Preparing for an HRMS Selection

Mary Ellen O'Neill, Practice Leader - PeopleSoft, PSC Group, LLC

Written exclusively for www.HRSteam.com

 

So you’ve decided to implement an HRMS!  Whether you are implementing an HRMS for the first time or replacing an existing, outdated system there are some key points to consider in preparing for a successful system selection.

• Get all the right personnel involved during the initial stage of the system selection process. You should include management and technical resources as well as all functional end users in order to achieve buy in from those that will be using the system on a day-to-day basis.

• Executive Sponsor

• Senior Management

• Human Resources

• Benefits

• Payroll

• IT

• Other Business Units or Departments that will be impacted by your system selection

• Consultant(s) – if you will be relying on external resources to assist with this process

• Determine business strategy

• Develop business plan

• Costs

• Benefits

• Action plan

• Determine what your priorities are

• Areas to be addressed

• Key objectives (need to have versus want to have)

• Identify Project Team

• Executive Sponsor

• Project Manager

• Functional Subject Matter Experts

• Technical Resources

• Develop a project plan

• Identify all project tasks

• Determine begin and end dates for those tasks

• Assign appropriate project resources

• Denote project "milestone" tasks

• Communicate

• Inform all employees of your HRMS initiatives and provide updates throughout the life of the project

• Hold regularly scheduled project team meetings

• Establish means for issue escalation and resolution

• Document how you are currently performing your day-to-day business processes. You will also use this information during the implementation of your HRMS.

• Provide detail down to the task level on each process. What are all the steps involved in processing (to name a few):

• Hires

• Terminations

• Promotions

• Transfers

• Pay Rate Changes

• Job Changes

• Include any steps performed by departments external to HR, Benefits & Payroll

• Include any steps performed by third party vendors/providers

• Identify any business process areas lacking in expertise

• Determine where you can improve upon your current business processes

• What problems need to be solved

• What functionality is currently lacking

• How can duplication of effort be eliminated or significantly reduced

• What manual processes can be automated

• What will help us to perform our day-to-day tasks more efficiently

• Define your HRMS functional requirements (consider improvements to your current business processes)

• What functionality/features does the new system need to have in order to accommodate our current and improved business processes (need to have)

• What functionality/features does the new system need to have in order to accommodate new business processes (need to have)

• What additional functionality/features does the new system need to have in order to accommodate any future business processes (want to have)

• Define your HRMS technical requirements

• Hardware

• Software

• Network

• Security

• Restrictions

• Other?

• Define business process improvement opportunities

• Changes to existing processes

• New processes based on functionality requirements of new HRMS

• Data Integration (both internal and external)

• Process standardization

• Information standardization

Remember, this is your system and you need to take ownership of this process. You need to work closely with Management, IT and the other departments that provide input into the process. This is a collaborative effort but you will ultimately be responsible for the final selection of your HRMS.