The person responsible for the process workstream is the person who will effectively manage the process re-engineering work to ensure that in the 'new world' HR processes become as lean and efficient as possible. There are a number of ways of approaching this. One way, for example, would be to approach the work with literally a clean sheet of paper, calling upon various people in the organisation to contribute their view of a particular process and constructing the new process from scratch.
Whilst this has undeniable benefits in terms of creating a perception of inclusion, by engaging a wide stakeholder audience and appearing to be genuinely in line with the concept of meeting customer expectations or being customer driven, there are also a number of potential major pitfalls with this approach. One such pitfall is that, having created or crafted a new process based on this highly inclusive clean sheet approach, it then becomes eminently obvious in consultation with the technology department that to configure such a process in the system would require considerable time and expense. This realisation then might prompt the need to go back out to the stakeholders who contributed to the original process to say that it is no longer applicable — with the subsequent dissonance this would create.
Another way of doing it would be to adopt as a baseline the standard 'out of the box processes' that come with the new system, and only permit variants to those standard processes where it can be demonstrated that a significant business benefit would result. These variants may take the form of observance or compliance with legal requirements, or where a judgment could be taken that for cultural reasons it is necessary to do things in a particular way and that enormous disaffection could be caused by overhauling or retiring that particular process.
One of the drawbacks of presenting baseline core processes in the way described is that it could appear to senior stakeholders to be a fait accompli and might therefore create a backlash from stakeholders, with associated disruption to the programme.
On balance, therefore, it is probably the best tactic in most situations to engage the appropriate stakeholders on process grounds by presenting the overall picture. In other words, to explain that whilst their views are being sought to help refine and better the existing processes, there are nevertheless frameworks within which those betterments or changes need to take place to take account of the issues surrounding configuration within the main system. These issues carry a cost implication now and in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment