Friday, July 30, 2010




A-B-C's of Building Your HR Intranet

Why is the web compelling?

  • easy to use
  • easy to search
  • real time info on-line
  • cost-free distribution
  • easy to revise

Intranets

  • 8 times the growth of the Internet!

Potential Savings

  • slash payroll and other costs
  • Government of Singapore reduced manpower by 45% and slashed costs by up to 62% in some departments

Issues?

  • legal
  • security
  • regulatory
  • middle men and companies eliminated
  • changing distribution


A Live Example of an Intranet
Acme Fruit and Nut

Human Resources
http://www.caribinfo.com/intranet/HumanResources/home-humanresources.html

Employee Handbook
http://www.caribinfo.com/intranet/HumanResources/hrhandbook.html

Taking Vacations
http://www.caribinfo.com/intranet/HumanResources/hrhandbook.html#Vacations

Calendars and Schedules
http://www.caribinfo.com/intranet/HumanResources/hrcalendar/calendar96.html

Job Opportunities
http://www.caribinfo.com/intranet/HumanResources/hrjobs/home-hrjobs.html

EE Update Area
http://www.caribinfo.com/intranet/HumanResources/hreeupdates.html



The Birth and Growth of Intranets


There are good reasons to have an Intranet: Just make sure you know what they are.
- Al Doran, Canadian HR Reporter, April 7, 1997


Watson Wyatt Survey

Most popular attractions for web technology
  • Corporate Communications
  • Job Postings
  • Benefits & Retirement Plan Info
  • Training
  • Recruitment
  • Employee Opinion Surveys

Why is the Intranet Popular????
  • Backlash against traditional methods of development.
  • New tools are easier to use.

Problems?
  • YES!
  • I N T E G R A T I O N
  • Documentation

Why construct an Intranet?
  • Actually, Why NOT construct an Intranet? What will happen?
  • less efficient than competitors
  • cannot communicate with remote employees, partners, customers
  • cannot attract the best and brightest new employees

Selling Intranet to Management
  • Generally Less Threatening than Traditional IT Projects
  • you can start small
  • avoid major costs if already "wired"
  • security less of a concern if internal
  • project is an experiment

To set up an Intranet
  • Web server
  • Web browsers for client users
  • Web publishing tools
  • Web utilities, DB
  • Organizational Policies

Organizational Policies
  • Who is allowed to publish information?
  • What info may be retrieved and/or accessed?
  • Who is responsible for content?
  • Who is responsible for "look and feel"?
  • Who is responsibility for data quality?
  • Where should the project be located?
  • Where is the budget?

Chances of Success
  • Low, if just because its "Cool"
  • It MUST provide business value to the organization
  • It must change the way people carry out important business processes.

Success
  • Hinges on doing a good BPR analysis of existing processes, to see where the greatest improvements could be achieved.

Basics
  • An Intranet application is like any other system.

- You have to know who your (Potential) users are and how they will interact with the system to supply inputs, process data and cause actions/processing to be carried out.

Must
  • You cannot build a good intranet unless you have a good understanding of the content the user will see and how users will navigate through the system.
  • Planning for an Intranet requires a careful data model before design begins.

Intranet Development Life Cycle
  • BPR
  • Why are we doing this?
  • What are problems with current process?
  • What org changes are required to support new process?

Requirements Analysis
  • What user-data and user-processing requirements do we need to support?

Design
  • hardware
  • software
  • architecture

Implementation

May include:
  • HTML
  • CGI/PERL
  • Java
  • ActiveX
  • etc......

Testing
  • like any other system, we must find out if it works!

Establish Test Criteria
  • Have a scale to get results

Maintenance
  • Ongoing and frequent changes will be expected

Integration Issues

Users are now expecting:
  • e-mail
  • Web browsing
  • HTML creation
  • etc....
  • All integrated!
  • e.g., Microsoft Office 97

Project Best Practices
  • Do make sure the users and developers share a common vision.
  • Do provide visible active leadership.
  • Do ensure partnership participation.
  • Do provide proper team training.
  • Do follow appropriate development methodology
  • Do ensure that you have flexible teams because this will continue to evolve
  • Do include emphasis on continued quality improvement.

Checklist for Intranet Project
  • Identify goals and objectives
  • Identify potential users
  • Identify needs that will be filled
  • Identify benefits with ROI analysis
  • Launch a pilot project
  • Develop formal plans (e.g. publishing policies)

What needs to be done?

TIP: Survey/Interview the Help Desk!

Identify Benefits
  • "better information" hard to quantify
  • cost real events such as benefit inquiry
  • leads to more calls
  • with web, one visit may do the job

Estimating, Scheduling, Budgeting
  • most tools do not cover internet projects
  • not enough past history - bench mark
  • prototyping works in many cases
  • keep project under control, have goals, estimates, schedules, and a budget
  • divide tasks into must do, should do, and could do.

Intranet Project Team
  • User Representatives
- will use the system
- know the business
- they will identify requirements, provide input, test system

  • System Analyst to assist with user requirements study
  • Project Manager
- scope out the project
- estimate work to be done
- estimate and track resources
- budget
- lead the team
- report to management
  • data base manager - storage of data base - files, tables
  • graphics artist/designer - visual contents
  • HTML language lawyer
  • application programmers
  • networking specialist
  • testing/QA specialist
  • security specialist

Pilot Projects
  • technology is changing rapidly
  • keep project under 6 months, or even 3
  • results are obvious early
  • costs are kept down
  • low risk
  • use consultants where necessary
  • share the successes

Training
  • This is new technology for all of us!
  • Exposure training for whole team
  • high level training where needed
  • Web publishing training for all - html
  • how to set up and administer an intranet
  • training on tools, Java, etc.

Policies
  • Key activity - do it early - avoid problems later
  • who can create new content
  • who is responsible for look and feel
  • who is responsible for integrity of data
  • who is allowed access

Planning
  • Who will do the work
  • Skill shortage
  • html is easy to learn
  • most systems engineering issues familiar to IT

Managing Expectations
  • Avoid image of "instant profits"
  • What are the actual Cost Benefits
  • Most projects underestimate planning and administration effort
  • Internet easier to learn, but...

Self Service
  • change of address
  • change emergency contact
  • change phone number - phone book
  • benefits admin
  • time reporting
  • scheduling - leave and attendance
  • training registration

Recruiting and Staffing
  • amazing interest

Other
  • Salary admin
  • Benefits admin
  • Performance management
  • training
  • basic admin - forms
  • Corporate policies

Policies

Metaphors: Use Tabs
Digests

Tips
  • Lots of white space
  • Colours, subliminal message
  • Follow hierarchy

Salary and Benefits
  • Salary
  • Benefits

Access
  • Interface to HRMS
- Access employee information
- Access to reports

Other Lessons Learned
  • Use 2nd Person Voice in Design

Success Stories

Bank of Montreal
HewlettPackard
Hong Kong Bank of Canada

Other Resources

Corporate Intranets I
Corporate Intranets II
Corporate Intranets III



Al Doran is president of Phenix Management International, a Toronto management consulting firm specializing in human resource management system (HRMS) issues. He is co-author of the 1997 HRMS book published by Nelson Canada titled, Human Resource Management Systems.

He may be reached at: aldoran(at)pmiHRM.com and his home page is http://www.pmihrm.com/.

-Al Doran, CHRP
Copyright (c) 1999 Phenix Management Int'l

Phenix Management Int'l
10520 Yonge St., Unit 35B, Suite 217
Richmond Hill, ON, Canada L4C 3C7
phone: 416-505-6204 fax: 416-352-7456
aldoran(at)pmihrm.com
http://www.pmihrm.com

 


 

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