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DIGITALLY TRANSFORMING YOUR HR DEPARTMENT

Crown Records Management’s experts Antony Biondi, Head of ECM, and Michelle Kermath, Head of Consultancy and Technical – ECM, recently sat down to discuss all things HR, and how Crown can digitally transform your HR department in our latest webcast.

 

Read more below to find out everything you need to know:

 

INFORMATION CHALLENGES IN HR

When looking at information management related challenges faced by HR departments, it’s important to strip it right back to what processes are there to start with. HR departments need to attract talent, manage those relationships, train, and develop, and much more, and each one of these processes has information coming in and going out.

 

So, one of the main challenges resolves around how HR departments can get that information, process that information, and trust that information as part of their processes. This is especially important given the changes in how people are working due to flexibility and remote working that is often viewed ‘the new normal’.

 

HOW CAN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION HELP MEET THOSE CHALLENGES?

HR departments may already have technologies in place, but these technologies don’t always talk to each other. So, what you find is that HR staff are managing different pieces of technology, as well as the requests and all of the processing. Therefore, having a solution that sits above all of that and plugging those gaps and removing as much of the manual intervention as possible is our objective.

 

IS TECHNOLOGY THE KEY FOR HR?

It’s very easy to think of technology being the key, but this isn’t always the case in a digital transformation. Too many organisations focus on the ‘What’ beforehand because that seems like the right thing to do.

 

Technology plays a huge part in the digital journey, but Crown strongly believe that the ‘Why’ is where you really need to start. It’s important to know where you’re coming from, what your baseline is, and ultimately, what you are ultimately trying to achieve.

WHERE TO START DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN HR

If a digital transformation project is done properly, it doesn’t have a stop point – it will constantly evolve, because the world is evolving and is a constantly moving thing, whether that be changing your processes, adding processes to it, new people coming in, new compliance requirements, and more.

 

Antony Biondi, Head of ECM

 

The key is finding a partner, and that partner being an organisation that can go on that journey with you.

WHO ARE THE KEY STAKEHOLDERS AND HOW DO YOU CONVINCE THEM?

Crown considers key stakeholders as some of the following:

  • HR users
  • Business partners
  • Advisors
  • Assistants
  • Employees – that are having the process done to them
  • Managers
  • People who use this data to transform policies and procedures
  • Compliance
  • IT/Data analysts

 

All of these people are stakeholders who may be at differing levels. Creating a business case goes back to the ‘Why’, and you can work with organisations like ours to define and document what your bottlenecks are and to determine what the benefits of doing this are.

 

WHAT ARE THE SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM BENEFITS FOR HR PROFESSIONALS?

If you start with Crown’s Business Process Review, one of the first things you get is transparency. You know what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, how you’re working, how much it costs, how much time you’re wasting, how much resource you’re using – it becomes all very transparent. Your long-term goal is still being transparent, but you’ve got that from the outset.

 

One of the biggest quick wins is structure, and straight away having everything digitised, all records in one location, and those records being accessible to the relevant individuals that need access to them.

 

In terms of long-term benefits, this will make a massive difference as to how you approach engaging with existing employees and potential employees longer term. Staff retention and attraction will take longer to build because the biggest asset any organisation has is its people. Making the way to work simpler and easier brings satisfaction not only to the HR users, but also the employees that are interacting.

 

WHAT OTHER DEPARTMENTS MIGHT BENEFIT?

You have two types of business processes within any organisation, with most organisations having the first type. This includes:

  • A finance department
  • A mailroom
  • Some sort of contract management – whether that be managing buildings, suppliers etc.

 

These core business functions that most organisations have is where we normally start. It’s the quickest and easiest start for any organisation, and then we grow beyond that point. The second type of business processes across any vertical are bespoke processes that are relevant to your business or your industry, which we also look at.

 

Our advice would always be to start somewhere where you’re going to get a really big advantage in whatever way but know that what you’re investing in can do so much more.

 

Antony Biondi, Head of ECM

TOP TIPS ON HOW YOU CAN START WITH DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Understand the why – this may be something you can do internally. But before you engage with anybody like Crown, have some kind of understanding as to what your benefits are going to be.

 

Antony Biondi, Head of ECM

 

Don’t be afraid to open the door and start. Really understand what it is you have to deal with and don’t be afraid because once you’ve opened that door, you’ll feel so much better.

 

Michelle Kermath, Head of Consultancy and Technical – ECM
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