Karen Higginbottom reports from the
HR management conference in Barcelona
The introduction of
e-HR has yielded savings of over £20m for IT services company Unisys.
Hubert De Neve, HR
business partner for Unisys, said e-HR was introduced in 1998 to empower the
employee and increase the efficiency of the department.
He told delegates at
the conference, organised by Management Centre Europe, that since the
introduction of the web-based application, there has been a 25 per cent
increase in the efficiency of the HR team.
Employees can build up
their own skills profile with the input of their managers, and develop their
own training programme.
If employees need
training, they can join an online course provided by the company’s in-house
university.
De Neve said managers
could not refuse approval for courses on the grounds of cost as the training
budget was centralised.
Other efficiency
savings include employees being able to change their addresses online.
As part of Unisys’
e-HR system managers can also see all HR policies and procedures.
De Neve said,
"Managers can change the base pay of employees or alter an employee’s cost
code if they transfer to another department. This has become part of the manager’s
responsibilities at Unisys."
In both cases, an
e-mail is automatically sent to the HR team to inform them of the manager’s
decision.
De Neve admitted there
had been problems with transferring over to e-HR. He said, "Within HR
there was an impact on morale, especially the compensation and benefits
specialists who initially felt that their power had been taken away."
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The HR team solved
this problem by getting them involved in other tasks, such as deciding the
budget for salaries.
