Is the customer always right?

I was travelling by train to a client's office yesterday and got caught in the problems at Euston station - if you missed it, all trains out of Euston were cancelled due to a powerline coming down. I was redirected via Marlebone station and the journey took 6 hours instead of 3!

The line was open again by the time I set off home but the trains still hadn't got back to normal. On the platform I overheard a woman shouting at an off duty Virgin Trains rep about how ridiculous this was and blaming them for all the problems. This individual customer was not right! Firstly it wasn't a problem caused by Virgin, it was the rail infrastructure company, and secondly this rep was doing a fantastic job of trying to help the woman - they were both trying to get home to the same place.

So, in the world of customer service the customer is not always right BUT it is our job to make them feel like they are.

The role of HR systems in a recession

I had a discussion earlier this week about the rights and wrongs of implementing a new HR system when a company is feeling the effects of a downturn. The case was put that a company can't justify implementing a new HR system because there are redundancies in the offing. The system in question would substantially streamline HR processes and give senior management vastly superior information with which to run the company!

You may feel that I am slightly biased - and you would be right. BUT the case still stands:

• HR is continually being told that it is a strategic function but is often buried with admin. If the system frees up time for them to think and act strategically it must be a good thing for the business;
• Huge amounts of time is being wasted on HR admin that a system is better at (eg holiday booking, sickness reporting, expense processing, data updating). Often the time is being spent outside of HR - managers pushing paper.
• Incorrect / incomplete data costs companies money and can lead to decisions based on bad information.
• Even the most basic HR reporting is taking hours to prepare and is therefore not timely. How long does it take to prepare a report showing headcount & salary cost by location an division? It shoduo be at available at teh push of a button.

If company has over 30 people there is a good case for a system, especially given the low cost of online systems (eg http://www.breathehr.com/). If a company has over 100 employees and an inefficient system then there are almost certainly cost savings to be made. The key is to not get too carried away with the wish list - the bells and whistles can come later when good times return.

A different way to run a company and manage people

For a while I have been hearing good things about a company called Patagonia, especially relating to the way they run their business. So to read a book by Patagonia's founder, Yvon Chouinard, was fascinating.

The company is run around eight philosophies:

• design


• production


• distribution


• image


• human resources


• finance


• management


• environment

Each philosophy is used as a guide rather than a set of rules and, for me, the approach can be summed up by their 'Let My People Go Surfing' flexitime policy - if the swell is good then go surfing in the afternoon or be there for the kids when they get off the school bus. Loyal happy employees wont take advantage of the system, and in fact will be more dedicated.

The whole plan seems to be around minimising the negative impact that the business has on the world and maximising the positive impact. They donate 1% of sales (not profit) to good causes.

If you are into finding out about different ways of managing people and business take a look at the book 'Let my people go surfing: an education of a reluctant businessman' by Yvon Chouinard. They also do great clothing! http://www.patagonia.com/

Great podcast

I have just listened to a great podcast on 'Opportunity in the Failure of Design' by a guy called William McDonough. He is the co-author of a book called Cradle to cradle. I'm glad there are people like him out there to offer solutions to fix the mess the rest of us are making of the world!

Have a listen at http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2073 and watch out for the piece about trees.

When to let someone else host your software.

There are an ever increasing number of hosted / online / SaaS applications available to business and it can be difficult to decide if that is the right route to take.

In short - most businesses have the choice of whether to host a business application themselves or to let someone else take the hassle of managing the server(s). If the choice is to let someone else host it, there is often a further choice - buy the license or pay on demand (eg per use or transaction etc).

As you would expect, the vendors will have a convincing argument in favour of their chosen route. Salesforce.com say hosted on demand is the route, SAP will say never, host it yourself. Some vendors will offer you the same product by two methods - Sage CRM (license and self hosted) vs SageCRM.com (ondemand).

Ondemand is tempting

• no up front costs
• no server costs
• usually easy exit route
• regular monthly payments
• BUT can be expensive over a longer term

The only way for a business to decide which approach to use, is by asking some common sense questions -

• How much will we rely on the system?
• Is it a long term investment in systems?
• Will it be business critical?
• How much do we have to spend?
• Can the company afford the capex?
• What options are available for the type of application we need?
• What capacity do we have on our servers?
• Does the company have the skills required to manage the application?
• Do we have the bandwidth to access the application?
• What level of support do we need?

There are a ton of other relevant questions but answering the above should give a good idea of the direction to take. And have this little Q&A session before you get too tempted by the salesman.

Hint: Talk to the consultants that implement the applications - they are more likely give you the true story and advise on the right approach for you. Beware though - if the consultant doesn't have a broad and unbiased knowledge they might send you to a favourite. Ever asked an Apple fan what they think of anything Microsoft!

Time to consider web based HR systems?

In general, businesses have been slow to take advantage of fully web enabled HR systems.

There seem to be a number of reasons for this:

• fear of loss of control of data
• concerns over security of data over the Internet
• and maybe the most important, the HR software industry hasn't provided really excellent systems!
  

Thankfully there is a good response to all of the above concerns and take up is increasing. There are significant benefits that web-based solutions offer over and above traditional systems

Top of the list of benefits when moving to a web system is that it allows HR processes to be deployed to all the appropriate members of the workforce wherever they are. Add to this the fact that the best systems allow users to configure and manage these processes from end to end. If access to processes is provided on a community basis there are huge time savings available. Managers will need to access a different range of processes (eg manage sickness) to their employees (eg book a holiday). And, of course, the HR department and key business managers will need access to a wide range of information across all areas of the business. When the ability to deploy and action HR processes to and from any location is combined with community based access, the result is like having an HR manager at every desk. Furthermore, with the demands on businesses to adapt to and support more flexible working practices continually growing, this remote access is crucial in enabling a mobile workforce.

At long last we are starting to see HR departments get the budgets and therefore the systems they deserve.

Putting HR back in control of their systems

It is critical that HR systems put HR and the business back in control of their own processes. In my view, this must begin with a revision of the idea of configurability. The big enterprise sofrware vendors (PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP etc) have made users scared of configuration - expensive, time consuming and rarely delivers on promise! Many HR systems will claim to be configurable. In reality, this means that they can be customised by developers who will build new code to define and support each nonpackaged process. This is a lengthy and prohibitively expensive process.

The latest generation of HR systems are succeeding in putting the business back in control. They allow processes to be easily configured by business users, and deployed in real time. If business users can easily map each common process, such as absence, holiday requests, appraisals, new contract offers, etc on to a configurable system, and then roll them out across the organisation immediately, the benefits that will result are far reaching. This should not be timeconsuming or expenseve and must deliver quick returns.

HR systems must free up HR to focus on strategic activities by significantly reducing the burden of repetitive administration without compromising on the business’ flexibility. Business users should be able to build in their own escalation and notification rules, meaning the system can manage data proactively to help informed and on-time decision making.

To read more about this topic you might want to visit my library page.