Implementation of HR Technology helps in streamlining HR processes, reducing overheads and time taken to generate reports/information. following are the experts from an interview with Shyaam Sunder K, Practice Head - Ramco Systems

1. HCM FUNCTION
PLAYS A STRATEGIC ROLE
Implementation of HR Technology helps in streamlining HR processes,
reducing overheads and reduces time taken to generate reports/information.
Following are the excerpts from an interview with Shyaam Sunder K,
Practice Head - HCM, Ramco Systems
W
hat benefits should companies expect It is also vital to gather what skills and resources are available today
from implementing HR Technology? and what is their path of evolution, and what skills must be acquired,
What are the mechanisms to track those purchased, or contracted.
benefits?
HR Technology aids in ensuring that processes in companies are How would you define Human Capital Management
executed in a consistent manner. By monitoring access and actions (HCM) and employee talent/skill management?
upon these technologies, and critically assessing its use, one can Human Capital Management is a strategic focal point in any orga-
improve consistency in usage. nization. It seeks to create people capacities, and align these ca-
Implementing HR Technology is an opportunity to revisit the roles pacities to suit the organization’s goals, with sound risk control and
and responsibilities around HR processes. This should help identify reward programs. It cuts across the strategic business units of an
and eliminate duplication of roles and tasks, and the disparities in organization, supporting it by successfully executing processes
the style of execution which will in turn reduce overheads. Post such as recruitment, training, performance appraisal and succes-
implementation, it will be possible to measure the cost to run the sion management.
HR process. Cost Heads are typically people and infrastructure and Talent Management is a program that seeks to identify the generic
organizations should benefit from cost reductions. attributes of successful people and then executing a program that
Also giving system access to employees through self service en- is targeted toward ensuring a prevalence of these attributes in
sures that employees transact on their own and get their own an-
swers. Post implementation, the number of calls HR Department
receives for support, and the time taken to service these calls should
be practically nil.
The time taken to generate reports and information is easily mea-
surable-what was time and effort taken to generate a set of re-
ports before and after the implementation? Reports are available
real time.
How can one assess which product and delivery
system fits the requirement of the company? What
is your recommendation for those looking for the
right fit?
It is imperative to first understand your HR goals and targets –
these should be broken up as HR functions to be automated, re-
ports to be delivered, process owners and information recipients.
A good way would be to draw up a hierarchy of goals, programs to
achieve those goals, processes and deliverables that fit those pro-
grams, etc.
It is also important to understand your company’s IT goals – what
does the IT landscape look like today and how should it evolve. What
are the technologies employed today? What is going to be phased
out and what is going to be upgraded.
Shyaam Sunder K

2. the organization. Processes such as recruitment, behavioral train- 1. Query Handling Efficiencies through ESS: In an organization
ing, employee elections, succession and career management sup- with 1000+ employees for instance, the HR department
port talent management program. services 20,000 – 30,000 queries annually. Assuming that each
query takes an average 15 minutes to service, a maximum of
What role does Human Capital Management play 7500 Person-Hours of time can be saved. The monetary
in shaping the organization? equivalent can be assessed depending on the people costs.
The HCM function plays a strategic role - business leaders see them- Managerial self-service (records managers can access) helps
selves as Human Capital Managers. improve the decision making process as information
availability is real time and accuracy is assured largely. This
Ideally, the style and criticality of the HCM function, and therefore
leads to tremendous saving in cost, though difficult to
the role that it plays, depends on the coordinates of the organiza-
quantify at times.
tion in the business lifecycle. A start-up is perhaps more centrally
administered with knowledge of the ‘how’ being known to very few 2. Reporting. Reports and information can be published real time
people. Here HCM plays an administrative role as the need of the at the touch of a button. Thus, if a report is needed 10 times in
hour is people who execute the strategies in a controlled manner. a year and it takes 7 minutes to generate the report, post imple-
mentation, this time is completely cut. An organization with
As the organization transitions into the growth phase, the HCM
1000 + employees will use 100+ reports each of which would
function can start to run talent management programs that will
take at least 10 minutes to generate. This time is fully cut after
help the organization in acquiring necessary capabilities for busi-
a system is put in place.
ness success.
3. Electronic Publications from the HR Department: The sys-
In the maturity phase, it monitors what should be well-established
tem enables the automatic publication of documents such as
processes and bolsters its efforts in de-risking the organization
the training calendar (general to all employees) or KPI (spe-
from people perspective by putting together a succession
cific to individual employees). These processes can also be
management program.
automated and FTE cuts are possible here to.
Human Capital Management is a strategic focal point
in any organization. It seeks to create people capacities,
and align these capacities to suit the organization’s goals
What should an organization look for in an HR 4. Error Minimization: Record errors can be cut down by the
Technology vendor? validations, both functional (say of Salary) and technical. Though
Vendor selection has always had the same bases: proven expertise in this is difficult to measure, Ramco’s implementation (apart from
delivery, fit of the technology to the organization, and finally the the standard validations it also performs customer specific
ownership parameters such as money outflow to acquire the solu- validations) has been seen to correct Payroll, especially in in-
tion and the time frame. Customers sometimes go beyond this to volved computations such as incentive and provident fund,
look at some additional capabilities like product or people capaci- improving Payroll accuracy. If one were to account for the le-
ties, tools, etc. Obsolescence of technology and portability are other gal liabilities associated with erroneous payroll payouts, the
factors in this complex decision, though these are eventual issues. ROI in this can be easily ajudged.
Customers should critically evaluate a vendor on their ability to 5. Best Practices and Workflow: Knowing the availability of a
deliver the IT experience that they are looking for while harness- skill is another important measure. Internal succession is
ing a globe of resources. An IT experience is a function of the prod- cheaper than recruitment. This statement is almost axiom-
uct content, people, processes and the associated technologies. atic. Thus, in system such as Ramco HCM, vacancies announced
can be examined for internal succession, before raising a Hire
What business value does Ramco offer to its cus- Indent. This is just an example of how the base product
tomers? workflow and its best practices can help cut costs by influenc-
Ramco Human Capital Management Solution (HCM) manifests it- ing decision makers to consider options that save the organi-
self in the form of product documents, business rules, workflow and zation; time and money. Another example is the goal cascad-
reporting. Given the platform based delivery methodology, the ing process, which help the oragnization assign perforamnce
product can be implemented as it is, or configured to deliver orga- goals to employees that are line with management expecta-
nization specific behaviors. Thus the basic goals of HR like process tions. All the 110 components in the solution are founded in
streamlining, establishing controls (statutory or otherwise), and such best practices.
employee-business alignment is achieved.
Apart from this, there are intangible returns such improved
What is a realistic cost saving that will be derived employee morale etc.
from implementation of HR Technology?
From Ramco’s experience, tangible cost savings can be measured in
three parts: