The five biggest hurdles to HR efficiency

The ever-increasing dynamism of the business world confronts HR departments today with a wide range of challenges - keyword working world 4.0 or ll.

To accomplish these tasks, it is essential to digitize and harmonize HR processes across the company so that they can be handled efficiently, flexibly and transparently, and to define HR key performance indicators (KPIs) in a uniform manner.

However, studies such as the HR Software Monitor 2017 show that the digitization of HR processes is still in its infancy in many places. As a result, HR departments are so busy with time-consuming manual activities and administrative tasks that there is hardly any room left for strategic HR work.

The five biggest hurdles to HR efficiency

The following five points consume an unnecessary amount of time and form the biggest hurdles to greater efficiency in HR processes:

1. Decentralized management of HR master data: Over the years, many companies have created a heterogeneous HR landscape with many different applications - SAP and non-SAP software, on-premise and cloud applications - that are not or only insufficiently linked.All personnel data must therefore be created, managed and, if necessary, deleted separately in the individual HR solutions. This multiple entry not only harbors the risk of input errors, but above all leads to a skewed dataset.
2. Media discontinuities due to data silos: In a heterogeneous HR landscape, data silos arise that cause media discontinuities and make labor-intensive manual work steps necessary.Processes such as absence reports, vacation and travel requests, or expense reports are often still handled on paper. This inevitably affects data quality and auditability.
3. Consolidate HR KPIs manually: Companies that do not manage HR data centrally and store information, for example from employee interviews, as paper documents, have to merge, consolidate and prepare HR data by hand.The quality of HR KPIs and of analyses and reporting suffers as a result. Management then receives HR reports based on outdated information, and with a time lag.
4. Recording and correcting personnel times by hand: Efficient time management is a prerequisite for reliable payroll accounting. However, clock-in and clock-out times are often entered or corrected manually, and approval processes, such as for overtime, are unnecessarily complicated if they are not handled digitally.
5. High search effort and information deficits: Who is my contact person in the HR department? Where are which HR forms stored? Answering these and similar questions is time-consuming if the relevant information and documents are not stored centrally, but in different filing systems or even in the filing cabinet.

Digitization needs central personnel data

Such time wasters, as well as delays in HR reporting, can be eliminated if HR processes are digitized and automated. The prerequisite for this is the uniform, central management of data on the entire workforce from all company locations - in strict compliance with the legal requirements in each country, of course.

The starting point for merging HR data is an analysis that shows which sites use which HR data in which HR processes and systems. This analysis is used to create a HR data master that is valid throughout the company and is fed into the central HR master data system.

In this context, the conditions should also be defined for how personnel data will be created, changed and deleted in the future, an aspect that is also highly significant in view of the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).

The central system for managing HR master data is a modern cloud platform such as the HCM Suite from SAP SuccessFactors, whose intuitive SAPUI5 interface allows users to perform their tasks on a role-based basis, both on the desktop and on the move via smartphone or tablet.

Uniform global HR reporting

If payroll or time management is to be performed in on-premise solutions, the corresponding data must be transferred correctly from the HR cloud to these applications, regardless of whether the software is SAP or non-SAP.

Conversely, it must be ensured that accounting and time management data are transmitted to the cloud software and are available there for analyses.

Central and uniform management of personnel data, including information on the skills, abilities or professional interests of individual employees, also creates the basis for identifying needs and trends in personnel development at an early stage and planning ahead.

At the same time, this data forms the basis for the uniform definition of KPIs such as full-time equivalents or fluctuation across all locations, thus enabling timely and harmonized global HR reporting of high quality.

Cloud apps digitize HR processes

An important building block for the successful implementation of an HR digital strategy is cloud-based, intuitive apps that allow specific HR tasks to be completed simply, streamlined and transparently via self-service.

On the employee side, these include vacation requests, sick leave, recording and changing working hours, managing personal data, or travel management from the application and approval to recording travel data and expenses and accounting.

On the part of the managers, this is the approval or rejection of travel and vacation requests or the assignment of a vacation replacement, but also the insight into the team calendar and the time accounts of the employees.

To do this, companies can use mobile SAPUI5 apps, for example from the T.Ccon HR Portal based on SAP Cloud Platform, which integrate seamlessly into the existing SAP landscape and complement and extend the standard SAP HCM functions.

These apps enable such processes to be handled digitally without any media discontinuity: all information ends up directly in HR or with the supervisor or, conversely, with the employees, which ensures a high level of transparency in terms of approvals and workflows.

Another advantage of the HR portal is its flexibility, because a new app can be developed promptly for every new requirement in HR work, currently for example in the context of the German Pay Transparency Act (EntgTranspG).

A key aspect of HR digitization is to review and optimize existing processes in line with the business strategy and HR objectives, and to develop and introduce new HR processes that will significantly increase the contribution to value creation.

However, the diverse tasks involved in such a project require in-depth specialized knowledge and thus the support of an experienced consulting partner.

He has the necessary expertise, works with the HR organization to develop a digitization strategy and the individual roadmap for its implementation, and also offers support in selecting software, consolidating HR data, and defining globally uniform KPIs.

Such a partner should provide all services from a single source - from the selection of suitable solutions (on premise, cloud) and apps to process design, implementation, and support of the applications and processes after go-live.

It is also important to support changes that arise because digitization breaks down firmly established processes and responsibilities with proven change management methods.

Then the way is clear: From an "administrative administrator", the HR department is transformed into an "active creator" of future-oriented and value-creating HR work.