Common problems faced during an HR transformation project

Common problems faced during an HR transformation project.

4 September 2022

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Organisations undertake an HR transformation journey for a variety of reasons. It could be driven by cost savings, simplified recruitment and onboarding, improved reporting, employee satisfaction or just overall efficiency. With more organisations leaning towards cloud technologies and SaaS providers to support their HR transformation, the complexities of such projects are on the rise, and can make for a stressful journey.

In this article, our specialists explore some of the common problems faced by organisations as they embark on their transformation journey, and simple actions that can be taken to alleviate these pressures.

End-to-end project management

When undertaking a digital transformation, the project team may concentrate on certain aspects of the implementation while losing focus on some of the additional critical aspects of a major transformation. During the planning phase of the project, it is important to identify all of the transformational activities and prepare the resourcing accordingly.

Organisations that omit this critical planning are often left to manage important elements themselves as the go-live approaches. This often has major impacts on scope, resourcing and costs. Some examples include unclear or poorly documented project artefacts, mis-used or improperly implemented project management tools, lack of governance, weak stakeholder engagement, etc.

A comprehensive Statement of Work

The statement of work (SoW) is the key contract between the customer and the system integrator. In some cases, the SoW may omit critical transformational activities in an attempt to reduce costs. It is important for the client to understand the entire scope of work in a transformation, regardless of the costs. 

In the case that the client accepts responsibility for some areas of the project, it is important to document these explicitly in the SoW as exclusions. Some examples include change management, training, communications, operating model, etc.

Holistic view of the current IT landscape

When tackling an HR transformation, the organisation is presented with an opportunity to review the current state of their network landscape and, during the transformation, solve underlying systemic problems with the existing architecture. Part of the planning process of any transformation should include a current state architecture review and the design of the target state solution.

The impacts of skipping an architectural review can include duplication of services and increased costs as a result, degradation of employee services such as payroll, absence, etc., and increased maintenance complexity and costs.

Risk analysis and mitigation

An experienced team is required to be able to identify risks that are present in any transformation project. Many seasoned leaders may not have the experience necessary to be able to identify hidden risks in a large HR transformation project. These risks may lead to critical issues later in the project.

Examples include missing critical project team roles, inexperienced team members, underestimating scope, underestimating project timelines, not adhering to best practices, etc.

Communication and Stakeholder Engagement

Large digital transformation projects such as these usually involve multiple stakeholders, including HR, Finance, Payroll and IT. It is important to keep the key stakeholders from these business units deeply involved in the project. 

These stakeholders must have solid representation at the table during all phases of the project including the plan, design and test phases. The leaders need to be included in the steering committee in order to be involved in key decisions along the way. The stakeholders need to be reinforcing all communications from the project to their teams in order to prepare them for the upcoming changes.

Takeaways

Whilst these projects are challenging, there are steps you can take to help you on your journey. Most important, is taking a holistic approach and ensuring a software solution is tailored to fit your organisational needs and not the other way around.

If you have any questions or want to talk to someone about your HR transformation project, please contact one of our PwC specialists. We would be more than happy to have an open discussion about your ambitions and plans.