model. For the
following sections, well be referring to Figure 1 (repeated for your convenience).

Portal Framework
Help Desk
Call Tracking
Case Management

Identity Management
Single Sign-on

HR Knowledgebase
SCM

Analytics
Data Warehouse

CRM
FIN

Performance Excellence
Service Delivery Excellence
Administrative Excellence

Core HRMS/ERP Foundation

Data for Roles, Personalization
Position Mgmt and Competencies

Self Service Transactions

ERP
Third-party Vendors
HCM Apps
Talent Acquisition Mgmt
Competency Mgmt
Learning Mgmt
Compensation Mgmt
Performance Mgmt
Succession Planning
Career Planning

Figure 1: CedarCrestone HR Service Delivery Excellence Model

What if Employees Were Only Two Clicks Away From the

HR Information They Need, When They Need It?
The Portal
The front-end technology in the HR service delivery model is an HR portal. This
can be a stand-alone HR portal or a sub-portal, dropping into an enterprise portal,
like PeopleSoft, Lawson or SAP or an enterprise portal, like Microsoft Sharepoint
or IBM Websphere.
Now, portals arent a new concept. In fact surveys show that the majority of employers
with more than 500 employees have some sort of HR portal, or intranet/extranet,
in place. The issue has been, however, with the usability of these portals.

The Advantage of a Multi-Tier Approach to Delivering HR Services

For the most part, portals are filled with non-personalized, non-searchable content,
making it difficult for employees to find the information they need, when they need
it. Additionally, most employee, manager and benefits self-service transactions in place
at an employer are also accessed through the portal often not in context to the
content, and worse, often with different passwords.
For portals to be successful, they must first unify all of the various applications and
content into a single, easy-to-navigate front-end interface. Second, the portal needs
to provide a single sign-on for all of its various components.
The Knowledgebase
An HR knowledgebase contains all of an organizations policies, employee benefit
information, work/life event management, manager information and much more.
Key to the need for a knowledgebase in the service delivery model is that the most
evolved of knowledgebases are both personalized and searchable. This means that
the information presented to an employee or manager is based on that employees
ID, job role and/or location, and only relevant information is accessed.
On top of the personalization is a sophisticated search platform. The goal should
be for an employee to never be more than two clicks away from the information
he or she needs.
For example, an employee searching on "Maternity" would be within two clicks of the
checklist (items such as the employers policy on leave of absence, for example) as
well as information on the employees specific maternity coverage from their selected
health plans. It is this ease-of-search and personalized information that's relevant to
the employees event and/or transaction that allows members of the workforce to
get answers to their own HR questions as often as 80-90% of the time.
Many knowledgebases also contain wellness information and benefits decision
support tools. These valuable tools have helped both employers and employees
contain health care costs by driving employees to more cost-effective plans, and
being informed consumers of health care.

What if You Could Streamline Onboarding Process and Cost

While Still Engaging New Hires for Talent Retention?
Another key component of the HR service delivery model is onboarding
orchestration technology. This emerging technology is become mainstream fast.
Todays typical onboarding process can take as many as 30 steps involving 14 systems,
not to mention time on the part of the new hire, hiring manager and HR.
Case in Point:
A Lawson customer in the healthcare
industry was able to consolidate
five hiring locations into one, while
reducing new-hire turnover by more
than 4% in just the first 90 days.
They project savings of $1.4 Million
in 3 years.

Innovative onboarding technologies not only streamline the process, they allow
employers to bring new hires quickly into the corporate culture. They handle
provisioning and notifications, so new hire productivity on Day 1 is increased. And
when the onboarding process continues past Day 30, 60 and beyond, the bonding
continues, by integrating benefits decision support via the portal/knowledgebase,
and introducing performance goals through, for example, a performance management
system reducing new hire turnover.

The Advantage of a Multi-Tier Approach to Delivering HR Services

What if Your Employees Could Truly Handle the Majority of

Work/Life Events on Their Own?
Employee and Manager Self-Service are a part of the service delivery model, critical
to the ability for members of the workforce to manage their own work/life events
without HR interference. The key here is that the self-service applications are not
only accessed via the portal, but integrated with the knowledgebase, providing
in-context communications and decision support access to the information required
to complete the events.

What if Your In-House Shared Services Center Could Handle the

Highest Number of Calls with the Fewest Number of Reps
with Most Calls Resolved During the First Call?
The last component of the HR service delivery model is the HR shared services
operation. Using the portal, and the searchable, personalized knowledgebase,
CSRs require less training, can access an employees specific policies, benefits, etc.,
and provide first-call resolution. Because the majority of users are getting their
own answers in Tier 0, employers have been able to staff SSCs with fewer reps,
providing accurate answers, mostly during first-call resolution. And because
of the access of the knowledgebase, CSRs get up to speed quickly, escalating
approximately 6% calls to these experts and freeing them to do other work.
For example, a Lawson customer in the technology industry was able to staff their
Shared Services Center with only 6 CSRs for 6,000 employees, resolve 97% of
inquiries on the first call and achieve a 98% satisfaction rate among employees.
This is the foundation of successful HR service delivery.

Gaining Executive Buy-In

Of course getting C-level buy-in is a critical component in moving forward with any
new service delivery model. One thing that is important to focus on is that this
is not new cost. It is really a replacement of cost for things already being done
but in such a way that should reduce costs over time with a more effective result.
Some good pointers come from Doug Wilwerdings article, What Makes the CEO
Say Yes, first published on eBIM and later on IQPCs HR IQ:
Case in Point:

1. How does this connect to the larger strategy?

One Lawson customer with 14,000

employees and in the manufacturing
industry, leveraged the multitier model
to further its HR transformation.
The results have been impressive:

2. How does this impact our employees?

- The amount spent annually on HR

3. What is the lasting nature of this proposal?

4. What are the resource implications?
5. What is the ROI and how will it be measured?
6. Has the life cycle been thoroughly vetted?
7. How passionate are the advocates?
8. How passionate am I about the proposal?
A key here is to show that this isnt about making the work of HR easier. It's about
providing overall value to the business.

Change Management
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Of course moving to this new HR service delivery model will require

comprehensive change management to have true impact, both financial and
business change. Entire articles and books have been written on change
management, but some excellent food for thought comes here from Karen
Beaman, founder of the Jeitosa Group, in her change management session
at the May 2010 HR Shared Services symposium hosted by IQPC. In this
session, Beaman recommended that organizations:
1. Identify change agents and engage people at all levels in the
organization.
2. Ensure the message comes from the top, and that executives and line 2
managers are not just talking the talk but walking the walk.
3. Ensure clear, concise, and compelling communication.
4. Connect change goals to day-to-day activities, e.g. recruiting,
performance management and budgeting.
5. Address short-term performance while setting high expectations
about long-term performance.
6. Help management avoid attempts to short circuit the change
management process.
7. Foster change in peoples attitudes first, then focus on change in
processes, then change in the formal structure.
8. Manage both supporters and champions, as well opponents and
possible detractors.
9. Accept that all people go through the same steps some faster, some
slower and it is not possible to skip steps.
10. Build a safe environment that helps people to express feelings,
acknowledge fears and use support systems.
11. Acknowledge and celebrate successes regularly and publicly!

The Bottom Line

Organizations looking to transform HR should take a serious look at this
new HR service delivery model. Its validity is not just the right direction
for times of economic uncertainty, but for the future of HR transformation.
This model has been proven to allow HR to focus on value added work,
while providing improved HR services to the business units with both fewer
people and lower costs. Whats more, this type of model can be deployed
rather quickly with ROI usually realized in the first year.

Copyright 2011 Lawson Software, Inc. All rights

reserved. Information provided in this document is for
marketing purposes only and no warranties are provided.
All brand or product names mentioned in this document
are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lawson or
their respective trademark owners.

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