COMPANIES ARE finally reaping the benefits of IT investments in HR systems, and moving from core upgrades to streamlining for greater efficiency and effectiveness, a global study has found
COMPANIES ARE finally reaping the benefits of IT investments in HR systems, and moving from core upgrades to streamlining for greater efficiency and effectiveness, a global study has found.
Many organisations have moved beyond implementation and into more strategic use of upgraded technology systems, and large companies are increasingly focused on talent management applications, especially the strategic use of manager self-service (MSS) for this purpose.
“Organisations have mastered and are moving beyond traditional aspects of HR service delivery, which address core benefits and compensation delivery programs,” said Thomas Keebler, global leader of the HR technology practice for Towers Perrin, which conducts an annual survey of HR service delivery trends.
“With basic transactional processes firmly and successfully in place, forward-looking organisations are turning their attention to the more strategic and arguably more value-added areas of recruiting and other people- and performance-oriented processes.”
The survey showed that HR service delivery professionals are increasingly focused on helping their organisations find, attract, retain and engage employees. Among top service delivery issues for 2007, recruiting and staffing were in the top three, along with talent and performance management.
Nearly a third of respondents reported each of these related issues near the top of their service delivery agendas, and detailed survey results on systems and applications support those views.
“What we see this year is a wiser, better-planned approach to delivering talent management. Organisations are now using words like streamlined and integrated to describe their HR service delivery processes and systems related to talent management,” said Keebler.
“Onboarding is a notable example, with the number of participants with a planned onboarding solution likely to reach 61 per cent (from just 19 per cent) by year-end 2008.”
The study of 275 organisations – 84 per cent of which were based in the US, with additional representation in Canada, Europe and Asia-Pacific – also found a dramatic upsurge in MSS applications to help deliver HR programs across the board, from traditional manager-directed processes to newer and more innovative ones.
