Realising the benefits
In our third and final look at e-HR Transformation, Martin Reddington, Mark Withers and Mark Williamson look at how to realise the project benefits.
Over the past two weeks, the authors of Delivering Value from HR Transformation have highlighted key areas that should be addressed when embarking on e-HR transformation: developing a shared vision for HR transformation, and securing stakeholder commitment. This final article in the series looks at how to realise the benefits. The authors have developed their thinking through practical experience of working with a wide range of organisations on HR transformation.
Introduction
The various stakeholders are committed to the project, the networks of change agents are buzzing, and even the overall project sponsor has demonstrated their commitment by a variety of means, usually involving some public demonstration of faith in the new way of working. Now there is the pressure of expectation as people wait for the benefits promised in the business case and during the interviews and workshops.
Benefits come in all shapes and sizes; they can be delivered at different times during the lifecycle of the project (for example, 'quick wins' well before the project goes live). It should go without saying that their appearance as a result of your initiative will make the difference between your becoming a hero, or the person that the finance director is very keen to share a 'few moments of your time' with.
Getting the benefits to stick
Take time early on in the development of the business case to identify and define where you are now, as tightly as you can. This often means concentrating on the 'tangible' benefits (ie, those that can be costed - 'this will deliver £x savings in year one, and will cost £y to implement') rather than the 'intangible' benefits (ie 'now that HR people have got the line managers to do that, we'll all have a lot more time to be more strategic').
You'll get some sort of baseline measurement to show how you are performing at the moment. It is important to capture this during the work on the business case, because things change as soon as you start the project.
Ask the people/business units who will receive benefits, to take ownership of those baseline data. As benefits start to be delivered, those owners may need reassuring that the changes they are seeing are to be viewed in the context of other things happening elsewhere simultaneously, usually in different programmes or initiatives. This is especially true if benefits are delayed, or are not as great as expected. They will also be able to give you first-hand accounts of any real impact.
You do have a plan, don't you?
All measurement and evaluation should be matched against your 'benefits realisation plan' so that not only do you understand what the measures are, but so that you can also anticipate the implications for organisational benefit of hitting those measures. Your plan will list what benefits are expected, at what point in the implementation they are expected, the level they are expected at, and the measure that will identify this.
As a result, you may expose gaps in what you expected to be delivered compared with what is actually delivered, and this should be taken as an opportunity for further work; for example, after the project has gone live.
There may be unexpected benefits, too. You will also develop an idea of areas where you can get additional benefits with a relatively small amount of work. Consider the plan becoming an ongoing benefits realisation plan, and make sure someone owns it after the project team has disbanded.
Sustaining benefits
What you do immediately after the launch is of great importance in benefit terms. Here are some suggestions:
- Ongoing measurements
Continue to measure benefits post-implementation, so that doing so becomes part of how the 'new' HR function evaluates itself and demonstrates the value it adds.
- Remove the old ways
If you allow old systems or even habits to remain, users will revert to them, however well intentioned they may have seemed during planning. For example, if you are trying to implement an online approach to changing staff details through the self-service system, but someone still accepts the old faxed forms, the change will not stick. If details continue arriving by fax, there should be an automatic response to point out the change, reminding people that they were informed and had signed up to the new way of working.
Using an incremental approach, you can also remove the old processes in a systematic and planned way, not a reactive one, which is a powerful demonstration that something has changed permanently.
- Seek sponsorship/leadership
You should ask for leadership from the top, so your sponsor and their PA needs to be scrupulous about using the new tools and functionality.
- Continue training after the launch
Don't be afraid to refresh the learning as you go through - training shouldn't be cancelled within a week of the launch. People need a couple of goes to embed it, and need to know the new system is working before they will fully embrace it. This is especially true of managers, so it is good to plan refresher courses.
Conclusion
By the time you reach the end of the project, you will have realised that it is not the project itself that delivers benefit, it is the new ways or working that produce the benefit. This is even more true in HR than in some other functions in the business. Make sure your people are on board, have signed up to own and receive the benefits, and you will give yourself the best possible chance during that chat with the finance director.
About the experts
Missed parts 1 and 2 of this series?
Part one: Shared
vision
Part two: Secure the
stakeholder's commitment
