Cable
& Wireless will cut its HR costs by a third in three years as a result of
its e-HR programme, which has been rolled out in the US, the UK and Japan.
Martin
Reddington, programme director of e-HR Transformation at the global
telecommunications group, said by 2004 the business expects to pay £1,500 per
head for HR. The current cost is £2,300, including training and recruitment.
At
the HR Summit 2001 in Switzerland last week he said the 400-strong HR
department will be “slimmed down”. The company is in talks with staff
representatives about numbers.
Reddington
said, “If you have some e-HR function and retain the existing head count there
is something wrong in the equation.”
The
e-HR programme – called Hrxpress – takes in personnel administration and
transactions like assessment and development, performance management and reward
management. Areas specific to different countries like labour laws are still
carried out by the back offices.
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“We
have been working on this for eight months and it has been a massive learning
curve. Everyone in the team has been trying to secure the best process for the
business across the globe,” Reddington said.
In
the UK the take-up of Hrxpress was 35 per cent of the 9,000 staff in the first
few days. In Japan, there was 100 per cent take-up in the first week.
