What skills and technical knowledge do HR professionals need to get to grips with e-HR systems? What’s in store for e-HR in 2003? To mark the launch of the new-look site, HR Zone asked James Amner, HR Product Manager for Microsoft Business Solutions to answer these and other key questions for us around the subject of technology in HR.

HR Zone: Do you need a big budget to consider e-HR?

James Amner: Not necessarily. In-house solutions can start from as little as a couple of thousand pounds and ASP solutions from a couple of pounds per employee per month. From an IT infrastructure point-of-view, most organisations’ PCs and Servers today already have the technology to support in-house e-HR systems and most employees who have access to a PC can access the internet for ASP solutions.

HR Zone: ASP, buying off-the-shelf or building a system in-house – what are the key factors you need to consider before making a decision?

James Amner: Firstly, the most important factor will be the size of your organisation and the complexity of your requirements. Typically, the larger an organisation, the more complex its requirements will be. If ASP or off-the-shelf solutions can meet your needs they will generally be cheaper and quicker to implement.

Secondly, the level of IT infrastructure you have in place will be a major deciding factor. ASP and off-the-shelf solutions are designed to be very easily implemented and so do not demand a complex IT setup. Depending upon their size, in-house systems on the other hand will often require the purchase of suitable hardware and supporting software and sometimes will require full-time staff just to maintain them.

HR Zone: Is it worth putting in place a system for one aspect of your HR, say, recruitment, or should you look at putting systems in place across the board?

James Amner: If you are looking at truly integrated modular HR systems, and do not have the budget to put in place all aspects of HR in one go, there can be significant benefits in setting up just one aspect first. Recruitment solutions especially can be dramatically effective as stand-alone systems. Organisations can start to see immediate returns from reducing their administrative burdens and recruitment costs. It can then make it much easier to implement other aspects as you already have internal evangelists for the system.

HR Zone: Once you have selected a shortlist of potential suppliers, what sort of information will the supplier need to know in order to provide you with a suggested solution?

James Amner: They will need to know that your IT infrastructure will support their solutions, or that you are prepared to bear any cost involved to bring that infrastructure into line. They should also see your detailed requirements, to ensure they can come up with a solution that meets all your needs and check that they are able to implement the solution in the timescales you require.

HR Zone: As an HR professional, what level of technical knowledge are you likely to need when getting involved with an e-HR system project?

James Amner: Undoubtedly, as the project progresses your technical knowledge is likely to improve, but the only prerequisite should be a clear picture of exactly what you want to achieve from implementing an e-HR system and perhaps some experience of using Windows and web-based business applications. It is vital that your IT department has its own representation in the project because they are likely to have support the system you choose.

HR Zone: When putting together a project team to look at purchasing an HR system, what types of skills or responsibilities is it useful to bring on board?

James Amner: As I mentioned, definitely a representative from your IT department. Somebody with good project management skills is definitely recommended to keep the project running to time and budget, to co-ordinate other members of the team, and to liaise with suppliers. You need to have representation both from board-level HR and user-level HR. The board needs to ensure the system will deliver their strategic requirements and the users need to ensure they get a system they are comfortable using.

HR Zone: What are the factors that ensure a smooth and successful implementation of a new system in an organisation?

James Amner: Firstly, having very clear and well defined requirements so that everyone involved, both internal and from your chosen supplier, knows exactly what they expect to be delivered. Secondly, rigorous testing of any tailored work or transferred data, and of the system in your technical environment is essential to ensure a smooth and successful implementation. Finally, get the buy-in of all users, whether they are HR staff, managers or employees. It is vital they feel included in the whole process and are not simply delivered the end result and expected to take it on.

HR Zone: Why do you think there can be reluctance among employees to engage with HR systems?

James Amner: It is really about selling the benefits of the information it can deliver to employees and of HR having more accurate information about employees. All too often, systems are simply rolled out in the assumption that they will be automatically embraced, when in fact all they are often seen as is an opportunity for HR to devolve some of their workload to employees.

HR Zone: What’s the best way to manage those who don’t have desktop access to their information?

James Amner: The best way is to either give access to a manager who is then responsible for their employees’ information and requests, or to set up kiosks allowing employees to gain access as and when they need to.

HR Zone: What sort of new skills do HR professionals need to develop in order to manage with e-HR?

James Amner: Clearly HR professionals need to become fully acquainted with their chosen system. Typically e-HR utilises e-mail and associated technologies a great deal and so these are skills are the ones that may need more honing. Beyond that, longer term they need to develop strategic reporting skills. e-HR should reduce the burden of purely administrative work and day-to-day employee enquiries to the point where HR staff can work on highlighting potential issues in the organisation and drive strategic planning.

HR Zone: What does your organisation expect the key developments of 2003 to be for e-HR?

James Amner: We believe that the developments of e-HR in 2003 will include further automation of HR processes throughout the organisation, not just to team leaders and employees but business managers and remote HR teams. Applications will offer managers the ability to perform in depth team analysis and will empower team members to access and process more of their personnel information on line. In addition, remote teams and business leaders will also be able to report on important HR information to make smarter, faster business decisions. In order to achieve fast ROI on these applications, organisations must not underestimate the importance of ‘internal buy in’ when embarking on e-HR projects. 2003 will see the need for HR to consider internal communication programmes as part of the implementation project ensuring all employees and managers are aware of the benefit of these solutions.