Saturday, September 24, 2011

Case Study 2: Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC)



This case illustration demonstrates the value of an extended face-to-face dialogue with managers affected by the transformed HR service delivery model, following the merger of two 'titans' — the former Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise — in 2005.
The HMRC Operating Model and launch of new HR policies brought a shift of responsibilities for some HR functions from the centre to managers. When the Filling Vacancies policy was launched in February 2006, it exposed a lack of confidence in managers who felt ill-equipped to make difficult decisions affecting their staff. The Head of the Strategy and Policy Team immediately recognised that, with HR Service Centres not yet fully operational, the lack of effective management capability to deal with the cultural change meant that HMRC was exposed to a serious business risk.
Key stakeholders were consulted and the concept of a Taskforce to provide a mobile face-to-face service for HMRC's 17,000 managers was agreed as an innovative and essential tool.
The strap line for the change had been publicised as 'Managers Decide — HR Supports' but managers clearly felt in need of more support than was immediately available. The Taskforce was setup and mobilised within 6 weeks of the concept being proposed, including the recruitment of 20 'core' members from across the business.
To give the team impact and identity, people were appointed with proven leadership skills, who were eager to be involved in change management and could deliver a quality, professional service to their customers, and reflect the community of customers they would serve. This involved the creative use of resources within HR and Learning including restructuring and capitalising the skills of pre-surplus staff.
The Team Leader worked with the HR team subject experts to develop materials for delivery to managers; trained and upskilled team members to give them a clear understanding of the new HR policies and canvassed managers in business areas to gauge the support required. By 30 June 2006, the Taskforce had actively engaged with almost 90% of business units and by 30 June 2007 had delivered 773 events to 11,746 managers.
Reflecting on the formation of the Taskforce, Martin Warlow, who was the team leader, remembers clearly the unusual speed with which the Taskforce was assembled. Martin remarked:
From a standing start to becoming operational, we had a great deal of work to accomplish quickly in terms of getting our ideas, materials and logistics sorted out. Mobility was very important; being able to respond efficiently to the needs of managers was a high priority. We relied to a large extent on a 'pull through' effect — the HR Business Partners operating across the organisation would act as the gateway to their manager communities.
Nick Tooley, another core Taskforce member from HR, recalls how some of the early sessions in particular were treated by managers as surgeries where they expected the Taskforce presentation team to have ready-made answers to their operational issues.
We had to assume an assertive stance in these situations and make it clear that we were there to advise them on how to make judgements and decisions, not to take them on their behalf. This required persistence and practice and eventually the penny dropped and managers started to engage with the Taskforce in the right way.
The success of the Taskforce has developed and improved HR's standing throughout HMRC; provided a conduit for real-time feedback about the effectiveness of policies and has proved a positive platform for HR to demonstrate a truly customer-focused approach. As previously noted, a strong customer relationship was developed with the HR Business Partner network, the primary customers for the service, who work with senior Directors to identify the need for Taskforce interventions and to prioritise requests across their business areas. The context of the sessions was developed around the 'Raising the Bar/Driving Up Performance' theme, underpinned by a passion for and an ethos of continuous improvement.
Management guidance in the form of a set of materials called BOOST was developed and deployed to support managers in their day-to-day role as coaches and motivators of their people. Intended to supplement but not replace other published guidance, it was essentially designed to help managers to work with both individuals and teams to build positive working relationships to ensure high performance, and to tackle under-performance, built on a practical, commonsense approach to the broad principles of good management practice.
An example of its use in supporting managers about the best way to praise and acknowledge good performance is shown in Box 1
Box 1: BOOST example

Elaine had been in post for 5 years and her performance was above average but she sometimes had difficulty in resolving customers' enquiries quickly and effectively. Helen, her manager, had observed this. She worked with Elaine to identify the problem by coaching her for a short time each week to help her improve. With Helen's encouragement and support Elaine was soon making good progress and Helen was quick to praise her for the extra effort she was making. Within 4 weeks Elaine was managing all her customer calls much better and Helen gave her some very positive feedback. At the team meeting, Helen also praised Elaine's effort and achievement and other team members also said 'well done'.
Use this activity to check how you give praise or acknowledge good performance in your team.
  1. How many times have you given praise or acknowledged good performance in the past month?
  2. Think of the last time you gave praise to a member of your team 
    • What was it for?
    • How did it make you feel?
    • How did they react?
  3. How could you improve the way you praise people in your team when they perform well?

A bespoke, but simple, database is used to identify the most appropriate service (e.g., presentations, coaching, mentoring, workshops, master classes, etc.) and to allocate resources, mixing and matching team skills to provide the best possible service delivery.
In addition, the Taskforce is the public face of HMRC in international relations and has delivered special one-off events for the Royal Institute of Public Administrations, foreign delegations including the Ethiopian Ministry of Revenue and delegations from France and Poland.

Measurable Benefits

The Taskforce programme has delivered a range of benefits to HMRC, summarised as follows:
  • Reaction sheets completed at Taskforce events show:
    • the content of interventions 'useful or very useful' — 97%;
    • overall 'good or very good' — 89%;
    • Taskforce team member's delivery 'effective or very effective' — 90%.
  • Detailed evaluation carried out after managers have had the opportunity to put their learning into practice confirms that they are better equipped to understand their role in implementing the new policies.
  • Taskforce interventions covering the new HR policies for managing poor performance and attendance and managing sickness absence have contributed to the reductions in sickness absence levels across HMRC, that is:
    • Days lost 12 months to January 2006 = 1,138,587
      • average 94,882 per month
      • average 11.68 per employee per year
    • Days lost 12 months to January 2007 = 966,252
      • average 80,521 per month
      • average 10.34 per employee per year

Testimonials — Examples of Unsolicited Feedback from Different Parts of HMRC

  • Tax Credit Office:
     the workshop has equipped managers with the tools and confidence to implement HR Policies positively 
  • Central Compliance:
     it was brilliant. All of it. From the way the material was used to deal with the issues they had at the beginning, to the way they were guided through the policies so they now understand how everything fits 
  • Debt Management and Banking:
     our people have valued these events. it's essential we continue to offer this support across HMRC — there is the demand and need 
  • Director of Studies at the Royal Institute of Professional Administrations (following a Taskforce presentation on 'Leading Strategic Change'):
     your excellent presentation  was extremely interesting and relevant. As you will recall, the participants asked many questions during the visit and I believe we could have continued with more 
  • Detection:
    They were impressed by the speed with which the event had been arranged; We have generally developed good HR working practices but we need to persist and further improve. Your session was critical to this process and I am looking to use the HR task team to roll-out the HR changes to all Regional managers; Speaking as a manager I feel I now have a far clearer understanding of the key issues. I feel more in tune with what is expected of me as a manager and how to achieve this with HR supporting my management decisions. I think the concept of a task force is an excellent one and I hope this method will be used in other areas in the future.
  • Comment made at a People User Forum:
    the Taskforce event was the best HR event I ever been to in all my years in the Department.
These results demonstrate that the use of an intelligent blend of face-to-face events in the form of presentations, coaching, mentoring, workshops and master classes served to engage managers in a major transformation of HR service delivery and helped to equip them to carry out their people management responsibilities. Identifying the managers as key stakeholders and then responding efficiently with interventions that were appropriate to their operational circumstances were the foundation stones of the Taskforce approach.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Case Study 1: UK Subsidiary of Global Mobile Phone Company



This case illustration demonstrates the use of a Web-based survey tool combined with focus group work, to ascertain the level of line manager sentiment towards a range of Web-based HR tools, which were an important element of the overall HR service delivery model in this organisation. A significant investment had been made in the technology platform supporting these tools through an upgrade to the latest enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, as the previous version had reached the end of its commercial life and eventually would not be supported by the supplier. This led to the development of a common HR portal, through which all online services could be accessed. The intention of this portal was also to help HR to create a greater sense of corporate identity among employees in the extended enterprise using an internal employer branding strategy. The real benefit being sought was an improvement in HR service quality, providing more accurate and reliable data, and enabling more informed management decisions.
The organisation agreed, as a stakeholder engagement exercise, to support a piece of research which allowed us to test the perceptions of HR and line managers towards these tools. The research aimed to achieve a meaningful assessment of the impact of Web-based HR on both the HR and line manager population, with a view to improving the service offering, where practicable, in the future.
Although it was conducted with levels of methodological rigour associated with academic research, the application of the methods should be both accessible and helpful to the practitioner.

Approach to Data Collection and Analysis

The stakeholder engagement exercise was carried out by one of us during 2006 and 2007 and comprised two stages of data collection. The first tranche of data were collected using a Web-based survey of HR and line managers. The total number surveyed was 94, representing about 10% of the overall manager population. Seventy managers responded, yielding a response rate of approximately 75%. Within that total, 65 responses were from line managers and 5 from HR managers, which was broadly representative of the ratio across the wider organisation.
The survey was designed to elicit information on three aspects of the Web-based HR implementation, including line managers' views on usage and benefits of the HR tools, data quality and maintenance and the effectiveness of communications, support and training connected with the Web-based HR system. These aspects were designed to enable key impacts of the investment in Web-based HR to be investigated, leading to clear indicators in respect of where improvements could best be targeted.
The survey was followed up by three focus groups, involving a total of 15 line managers, to probe some of the findings of the survey. A qualitative method was used in the form of a case study approach to create an in-depth, rich account of how one organisation has implemented a Web-based HR system and what line managers think about the organisation's efforts.
Respondents were selected using purposive sampling; participants were purposely chosen because of their relevance to the research. Each respondent had completed the Web-based survey and confirmed his or her willingness to be chosen for subsequent follow-up research aimed at obtaining more detailed insights into their views of the Web-based HR system.
Focus group respondents were provided with a list of topics for discussion beforehand and permission was granted to tape-record the sessions for analysis purposes; confidentiality throughout the process was assured. The transcript of each session was sent back to participants for validation. Summary reports of the main findings were sent to the host HR function as a basis for discussion and the identification of follow-up actions.

Results of Web-Based Survey

Table 1 provides a summary of the results of the questionnaire based on a simple aggregation of percentage of favourable responses to each of the questions corresponding to the three dimensions. The favourable percentages combine the favourable/agree and very favourable/strongly agree scores; the middle percentage represents neutral scores, while the unfavourable percentages combine the unfavourable/disagree and highly unfavourable/strongly disagree scores.
Table 1: Results of survey among HR and line managers on Web-based HR 
Dimension
Aggregate (%)
Line manager (%)
HR manager (%)
F
N
U
F
N
U
F
N
U
Use and benefits
54
24
22
53
24
23
69
24
7
Data accuracy and maintenance
73
13
14
71
14
15
90
8
2
Communications, support and training
45
28
27
44
27
29
60
37
3
A cursory examination of the headline data shows that HR managers recorded higher favourable percentages on all aspects of the Web-based HR implementation. This topography of sentiment revealed in the Web-based material serves to highlight the importance of obtaining results from both HR and line manager communities. The dangers of omitting line managers from research work aimed at assessing the future direction of change initiatives were also articulated in a CIPD Report, which refers to the:
Weakness of research that asks a senior HR manager to complete a questionnaire about HR in his or her firm and then relies on those responses for analysis. 
It is also clearly apparent from a closer inspection of the Web-based survey results that perceptions of data quality and maintenance dominate the favourable results, whilst perceptions of communications support and training are least favourable.
It was also very telling that within the line manager community only 34% reported an appreciation of the benefits of Web-based HR, from the perspective of return on investment. There were similar reservations about the impact of Web-based HR on HR services; only 30% reported that Web-based HR had increased the effectiveness of HR management in their organisation. These results, amongst others, were probed during the focus group sessions. The nature and extent of the inter-related implications, both for HR and line managers are now examined in more detail and we found it helpful to adapt and reorganise the impacts revealed in our study into three main categories, as featured in the report.
  • the impact on HR activities and processes,
  • the impact on employee communication and engagement,
  • the impact on the changing roles and skills of HR and line managers.

The Impact of Web-Based HR on the Efficiency of HR Activities and Processes

It is understood that the introduction of new technologies, such as Web-based HR, to deliver HR advice and services to line managers, as well as generating significant organisational benefits, can also cause potentially negative consequences if the implementation process is not managed effectively. For example research finding that there were concerns among the line manager community that the HR function lacked visibility and that it had become remote with increasing usage of electronic data systems and self-service HR. They commented:
 having the chance to talk with someone from the HR function was regarded as essential, if only to seek clarification face-to-face about how to deal with specific problems. 
This lack of emphasis on 'the human side' of HR was reflected in our study, which highlighted the need for HR professionals to remember that they are dealing with individuals and they are providing a service; their work is about people, not processes. Line managers made the following observations:
It would be helpful if they [HR] came and talked to you like a human being 
[I] actually speak to HR and say, 'this is the situation, am I right in this or am I wrong in that?' Usually, that's the best way and it also keeps up the human contact, which is important.
I think they've [HR] got to be consultative, they've got to be visible and they've got to be accessible to managers at a particular level but also, I think, from an employee perspective.
The organisational benefits of Web-based HR implementation should not, however, be forgotten. At the host organisation some of the tools were quite heavily used, providing significant support to both line managers and employees. This is revealed in comments such as:
There's a lot of good material in there, there's a lot of good material on the Web site 
More specifically, line managers praised the HR email service as illustrated in the following remarks:
I find they're really responsive [the HR e-mail]  they connect right away and give you the information and if you go back to them [with further queries,], they'll come back to you.
 more staff are now starting to use the e-mail system because they know they get a response quite quickly.
One important factor in the HR transformation process, which is often neglected by both academics and practitioners, is that Web-based HR needs to be considered in the wider context of HR service delivery. If change occurs in organisations it does not do so in isolation; it affects all other elements of the service delivery model:
The adoption of e-HR  triggers a chain reaction of other consequences that have a profound bearing on the way organisations do HR 
In our study, participants observed that the implementation of a new Web-based HR system signalled the need for a cultural shift within HR in order to ensure that the function was not just paying 'lip service' to line managers' expectations and aspirations. As one line manager remarked:
 I think there needs to be some shift where you get like a 'wow' factor; if you contact HR for any reason through any channel you should feel, 'wow that was great!' That's how we should feel  I think at the moment that wow factor isn't there, it's here and there, now and then, but it's not consistent.
From this it is apparent that overall perceptions are very mixed towards Web-based HR, in terms of its impact on the efficiency of HR activities and processes.

The Impact on Improving Employee Communication and Engagement

Our research demonstrates the importance of effective communication in ensuring that both line managers and employees 'buy-in' to Web-based HR. This is illustrated in the comments as follows:
New systems  should be communicated well and users need to understand why these things are happening. This would lead to less resistance.
 the message that comes across is mixed and it's not a constructive message. I think they've [HR] got to develop how to execute that message and once they get that right then I think things will come through  we're having to find [things] out for ourselves and it leads to people using different methods and certain tools in certain ways and it becomes a kind of a mixed bag.
Participants also highlighted the importance of intuitive systems and comprehensive training in order to secure line manager and employee engagement.
The tools should be intuitive and designed around us, the internal customer, so that tasks that are done very often, like approving leave and expenses, should be the easiest but often they seem really difficult. Maybe it's a criticism of [the system] that we have to adapt to it rather than it adapting to us  Why don't we have something that is more suited to us?
When we implement new systems  every department should send someone along to be trained up to use it.
HR could  get floor walkers, for example, on the day it goes live. You could have one experienced user per floor to show people how the new system works 
I think the super user concept wouldn't be a bad thing  if people are confused, then the super user is best placed to learn the nuances of it (new tool).
Linked to this, we found that there was often line manager and employee frustration regarding the usability of the system. The solution, as advocated by the users, was to create a more personalised and tailored HR solution. For example, whilst participants praised the email service provided by the HR team both in terms of the speed and quality of responses it provided, they acknowledged this service was only helpful in answering simple, self-contained problems and line managers experienced difficulty when they required more detailed advice from HR.
[The email service] is really good because all you do is send an e-mail, ask the question and they [HR] tell you what to do.
[The email service] can be great for certain things. An example would be if I had a direct report with a sick child, but no holiday entitlement left. I can [send an] e-mail  and I know that I will have the answer. So that sort of very simple, self-contained problem can be easily answered. However, as soon as it's something less specific or more open ended, it's very difficult to know how to get that information out of HR.
It is essential for line managers to be involved in the implementation process in order to ensure that the new HR delivery model is client-centred. This can be achieved in a variety of ways: through early consultation with all managers; active, hands-on senior level involvement in the project team and a customer references panel that engages with the proposals throughout. As one line manager explained:
[A] good parallel is when we think about launching things to customers. The way it should work is  figuring out how they want to do business with us and then we adapt to them because that's how you'll be a successful company. The same philosophy should apply to our internal offering — the HR tools and services. The tools should be intuitive and designed around us, the internal customer.
In spite of these criticisms regarding the impact of Web-based HR on improving employee communication and engagement, it is clear that line managers at the host organisation were making a significant effort to engage their teams, encouraging them to discuss areas that could be improved.
 what we do try and do is to get the engagement of the team. We ask the team, 'you tell us what we can do differently to get this working; what can we do?' I think the team as a whole can see that you try to take action on their issues and this creates an improved employee engagement score.
From the evidence presented, it is clear that the perceived impact of Web-based HR on improving employee engagement and communication is disappointing. Despite this, the line managers presented a range of constructive suggestions to alleviate the issues identified.

The Impact on the Changing Roles and Skills for HR and Line Managers

In a transformed state, the HR function is unlikely to place a premium on administrative skills and the HR positions available will be strategic in focus requiring a higher capability of candidates. This is supported in research conducted, and they found that:
Information Technology has allowed the HR function to focus less attention on routine, administrative tasks and dedicate more energy to delivering services that add value to the business.
Thus, it is clear that Web-based HR can leave more time for HR to focus on expert or strategic issues and is therefore one way of facilitating the transition from operational to strategic HR.
Indeed, many line managers emphasised the important contributions made by the HR team and praised their ability to carry out job roles effectively.
I think there are brilliant staff [in HR]; I know who to go to and I've been really impressed by their customer focus. I think they're right on  giving advice and I would definitely give them accolades.
I find the learning and development team fantastic  If I've got an issue to discuss (with L&D), I'll go and talk to [someone] and [they] will then sit down with me for an hour and talk me through the courses and tell me specifically what courses might be suitable for my people.
I find the [people] in recruitment are fantastic; I deal with two of them on a regular basis.
However, as one line manager commented:
If you're not careful HR is viewed with a degree of cynicism or scepticism it probably doesn't deserve 
This is illustrated in our study by the following negative perceptions of the HR function:
Everyone knows that the HR function is an overhead (cost to the business)  Very rarely, it seems, you get someone who says something good about HR; more often than not it's seen as the part of the organisation which stops you doing things.
I really don't know what HR does. I only think of them as people who pay us or tell us we've got the sack 
This selection of comments illustrates that the views of line managers towards the HR function are quite patchy and that if, HR should be defined not by what it does but by what it delivers, the quality of HR service delivery needs to be high to ensure that the perceptions of line managers are largely positive. The HR function is required to improve and market convincingly its value contribution to the business in order to diffuse the type of negative sentiment revealed here by the line manager community. Indeed, as we have noted the challenge for each HR function is to define for itself a way of making a value-adding contribution that is right for its organisation.
Thus, in order to manage this challenge effectively, HR needs to be clear about how it can add value in a way that is appropriate to its organisation's unique context. If HR fails to achieve this, the threat is that the business will turn elsewhere for that contribution and the in-house HR function will become insignificant and impotent.
The line manager community surveyed in this study argued that the creation of SLA (Service Level Agreements) could provide one way of measuring HR performance and therefore help to define its value contribution.
My perspective as far as service delivery is concerned is that HR needs to have a strategy backed up by SLA's (Service Level Agreements)  If they don't operate like that, how do you measure the performance of the department?  HR needs to be accountable.
In addition, line managers felt that performance assessment criteria should make their own people management responsibilities more explicit.
There isn't a very clear way for [line managers] to understand their responsibilities; no-one really knows what their responsibilities are.
The aim of the [performance management] guidance is that we should have five objectives [but] there's not a lot of suggestion as to what those objectives should comprise 
If you manage people then you're the first line of HR in any business and I think we could save ourselves a lot of time and trouble or even money if we got that little bit right.
Linked to the issue of establishing clear accountabilities for both HR and line managers, participants emphasised that partnership needs to be built between HR and the line to ensure the effective delivery of HR services. As one respondent commented:
It's a matter of having to try and advise each other as to how we can reduce each other's burden by making sure that once we understand what the issue is, whose responsible for dealing with it, then we get on with it 

Overall Observations

The application of Web-based survey tools and focus groups worked well in combination as a stakeholder engagement tool, revealing the topography of sentiment towards the newly implemented Web-based HR tools.
These findings illustrate that the impact of Web-based HR on the changing roles and skills for HR and line managers is a complex picture and encompasses a broad range of aspects that must be appreciated and successfully addressed, if positive outcomes are to be achieved. We believe that our study has underlined an important point; line managers want and value high-quality HR services and would be prepared to work collaboratively with HR to improve overall service delivery. HR should therefore seek to use the intrinsic goodwill that can exist among the line manager community to guide future HR activities. We recommend that the reader should consult other parts of this book to seek insights into how best the stakeholder discoveries can best be converted into measurable, beneficial outcomes.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

How Do We Test the 'Temperature' of the Business?



There are various techniques that can be used to test the temperature of the business and in particular the stakeholder groups that have been identified using the tools described earlier. A number of different types of survey tool can be used to capture information about attitudes and behaviours. Figure 1 illustrates some of the different types that can be used.
 
Figure 1: Testing the temperature.
The techniques that combine both qualitative and quantitative outputs can be very useful indeed. So, for example, a survey could be constructed that requires the respondent to indicate their perspective on the change process by answering questions based on the Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree). In addition, free text boxes can be used to allow the respondent to provide a more in-depth response around particular issues or concerns. Analysing these responses will provide a good indication of the issue types and the strength of feeling or importance surrounding these.
This kind of survey works well in a Web-based format. The results provide a preliminary indication of any issues and/or concerns and allow a judgment to be made in respect of the position of individuals/groups on the resistance to commitment continuum. It may then be appropriate, particularly with the significant stakeholders, to probe these issues in more detail. This is usually best done in the form of focus groups or one-to-one interviews but can also be performed using Web-based tools such as discussion forums.
Examples of these approaches, linked to case illustrations, are described later. It is also very important that appropriate ethical behaviour and standards are observed at all stages of the process. For example, if you say survey results will be treated in confidence, make sure they are.

The Global Dimension

The different segments of the stakeholder population within a global or multinational programme could have radically different views of the same change process. This means that the stakeholder engagement activity needs to address those different entities or jurisdictions, and you should not slip into the comfort zone of thinking that a very professional and comprehensive assessment of the situation in, say, the United Kingdom can then naturally map onto Japan, United States or other countries in continental Europe.
It may well be the case that data protection issues receive a more heightened degree of focus in Germany than they might in the United Kingdom. A global HR process that would allow, for example, someone in Italy to view the personal details of a German employee might cause enormous consternation. The degree of ambiguity around different aspects of the programme may raise concerns in one area, but be accepted as the norm in others.
You should investigate these factors thoroughly. It is stressed again that the stakeholder engagement process needs to be applied with equal rigour to a multi-jurisdiction programme. In this way, you get an informed opinion on issues in each of those jurisdictions. Subsequent efforts to address those issues can then be more closely tailored.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

How to Enlist Support and Overcome Resistance



You should be prepared to invest in meaningful stakeholder engagement at the start of the change cycle and continue, relentlessly, throughout. It will be worth it.
The biggest single contributor to success is securing the unwavering commitment of the senior change sponsors. Without this, the HR transformation programme becomes vulnerable to attack and disruption. We strongly recommend getting this in place early as a priority.
You may have to be creative to win an audience with the most senior stakeholders. If you can, arrange one-to-one meetings and use these opportunities to present a compelling factual case in support of the programme. If this is not possible, then gain access to the next reporting level and seek to influence this group of people so that they in turn can upwardly influence their superiors.
Whilst one-to-one meetings can be extremely impactful, think creatively about other channels:
  • team meetings/workshops;
  • invitation to a steering group;
  • making sure the Personal Assistant (PA) includes a brief on the HR transformation programme in essential reading material;
  • requiring a response through an auditable process, such as electronic tagging, so that the respondent is aware that simply refusing to reply will create an automatic elevation to the steering group or higher;
  • using various Web-based tools to engender engagement, such as surveys, discussions forums, blogs and wikis.
Of equal importance to understanding how individuals or groups show their attitudinal stance for the change initiative, it is necessary to monitor and measure behaviour. You will almost certainly identify what we call 'secret subversives' — people who appear to be on your side, but then undermine the programme. They should be identified and dealt with as quickly as possible.
Developing a list of actionable items that demonstrate behaviour is essential. It should include:
  • demonstrating that they are accurately communicating the change initiative to their teams;
  • showing endorsement of the newly created HR processes;
  • signing off on key documentation that allows financial investment.
It is important to stress again that investment of time and effort in the segmentation and characterisation of the stakeholder community, combined with techniques to understand their position on the resistance to commitment continuum, will repay itself in terms of dividend many times over. This is not a task that should be undervalued, misplaced or subordinated to a low level in the priority order.
Often in change programmes these 'soft' or human issues — which is essentially what stakeholder engagement is all about — become subordinated to the technical issues and considerations surrounding system choice and implementation. Beware of allowing the technical issues to take over for too long. Without the people on board, no system will deliver the benefits you promised in the business case.
Once you have mapped out the stakeholders, the next task is to understand where they lie on the resistance to commitment continuum, and this in turn will determine where effort should be prioritised.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

The Stakeholder Topography

This is the means by which you can construct a view of the stakeholder population which allows individuals/groups/business units affected by HR transformation to be characterised in terms of their importance to the change process and how they are impacted by it. This is assisted by using the stakeholder mapping framework shown in Figure 1. A sample is shown in the following table:
Stakeholder group
Example impacts
Employees
Maintaining their own data rather than relying on HR administration to do it for them
Line managers
Increased people management responsibilities supported by Web-based HR rather than HR consultants
HR consultants
Move to added value business partner roles rather than administration comfort zone
HR administration
Expert support rather than re-keying administration
HR specialists
Demand driven by business partners rather than line managers
Payroll
Data from Web-based HR system rather than separate re-keying
External recruitment
Reduced number due to e-recruitment functionality

 Figure 1: Stakeholder mapping.
Those individuals or groups that are seen to display high impact and high importance are the most significant in terms of securing acceptance of the change process. Those positioned elsewhere in the matrix present different levels of significance. In these cases, it may be acceptable simply to achieve modest support or even neutrality.
To expand on these points, let us look in more detail at some of the stakeholder groups illustrated in the earlier sample:
  • It is evident that line managers are both highly important to the transformation process and highly impacted by it. As such they warrant careful and considered attention. A failure to engage properly with this group and secure a good degree of acceptance to the transformation process will create significant issues, such as poor utilisation of Web-based HR and a failure to adopt more people-centred practices within their role profile. These will at best stifle the transformation process or at worst sabotage it completely.
  • The HR administration team are important and may be highly impacted if the intention is to reduce headcount based on the assumption that more HR administration is performed by managers and employees using Web-based HR. This could raise morale/retention issues at a critical time when the new services are being introduced, requiring higher levels of support to users. In this situation, it may not be possible to persuade this group to warmly embrace the transformation process, but it will be necessary to move sentiment into the mildly resistive/neutral zone of the continuum in order to maintain decent service levels.
  • The reductions in the number of external recruitment suppliers may antagonise those suppliers eliminated from the new list, but conversely may also provide an injection of encouragement to the group chosen to continue (and possibly enhance) their contribution. These different impacts need to be managed. Those suppliers who are expected to maintain their contracts post HR transformation must be clear and accepting about what is expected of them. The rejected suppliers need to understand the rationale for their exclusion, but may never be accepting of them. This will not impact the HR transformation process in the short term, but may be an issue in the longer term if you seek to re-engage their services.
These examples show the value of stakeholder mapping as a way of categorising the different groups, and informing you about the level of effort and priority that needs to be invested in ongoing activities to bring about desirable outcomes necessary to support the HR transformation programme objectives.
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