Demystifying the Secrets of Global Human Resources: Part Four
For enterprises to succeed, they need to increase overall organizational speed and agility. A successful HR system achieves that by allowing employees to spend less time in the HR software so they can accomplish their real jobs.
Transforming the HR System Into "My System"
For enterprises to succeed, they need to increase overall organizational speed and agility. A successful HR system achieves that by allowing employees to spend less time in the HR software so they can accomplish their real jobs.
The ultimate goal of any software system is to let its users "own" the system and for the system to support them and them only. Watch the video The Making of a Great User Experience and discover how to create a more engaging and powerful HR systems experience for your employees. Success in building a "My System" setup results in more employee engagement and empowerment so that work can "get done". An employee completes tasks on the Global HR product in one-stop fashion, feels the system supports him and that it knows all that matters about the employee.
Constellation sees four factors that improve the adoption of Global HR software systems:
- Personalization fosters ownership. Personalization techniques engender "ownership" of a next-generation Global HR system. Beyond branding, colors, and fonts, the employee's context is important: What is the background of the employee? What are the most recent life events? What was the reason for the most recent system usage? Having the answers to such questions makes the software more of a personal system. Remembering what employees did recently is one of the most powerful services a system can deliver, as it does not force the employee to recreate the navigation steps in the system when coming back.
- Notifications separate signal from noise. Letting busy employees know what needs their attention in their HR system and what action they may have to take changes the nature of the interaction with the HR system from passive to active. Instead of the employee having to take the initiative to investigate what happened and/or needs to happen in the HR system, it is the HR system that reaches out to the employee. The good news - this paradigm is not a foreign concept. Users are already familiar with this capability on their smartphones.
- Interactive high-frequency documents drive employee ownership Improving interaction with high-frequency HR-related documents such as benefits statements, benefits requests, performance reviews, and approvals is essential to promoting employee ownership of the HR system. A next-generation Global HR system needs to make sure that any interaction of an employee with the system is self-explanatory, can be taken to the next level, provides a rewarding experience for the employee and, most importantly, does not require more HR intervention.
- Colloquial and cultural localization improves adoption. Next-generation Global HR systems promote employee ownership by ensuring the system "speaks" the language, including the local lingo in each country where it is deployed. Employees have difficulty warming up to systems with stiff and colloquially incorrect translations. Additionally, in a global software system, good translation contributes to usability. Many literal translations do not correctly translate the jargon and lingo used in a country. Being locally correct enables employees to find information and perform tasks in language familiar to them.
Other articles in this series:
Demystifying the Secrets of Global Human Resources: Part One
Demystifying the Secrets of Global Human Resources: Part Two
Demystifying the Secrets of Global Human Resources: Part Three
Demystifying the Secrets of Global Human Resources: Part Five
