Human Capital Care at the Heart of IT Service Excellence

This global leader in assurance, tax and advisory services operates in over 150 countries with more than 150,000 people.

Faced with up to 100,000 HR enquiries per year, the organisation invited Devoteam to help streamline its customer care systems for greater efficiency, better security and lower operating cost.

Main challenges

Turning HR thought leadership into practice

Our client’s Human Capital Customer Care (HCCC) team is responsible for handling approximately 400 HR enquiries per day from staff as well as external applicants on a huge array of issues. With 300 of these made by telephone and 100 via a dedicated portal, the team of up to 100 users is able to resolve 70% of cases while passing more complex ones to resolve to other specialist sub-teams, such as Choices, Joiners, Life Events.

Our client places particular emphasis on the quality of care its staff receives with the HCCC team trained to take a sensitive and consultative approach to enquiries. Since 2000, the organisation has used a bespoke BMC Remedy application, hosted in a virtual environment over a Microsoft SQL Server database to handle these cases. However, with annual traffic reaching 100,000, the system needed major enhancements – a more intuitive and modern interface, improved security, better knowledge management, introduction of self-service, and integration with a new front office application to remove duplication.

Our client’s HR director describes the challenge in strategic terms: “Our Human Capital Transformation programme places new emphasis on the HCCC and the simplification / streamlining of processes within the HC domain. The functionality of the existing system has not been updated for seven years and during this time many systems and processes have been either introduced or modified. As a result, the core application is no longer aligned with working processes, resulting in inefficient and ineffective working practices.”

What did we solve?

Creating shared infrastructure services

To meet this wide-ranging brief, the client engaged Devoteam, a world leader in IT Service Excellence, to create a single platform that would consolidate its multiple individual solutions into an enterprise-wide application. Devoteam’s renowned capability in enterprise service management, which embraces an end-to-end portfolio of IT services for business, IT operations and dedicated global user support, would serve to enhance the client’s reputation internationally.

The HR Director commented: “We chose Devoteam as our strategic partner based on its understanding and proven experience of enterprise service management.”

Applying our unique implementation methodology, SMART, to the latest version of BMC Remedy AR system with its completely new development environment, Devoteam rewrote the HCCC system, introducing an array of new functions. We then integrated it with a strategic application written earlier for the client by Devoteam, Front Office HR system, which displays information from many different systems in one place.

Due to the nature of the information held in the old Remedy and knowledge management systems, it was essential to overhaul security by restricting access to authorised staff through proper validation of employees’ PIN credentials. The rewrite brought a modern look-and-feel as well as simplification of the case-logging process – no more complicated navigation of unintuitive screens which combined to frustrate the correct case-logging procedure. Pasting of duplicate information has been eliminated.

The workflow and screen detail also distinguish between staff and applicants. Call times to the helpdesk are reduced due to better navigation. In all, this is self-service as it should be.

Knowledge management has been transformed, too. Previously, emails from staff with updated case information were not always visible to the helpdesk team and could be lost, resulting in distributed data which contributed to lost cases, untimely management information for effective allocation of staff, inconsistent advice to customers, and breaches of the SLA.

Integration of the new HCCC application with the Front Office application ensures instant availability of information from multiple HC sources.

Devoteam successfully delivered the solution to plan. We also conducted comprehensive testing prior to release and equipped the client’s HCCC team with project documentation to help in the transfer of knowledge and skills. The HR director commented: “The changes proposed by this project complement our strategy and will significantly improve the functioning of HCCC. They will address known inefficiencies, plug security issues and optimise the utilisation of the HCCC teams.”

Main benefits

Joint enterprise of HR and IT delivers strategic value

In the current climate, with the need to derive the most from existing solutions rather than simply buy new ones, the HC Transformation project for the client proves that an IT solution can be directly applied to a business problem with tangible benefits. In this case, benefits include:

• faster HR problem resolution
• integrated view of the HCCC operation to deliver better management control
• a superior user experience for staff and joiners using the HCCC services
• leveraging an industry solution has saved money
• lower operational costs.

Talent management and service excellence share a bright future

Devoteam’s enhancements have helped the client secure its reputation as an employer which harnesses the wealth of human capital it has taken care to recruit over the years.

Neal McCrea, Devoteam Account Manager, said: “There are many potential uses inside this organisation which we have only just begun to explore, such as facilities management and integration of the HCCC application with the telephony system for labour-saving.”

The HCCC project realised a chief ambition of the client which aligns with true IT Service Excellence – to create shared infrastructure services while improving end-to-end performance through automated, flexible IT.