Solution Integration

Those outcomes are more effectively achieved by setting guiding principles to establish alignment with the anticipated needs of the business. This approach flows through to designing processes, organization, technologies, and third-party providers that collectively will deliver the clearly established desired outcomes. Across the delivery model solutions, creating an integrated solution that creates an “easy” experience for employees, managers, and leaders is critical to long-term performance.

Across the highly varied HR Transformation experiences among industries, one common thread runs throughout many: Most organizations deploy a “blend” of technologies and third-party providers in addition to internal capability to create the end-state model for delivering HR services as this typically yields the required combination of speed, cost, and quality.

The “blend” varies according to the particular needs of the organization. Typically, it involves the following components:

• A core Human Capital management technology. Organizations may either continue to leverage existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, or deploy a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution as the central system of record for employee data that acts as the overall “hub” for the solution.
• Best-of-breed point solutions. Many organizations are turning to “best-of-breed” solutions that can provide specific functionality with the most efficient/particularized features. The most common solutions include those that relate to talent, staffing, and learning and many are being delivered as SaaS solutions as well.
• Portals. Many organizations are deploying new portal solutions or extending their enterprise portals to “wrap” various solutions together into cohesive packages. The portals can provide employees with direct access into each of the solutions that make up an organization’s blended models, but also typically provide access to HR-related content, such as forms, policies, and other related key decision support material.
• Selective and strategic outsourcing. Organizations are reviewing the areas that make the most sense for outsourcing on a function-by-function basis instead of focusing on full-scale outsourcing. The most typical outsourcing candidates in the blended model include payroll, benefits, and absence management, but they can also include other areas depending on the specific needs of the organization.
• Internal shared services. Many organizations are deploying global, regional, and satellite shared services centers to most effectively fit the needs of delivering HR services to their global workforces. The focus of these shared services centers is to help create systems that adapt to the demands of flexible and fluid organizations. This means they can scale to deliver services to the entire organization while still being specialized enough to provide tailored services that can meet the specific needs of a regional or local employee population.

Implementing a blended HR service delivery model comes with its own set of challenges.