Forming a Partnership with IT – Part One

Getting Your System in the Door, and Up and Running

Let’s face it; the majority of HR professionals are hardly technology gurus. I don’t think many of you would argue with me on that point either. In working with customers, one of the biggest concerns I hear from HR leaders relates to how they can ensure their employee performance and talent management system is not too technical or that they will have to rely heavily on IT.

In most mid-market organizations, IT is stretched pretty thin, and asking them to support one more system, may be the difference between getting buy-in for the system or skipping it altogether. Often when HR needs support from IT, they are low on the priority list behind more business critical systems. The end result is that when looking to implement an employee performance and talent management system, HR needs to find ways to assure IT this won’t be a burden, that the implementation will be successful and that the investment won’t be too technical for HR to handle.

Here are a few ways to help you navigate your relationship with IT, and ensure you can get your talent management system in the door, and up and running successfully:

1. When looking for a solution, make sure it is user-friendly for all involved. Can employees easily navigate it? Can managers quickly access information? Can HR perform routine administrative tasks without support from IT? Do you have to rely on the vendor to introduce changes to the system? Who controls changing forms and processes? These are all good questions to ask, and to put to the test yourself, before committing to any solution. Take the time to play with the system as much as possible to ensure it will fit with your HR team’s level of technical savvy, as well as that of your employees. And check vendor references so you can talk to current customers to see if there were any gotchas that may come up later.

2. Look at implementation options. Every organization has a different approach to how solutions should be deployed. While one organization may prefer to have the system in-house, another may want it on-demand, or outsourced to the vendor. Consider your IT team’s resources when looking at these options, and as much as possible include them in the decision. Having the system deployed in-house isn’t going to be effective if IT can’t support it and an on-demand system won’t cut it if you have security requirements beyond what the vendor can provide.

3. Engage in a dialogue with IT. All too often, IT is brought into the selection process too late, and the HR team is stuck having to backtrack on decisions they’ve already made. Getting someone from IT onside early in your search for a solution and including them in evaluating vendors will make a major difference. They will have questions for the vendor that the average non-technical person wouldn’t come up with. And those questions can be very important to ensuring the success of your talent management system.

These are just a few simple ways to help start bridging the gap between IT and HR and ensure any new system is a win-win for all involved. Later this week I will look at how one of our customers was able to implement their talent management system with outstanding support from IT and drive an impressive ROI.