Things I wish I knew before launching my first HRIS project - Episode 2

People don't know what they don't know - and it's ok

Today, we will go through three rookie mistakes you don't want to make when implementing a new HR information system:

1/Create a feature wishlist:

Apple did not create Iphone by asking users which features they thought they needed. As Henry Ford mentioned, people don't want cars, they want faster horses.

On the other end, product engineers and your in-house experts love cool features and your vendor will most likely try to seduce you by showing how advanced his new features are.

Don't go there - it's a dead end. Most of your users don't care about the new 'cool' features, they just wan't to get their job done. Look at MS Excel - Everyone uses it, however most use only the most basic functionalities and that's all they need. Unless they need to fix a very hairy numbers problem, you won't be able to force someone to go to hours long tutorial, even if their life depended on it.

TLDR: Look for functionality, aka solving real world problems that matter the most to your end users. Work based on real life use cases and apply the 80/20 rule: focus on the 20% that will solve 80% of your problems.

2/ Start from your current processes

Disclaimer: This section does not apply to you if you belong to a very centralized organisation executing flawless processes. If that's you, well just copy and paste what your are currently doing in the new system and you're all set.

Let's face it Mr or Mrs Perfect, described above is an ultra minority. Most of us belong to the real world, where HR processes are somewhat messy and undocumented and would benefit for a good review.

Reviewing a core HR process is like working on a painting - starting from a clean white canvas is your best option. On the opposite, trying to merge existing processes seems easier, in the beginning, however you quickly end up in tricky situations.

Imagine you had 3 variations of your performance review system - One lead from Europe, the other one in APAC and the latter in the America's.

If your new process is mostly based on the previous European process, what is likely to happen. 'The Europeans pushed their performance management process down our throat, what we had before was a much better fit'. It's the 'not invented here' symptom.

TLDR: It's much harder to create a single company-wide core process by starting from your legacy processes, than starting from a clean slate. The clean slate re-opens people to new approaches and removes reference to your legacy processes.

3/Blindly go for so-called 'industry best practices'

Hey, wait why wouldn't I go for the commonly agreed standards instead of re-inventing the wheel ? Good question.

Most modern come with a library of pre-configured processes that you may well like 'off the shelf'. It's not a bad idea to use those templates as...templates !

One size fits all is a myth. Your organization has it owns set of challenges, specificities and your system should fit those requirements.

What difference does it make ? End user adoption !

Go and ask around HRIS users what's their main frustration with their current HRIS - more often that not, issues revolve around being sold a magic system and ending up with a new clunky HRIS, where one still needs multiple excel spreadsheets to get their job done.

TLDR: Make it fit you - Focus on your key processes with the end-user experience as your compass. It does not matter that the approval process for an off-cycle increase requires on average 3 signatures, if your organization can make one signature only work, so much the better - less time doing admin is always good.