Web-based HR services allow the personnel professionals that are left to devote more time to strategic business issues, an expert in the field has claimed.
Martin Stockton, e-HR Practice Executive at IBM said the company’s new e-HR facility – which provides a personalised HR service to managers and employees across Europe, The Middle East and Africa – has allowed IBM’s HR staff to concentrate on core strategic issues.
He said: "By creating a collaborative, "self service" environment for the majority of issues, employees have the latest available information at their fingertips and the HR function is able to concentrate on critical strategic activities."
The facility, in Portsmouth is based on Internet and telephone service centre, which can provide information to 16 countries in 10 languages.
As a result of the new e-enabled systems, IBM has reduced the number of HR professionals serving the region from 1,100 to 900.
Employees and managers contact the centre initially by Internet but they are referred to a trained HR professional fluent in their language if a problem cannot be solved at the first visit.
The system is part of a global Internet HR system that is already up and running across the world.
IBM has been reorganising its global HR system over the past five years and the new system has enabled it to cut operating costs by 57 per cent.
And the computer giant boasts employee satisfaction is now riding high at 90 per cent as a result of the new e-enabled global system.
IBM has internally branded the system Ask-HR to encourage employees to use it and claims it will adapt the system according to demand.
Stockton added: "Because IBM’s new e-HR solution is based on web technology and best-of-breed HR solutions, it is easy to adapt as the business grows."
by Richard Staines
