Find the critical information that both Human Resources and Information technology need to be successful when implementing HR Case Management in ServiceNow.
Hearing the terms HR or Human Resources typically causes most IT folks to run and hide. In most organizations, Human Resources are seen as a required function that facilitates the on boarding and off-boarding of personnel, or someone who is “in trouble.” Duh duh duhhhh…
Not anymore! It’s time for Human Resources and IT to sit down at the same table. Human Resources are now being called to provide several valuable services for the Organization and their task list is getting quite large. No longer can Human Resources serve as simply an administrative function, they need to be strategic partners with the business. These additional duties include helping drive strategy, employment branding, and reporting on critical metrics. Of course, this doesn’t come with additional headcount. In fact, the Human Resources organization may even shrink as it evolves. The immediate focus for Human Resources is to develop into a service organization, providing value for the business and automating administrative functions. Lay the groundwork today, and reap the benefits of the future. The Chief People Office will need to take advice from the Chief Information Officer, “Provide value or be outsourced.”
This is where ServiceNow’s amazing ability to provide Human Resources Case Management (and much more!) comes in. In most organizations, if an employee is missing vacation time (an incident) or would like their last name changed (a request), they will typically pick up the phone to whoever they know in Human Resources and see if that person can help. This ties up the HR individual, and provides an overall mediocre experience for the employee. What if an employee could go to an Enterprise Service Portal, like ServiceNow and either report an issue directly to Human Resources, or better yet self-help? Eureka! Dream state, which has now turned into reality. I should know, I lived it while working at a major telecommunications company. For the record, we configured the tool in 8 hours and went live in 4 weeks.
ServiceNow Governance – Air Traffic Control
Benefits of Implementing ServiceNow’s HR Case Management
Let’s talk benefits. Not the insurance kind! I’m referring to the amazing ServiceNow Human Resources Case Management benefits that your organization will gain the second you take the application to production! First, the organization will gain a central repository for all things related to Human Resources. No longer do we have to surf through our e-mail and count how many requests were made to Human Resources, or enter data into some spreadsheet that is kept on the department drive to try and manage work. Service Now will act as a single repository, where critical metrics can be reported.
Second, critical decision points can be documented within each record or case, and there can be an audit trail of what drove an organization to make critical decisions. For example, Security gets a tip that Joe Employee is up to no good and an investigation is needed. Human Resources can invite the individuals from Security to collaborate on the record or case in ServiceNow. They might even want to include someone from the legal department. At the end of the investigation, Human Resources gleans a journal of all the different departments’ conclusions as a result of the investigation and any decisions that may have come out of it. Let’s say in this example, the investigation determined that Joe Employee was stealing money from the organization, and Security had footage of the employee committing the crime. Legal weighed in and determined that stealing was a violation of the company code, and their recommendation was to terminate Joe.
The ServiceNow journaling of that record might look a lot like this:
This type of documentation can come in handy if Joe Employee turns around and sues the organization for wrongful termination.
Finally, as if the other two amazing benefits weren’t enough, think about real time dashboard analytics! Everything that is entered into the Human Resources Case Management application in ServiceNow is essentially reportable. Executive dashboards can show organizational requests of Human Resources, average resolution time of those requests, or even how quickly it takes to on-board new talent. Having quantitative metrics around the functions that Human Resources is performing is critical, and ensures that you can demonstrate value to your organization. You can now arm your Chief People Office with metrics like, “60% of all requests coming into Human Resources are asking for a better 401k plan.”
Four Steps IT Should Take when Launching HR Case Management in ServiceNow
So how can Information Technology ensure Human Resources is successful for launching ServiceNow Case Management? Easy! Follow these four critical pieces of advice:
1. Leverage a Scrum Methodology. Do not waste time requiring Human Resources to write pages of requirements. Understand their business process and translate those into User Stories. User stories are written in non-“geek speak” language (Human Resources doesn’t speak IT, nor should they). These help identify exactly what the Human Resources business process is and what they need in order to be successful in their phase 1 launch. Remember, Scrum is iterative for a reason. After the first sprint, it may take several iterations to get the desired functionality needed to support their business process.
2. Take advantage of those Kick Butt Dashboards that are inherent in ServiceNow. Configure canned dashboards for each level within the Human Resources Organization. Work with your Human Resources business partner to define various metrics and reporting needs, and then provide canned dashboards for the individual contributor level, management level, and Executive level. Try to focus these dashboards as to what the various level would want to see when they log in first in the morning while sipping their cup of Joe. While individuals have the ability to make their own dashboards, it can be hard for people in the business to start with a blank slate. If you provide canned dashboard, at least they get exposed to the functionality and have immediate value of utilizing the dashboards, instead of figuring it out months later.
3. CSI (Continuous Service Improvement) Baby! Meet with your HR folks quarterly, to plan our future phases and enhancements to their application. Their business process is constantly evolving. Regular meetings will give them comfort that the application will continue to improve and all those user stories you dubbed phase 2 will actually get worked on. In fact, prior to launch, setup a reoccurring meeting. Again, this will ease of the fear of going live and being left in the dust.
4. Take ownership of User Acceptance Testing. Set up several meetings to perform testing together and take a leadership role in the testing. ServiceNow might be an entirely new platform, and HR Case Management may be a new concept in your organization. It will be important to have joint testing sessions and to make yourself available to explain functionality or answer questions. This will also cut down on the reported “defects,” and allow you to focus on true defects or business process changes that are critical to the success of your go live.
Four Points HR Needs to Consider when Implementing HR Case Management in ServiceNow
So what about the folks in Human Resources? What considerations should they have to assist with making this launch effective and efficient? Here are 3 keys to success for Human Resources implementing HR Case Management in ServiceNow:
1. Don’t be afraid to go live sooner than later. Return on investment is critical with ServiceNow platform. Try and launch the application quickly to gain immediate value. It is by far better to launch and learn the inherent functionality of the application, than take months or years to try and make sure everything is perfect. Remember to partner with Information Technology to plan out future phases, as well as to capture feedback from Human Resource employees and even more valuable, your customers.
2. Understand roles and responsibilities within the organization. Security is the biggest and most challenging portion of implementing HR Case Management. Knowing who should see what when is important and will help frame critical user stories that your Information Technology department will need when architecting security roles and permissions.
3. Keep calm and continue testing. Testing the application will not only reduce the stress of going live, but also allow you to better understand the functionality. Don’t rely only on your Information Technology department to do all the testing. Make sure to test different roles and make sure the security is meeting the requirements. Identify different users with the organization that have different roles, and then impersonate those users in the platform. This will help you understand what that user has access to, fields they can change, and what they are seeing in the application. Remember, security is critical to the success of doing HR Case Management in ServiceNow.
4. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Consider utilizing a similar taxonomy as your counter parts in Information Technology. Yeah, I threw down the T word! It is important. Speaking a similar language is important, and there is an entire framework established around managing tickets in Information Technology (It’s called ITIL) and can be easily applied to managing cases. Why reinvent the week and try to come up with unique names and waste valuable time trying to establish your own? For example, most technology teams utilize a priority for their tickets (Priority 1 is super important all the way to a Priority 5, not as critical), why wouldn’t you leverage this same framework for managing HR Related cases?
IT already knows that many business departments are evolving, and Human Resources shouldn’t allow themselves to be left behind! HR Case Management in ServiceNow is a huge value add, for both the HR department, and the business as a whole.
For more tips on managing the implementation of HR Case Management and other business applications on ServiceNow, click HERE!
Any questions? Comment below and we’ll do our best to answer.
