hr shared service & contact center solutions

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HR SHARED SERVICE & CONTACT CENTER SOLUTIONS

Expanding Tier Zero: Four Strategies to Gain Greater Value from your HR Portal Initiative


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Contents

Contents ....................................................................................................................................................... 2

Implement a Recommendation Engine to gain more mileage from the Knowledge base. .......................... 4

Begin more HR Processes within the Portal. ................................................................................................ 5

Personalize the Portal for Different Customer Types. .................................................................................. 6

The Employee Customer ...................................................................................................................... 7

The Manager Customer ........................................................................................................................ 8

The HR Business Partner ...................................................................................................................... 8

The Applicant Customer ....................................................................................................................... 9

The Portal for the Global Enterprise ................................................................................................... 10

Portal Design and Accessibility for Higher User Adoption ......................................................................... 10

Accessibility options to meet the way employees live and work. ...................................................... 11

Social Media and the Portal ............................................................................................................... 12

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 12


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“Today’s HR portals do much more than simply deliver HR information to employees. Instead, they’re essential to providing HR services efficiently and keeping employees engaged. And when used effectively, portals enable HR to be more productive and strategic in the use of limited resources. Given the multitude of disparate HR applications and third-‐party providers, creating an effective HR portal that meets many HR and organizations needs is no simple task”

-‐ The HR Portal: Driving Organizational Effectiveness and Employee Engagement Towers Watson, 2011

The case for the HR Portal as a key enabler of Transformation is clear. But so are the challenges to effectively creating a Portal that meets the needs of HR, and its many customer segments.

This paper will focus on the specific strategies through which a Portal can deliver greater value to the organization by enabling HR’s customers to do more themselves, and hence alleviate HR of many of the low-‐value transactional tasks that normally consume its limited resources; it will explain how the Portal can extend the value of a Knowledgebase through a Recommendation Engine; how Smart Forms and automated workflow technologies can empower Employees and Managers to initiate more processes independently of HR, and it will identify factors that make a Portal more “customer-‐centric” and accelerate user adoption, and time-‐to-‐value.

The Self Service Portal is often referred to as “Tier Zero,” and the ability to answer questions and resolve issues at this Tier Zero level, without involving an HR, comprises the sought-‐after “Tier Zero Resolution.” This paper is about expanding Tier Zero to address a broader array of employee needs, and therefore, reduce the time that HR spends on service delivery so that they can focus more on delivering strategic value to the organization.

So, how can we expand Tier Zero? We’ll look at four specific strategies, each of which helps to broaden the utilization and success of the Portal:

1. Implementing a Recommendation Engine to drive more value from the Knowledgebase 2. Enabling more processes to be conducted through the portal 3. Dynamically personalizing the portal for multiple customer segments 4. Configuring and deploying the portal for higher and faster user adoption.


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Implement a Recommendation Engine to gain more mileage from the Knowledge base.

In Gartner’s presentation, “Customer-‐Centric Web Processes: The Move to E-‐Services, Generation V and Social CRM” at the 2011 Customer 360 Summit, Gartner cites the Recommendation Engine as a key part of the Customer-‐Centric Web and eCommerce Road Map. Giving employees access to a knowledgebase has helped many companies to reduce the number of questions sent to the Service Center. The benefits are clear: Immediate answers for the employees, and a reduced workload of rote tasks for HR agents. But what happens when an employee doesn’t go to the knowledgebase, or, doesn’t find what he or she is looking for on the first? The employee will submit a new request to the Service Center. This is the value zone for the Recommendation Engine. A Recommendation Engine creates a second opportunity for Tier Zero Resolution, by performing an automated search of the Knowledgebase behind the scenes. It combines key words from the employee’s question with metadata in a search algorithm through an automated search to find the most precise solutions from within the knowledgebase, to answer the employee’s question. The Recommendation Engine then passes that solution back to the employee, in real time. The advantage of the Recommendation to HR is that fewer cases are sent to HR. The advantage to the employee is an immediate answer to the question.

Before a case is created, the recommendation engine will push an answer to the employee’s screen.


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Begin more HR Processes within the Portal. Most ESS and MSS Portals provide a way for employees and managers to complete basic transactions like changes to contact information, and requesting vacation time. Or in the case of Managers, to initiate more complex processes such as a performance evaluations. Some organizations have found ways to conduct more transactions through the Portal, but the point is this:

Within most organizations, a large number of HR transactions are managed through predominantly manual or semi-‐manual means, using spreadsheets, document templates or even paper forms. These “off-‐line” processes offer a great opportunity to increase efficiency, and achieve transformation. This is the area into which Tier Zero can be expanded.

Expanding Tier Zero means initiating and processing a greater breadth and depth of transactions through the Portal, thus reducing the involvement of HR resources. Within the typical organization, how many paper or PDF forms are distributed to employees or managers for completion, and then sent to HR for validation, then again faxed, forwarded or emailed to another individual or department for processing or approval? Much of this administrative activity takes time, but adds little to no value to the process. And worse, becomes a real speed bump on the road to Transformation.

A true Enterprise Portal for HR Service Delivery can accommodate more processes, by offering two primary components: Configurable Smart Forms, and Business Rules.

Let’s consider a simple process, like Tuition Reimbursement. If an employee is eligible for his company’s Tuition Reimbursement, a “Smart Form” will be visible to him within the Portal. These forms should be easily configured by an administrator or HR process owner, to capture the information required by the process, and validate that information through configurable rules and dependencies. When the employee completes and submits the form, workflow can route that form directly to his manager for approval. The employee’s manager may receive an automated email alert telling her that a new Task has been submitted to her Portal, for her approval. The manager will go to the portal, review the request, and indicate Approval. The approved request is then delivered to HR, only after all the other work has been completed.

The point is this: Having the ability to configure an unlimited number of Smart Forms and corresponding Business Rules, and present those forms through the Portal, means expanding Tier Zero to absorb much of the administrative work normally done by HR resources within the Service Center. The natural result of this Tier Zero expansion is having more HR resources available to dedicate to strategic initiatives that generate competitive value for the enterprise.

In many organizations, even less-‐complex business processes can still require HR time and resources to administer in an environment with disparate systems. For example, updating employee contact information within the core HR system is low-‐value work that’s often assigned to an HR professional. A Portal that’s truly designed to streamline processes, and free up resources will offer multiple integration options with a variety of core HR systems, to enable employees to make the kind of direct updates that don’t require HR approval or intervention.


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Personalize the Portal for Different Customer Types. “Visitors to websites and users of mobile Internet devices are expecting more unique content… It requires aligning content with particular customer segments, as well as better communication of the availability of that content.”

“The Top 10 Ways to Make a Website Customer-‐Centric” Michael Moaz, Garnter, 2009

Every HR organization engages with multiple “customer segments” comprised of Employees, Managers, Business Partners, Applicants, Former Employees and Retirees. The Portal presents an opportunity to streamline service delivery with each segment, but the challenge is how to present each customer with content that’s aligned with their segment-‐specific and individualized needs. Many HR organizations already offer separate Employee Self Service (ESS) and Manager Self Service (MSS) portals, with each containing role-‐specific knowledge base content, and various, often limited transaction types. This paper proposes taking this concept to the next level, by configuring the Portal to service more HR customer segments, and to present each segment with a greater breadth and depth of personalization, and process automation. We’ll look at some of these HR customer segment separately. But first, let’s consider the attributes that make each “customer” different, and define the specific content and capabilities that should be available to the “customer.” There are three primary criteria that define what content and transactions each employee can see and do within the portal. Those criteria are:

1. The Employee’s Business Unit 2. The Employee’s geographic parameters (Country, State, Province) 3. The Employee’s Role(s) within the organization.

Those three criteria define the employee’s HR “Customer Context.” And that Context is what determines the four key elements of HR service delivery. Those four elements are


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1. Knowledgebase content that is visible through the Portal 2. The Service Catalog or set of processes and transaction types that the employee can initiate

within the Portal. 3. Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) that determine the prioritization of customer’s requests 4. Employee Visibility, meaning the groups of other employees on whose behalf a Manager or

HR Business Partner can initiate HR Transactions and Processes.

A customer’s demands on HR range from questions that can be resolved with a single answer from the knowledge base, to complex transactions involving multiple steps and approvals. The optimal Portal should be a gateway through which every customer of HR can access all the answers and processes that are relevant to his or her personal context, based on business unit, region and role(s). In other words, when a customer enters the Portal, they should have an experience that’s tailored to who they are as an individual; content should be dynamically displayed according to who is logged into the portal. Let’s look at a few examples, based on different HR customer types:

The Employee Customer When an employee logs into his HR Portal, he should have access to highly personalized and relevant information. This personalization and relevance should be present within any of the following Employee transaction types:

• Searching the Knowledgebase directly, or receive content through the Recommendation Engine.

• Creating, viewing and updating Cases. • Initiate Processes and interacting with HR or his Manager. • Completing Satisfaction Surveys. • Managing and updating Personal Information.

An employee may have a question about prescription drug coverage. The knowledgebase should provide the correct answer, according to the specific coverage of the employee, based on his individual benefit plan.


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When he’s logged into the Portal, the employee will have access to a Service Catalog that presents a set of smart forms that enable the employee to initiate any of the processes to which he is entitled, based on his Business Unit, Geography and Role(s). For example, if Tuition Reimbursement is to employees after one full year of employment, the six-‐month employee won’t have access to the Tuition Reimbursement Smart Form, but the 18-‐month employee will.

By dynamically personalizing the content and capabilities within the portal to each individual employee, and by leveraging Smart Form technologies and business processes to offer a broader array of HR Services, the Employee is empowered to be more self-‐sufficient across a broader spectrum of HR activity. This reduces the demand on HR resources.

The Manager Customer When a Manager logs into the Portal, she should have access to additional content and processes, relevant to her role as a Manager in combination with her Business Unit and Geography. This manager-‐specific content will be accessed through the following transaction types:

• Knowledgbase searches to include Manager-‐specific content, further contextualized by her Role(s), Region and Business Unit.

• Ability to create cases pertaining to a subordinate, or direct report. • Access Smart Forms to initiate managerial HR Processes, such as onboarding or staffing

requests. • Access to certain types of cases created by her subordinates, where managerial review and

approval are required. • Access and ability to manage information pertaining to her team (subordinates and reports).

According to the particular HR business process, a manager will have access to certain cases submitted by her subordinates. However cases created by her subordinates concerning themselves, should not be visible to the Manager. The Service Catalog must strictly govern the type of subordinate cases that a manager can access.

The HR Business Partner “As a service manager, the HR business partner needs to monitor and provide excellent HR service delivery. Not only should the person in this role fulfil the local demand function of the shared service centre and the centres of expertise, they should also provide specialised HR service delivery when required (ie. local recruitment).”

The Role of the HR Business Partner: Making it Work Cindy Meervis, PA Consulting Group, 2009

“HRBPs — specifically the strategic partner role they have — are fundamental to the effectiveness of HR support to line management.”

The Role of the HR Business Partner Jean Martin, Talent Management Magazine, December, 2010

The role of the HR Business Partner is universally seen as an important link between HR Service Delivery and the fulfillment of HR’s more strategic role. The Portal can be the ideal tool to link the Business Partner to both his customers and HR processes and resources, enabling the Business


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Partner to provide a higher level of personalized services, without taxing the back-‐office HR organization.

By recognizing the Business Partner according to his unique Context, the Portal will give the Business Partner access to the following information and processes:

• Accessing specialized HR and Center of Excellence content through the Knowledge base • Create cases on behalf of his employee and manager customers • Initiate and manage HR processes associated with an employee customer • Actively participate in processes concerning an employee customer, such as providing

approvals on behalf of HR. • Access and manage records and data concerning employees within his purview.

By providing the HR Business Partner with role-‐specific content through a Web Portal, the Business Partner is able to serve his or her customers more effectively and efficiently, from virtually any location. These capabilities will aid the Business Partner to more effectively link Service Delivery to Strategic Effectiveness.

The Applicant Customer Another important segment that interacts with HR are the “future employees,” or applicants. Many organizations have invested in specialized application tracking solutions, but there still may be processes and tasks that are not addressed by those solutions; processes that can be intiated and managed through a Portal that has the ability to interface to these third-‐party systems.

Just as the Portal will dynamically present content to current Employees, Managers and Business Partners according to their respective Roles, Geographies and Business Units, these same capabilities can be applied to the future employee, or “Applicant.” Once logged into the Portal and applicant can:

• Find answers in the Knowledge base either directly, or through the Recommendation Engine, relevant to prospective employees and the application process.

• Complete applications and pre-‐employment Smart Forms and documents • Check application status • Gain access to pre-‐boarding and on-‐boarding processes.

A prospective employee’s experience throughout the application process has a big impact on their perception of the employer. Access to personalized and relevant information throughout the pre-‐employment process can help to make the experience positive, and hence, your organization more attractive within a competitive hiring environment.

When a Portal can dynamically present the right content at the right time to each customer, based on their personalized context, everyone becomes more productive, and the acceptance of the Portal grows significantly. Let’s now take a look at other factors that drive greater user adoption.


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The Portal for the Global Enterprise

“Between now and 2050, the world's population is expected to grow by 2.3 billion people, eventually reaching 9.1 billion. The combined purchasing power of the global middle classes is estimated to more than double by 2030 to US$56 trillion. Over 80% of this demand will come from Asia.”

Six Global Trends Facing the Business World 2012, Ernst & Young

Emerging markets and other factors have driven companies to establish a presence in places far from their corporate headquarters. This increased globalization presents yet another challenge to the HR Shared Service Center – How to effectively serve multiple diverse employee populations, while operating as single, efficient (and low-‐cost) global service center?

Regional differences encompass languages and currencies, and more subtle factors like the formatting of dates and numbers. One solution is to deploy a single portal for each of these regionally different employee populations. But as diversities increase, so would costs.

A more advantageous strategy is to deploy a single portal that can support multiple languages, currencies and formats so that the global service center can deliver a highly-‐personalized customer experience at a significantly lower operational cost.

Portal Design and Accessibility for Higher User Adoption People more readily adapt to and accept that which is familiar. Organizations report that when a Portal design is similar to that of web tools and solutions that employees currently use, adoption occurs sooner. The time to value from deployment, and the overall value gained over time will be greater. Familiarity does indeed, accelerate adoption.

For this reason, it’s important to have the ability to configure the look and feel of the Portal to match the solutions which have already gained users acceptance throughout the organization. Many factors of a web portal contribute to its look and feel. Those factors include:

• Multiple Themes to support different color schemes and graphic designs for different Business Units or “Customer Segments.”

• Different Page Structures, to support a flexible arrangement of content on each page. • Multiple Containers, for flexible presentation of different content types on each Portal page. • A rich library of pre-‐configured Modules that plug directly into the knowledge base and case

management system.


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Accessibility options to meet the way employees live and work. Technology enables people to find answers and transact business, from virtually anywhere. We can buy books and clothing, check our bank balance, and initiate financial transaction from the breakfast table, the commuter train, or the beach.

Technology enables us to be productive from anywhere, and the technology can be any web-‐enabled device. If an employee is sitting in the company cafeteria, or in an airport terminal on another continent, and she wants to make a change to her benefits or get a quick answer on travel expense policy, she may fully expect to complete the transaction with her Smartphone. And why not? If she can order a book, and make a bank transaction using her Smartphone, why shouldn’t she have those same conveniences through her employer, using those same technologies?

Just as a familiar look and feel is important to driving user adoption, so is the ability to access the Portal from any web-‐enabled device.


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Social Media and the Portal “Enterprise 2.0 tools are familiar to employees, available to organizations and can be a rich channel through which organizations can reach employees.”

Using social media to address organizational priorities Towers Perrin, 2009

Social media is another phenomenon that has impacted the way people communicate and share information. Similarly, enterprise social media -‐ the use of social media within an organization in support of its goals -‐ can positively impact how organizations communicate, share knowledge and deliver services to their employees. The ability to leverage enterprise social media as part of your Portal strategy holds great potential to drive user adoption and employee engagement, and derive more value from you HR Portal.

Conclusion The Enterprise Portal offers an opportunity to both HR and its customers to get more things done more efficiently and with less effort and fewer HR resources. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, and “Expand Tier Zero” through your Portal strategy, consider these four key initiatives: Implement a Recommendation Engine, leverage Smart Forms and workflow to drive more HR processes from within the Portal, establish a Customer Context and use it to drive a personalized experience for each employee and customer segment, and configure portal design and accessibility for faster user adoption, time to value, and sustained value over time.

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