Why you should consider ongoing technical administrative support for your HRIS
So your HRIS is all set up, implemented and rolled out to your organisation! You have your HR and IT team members in place that your solution provider has trained to manage your system. But is that enough?
Reasons for considering ongoing support with a Managed Services Provider
Ensuring that you are making the most of your HRIS is strategic to meeting the needs of your people and organisation, delivering against the original investment, and showing an ROI.
Despite having a competent internal team, most companies lack the in-house flexibility, capacity and specific skill set to turn a system launch into a long-term success. In addition to maintaining the HR system and keeping up to date with enhancements, organisations must also provide support to end users
Working with a specialised HRIS Managed Services partner can ensure that your system is future-proofed and continues to deliver on your requirements as the organisation evolves.
So what are the benefits?
When effectively executed, having a Managed Services provider for your HR System is equivalent to having a specialist HR technical administrative assistant for all your system requirements. The typical cost and investment of recruitment, training, coaching of new users, equipment and personnel are absorbed by the managed services provider and presented as an affordable fixed monthly fee. This helps to predict monthly costs when budgeting and enables you to scale your HRIS to address your company's requirements. In addition, since a managed service plan includes all the resources you need to handle your HR System activities, it saves you from having to hire or upskill people with that specific skill set.
Aside from the cost consideration, there are several other noteworthy benefits, which include:
Increased Productivity
Distributing the task of administering your HR System to a number of people within your HR and IT team may seem like a good idea for distributing the workload efficiently and saving on costs. However, this approach often proves counterproductive, resulting in reduced productivity and employee dissatisfaction with little to show for their efforts.
More time to focus on the value-added task
Time spent managing your HR system could be better invested in the more strategic aspects of your HR and IT team members' roles and business goals whilst leaving the more complex and erroneous tasks in the hands of trusted experts. Additionally, instead of hoping your existing staff can help you navigate HR system issues, it can help your business if you let them focus on their roles, while an outsourced support team gives you the on-demand expertise to get any issues quickly resolved.
Expertise and shared learning
By engaging with a Managed Services provider, you gain the capability of an HRIS/IT Department with highly experienced consultants. This resource and support provides peace of mind by combining a unique blend of HR, technical and process expertise to deliver focused support to your HRIS, continually improving your system, making your business smarter, and opening more opportunities.
Unlike your in-house team, whose focus is understandably on the business, the members of the managed services team have a wide range of experience gained from supporting multiple clients in addressing issues and requirements for your HR system. This can be particularly important when addressing a complex system issue, as the outsourced team can provide ideas and solutions that your internal HR and IT teams might be unable to. An outside perspective can also be invaluable in detecting and recognising any system issues, identifying and defining a problem, fact finding and developing a clear picture of the problem, providing a solution and helping you to execute that solution.
Knowledge sharing is also empowerment. By working in partnership with an established and experienced managed services provider, they can coach and guide your teams to confidently manage the system.
Future proofing of your HRIS
All HR systems have periodic updates released by the solution provider, which users are often unaware of. A managed services provider has advanced knowledge of any new system features and functionality and can guide you through these and ensure that you take advantage of them.
Additionally, a consultant can help to identify any areas in your system which may need further development and improve processes to get a higher return on investment. With business processes changing over time, your system will need to adapt and change to continue supporting the business. Your managed services provider will be able to assist with these ongoing data and conversion requirements.
Post implementation review
It is always beneficial to undertake a review of your system once implemented to ensure that the project's original goals were met. If there are gaps, your managed services provider can identify them and help you address them.
Also, with any system implementation, there are often 'parking lot' or phase 2 items to implement. These items may not have been deemed essential for the phase one go live or in the project's original scope, but they should not be deprioritised. Instead, with ongoing support, you can review these items, gather new requirements and roll them out over an agreed timeline.
In Summary
Regardless of whether you are busy implementing a new HR system or have just rolled one out to your organisation, it is important to ensure that you have a support plan in place.
Managed Services support for your Sage People HR System
Tugela People has an experienced Managed Services team to support the Sage People HR System. Find out more about our managed services support for Sage People.