Mergers and acquisitions are making HR departments shopping for HRMS software think about future growth and long-term system integration. At Maple Leaf Foods, headquartered in Toronto, implementation of a comprehensive suite of human resources software solutions has been an ongoing process since 1998, when it was introduced on a pilot basis at Canada Bread Company Limited, one of the corporation’s 14 independent operating companies or IOCs, as they’re called.
Maple Leaf Foods and Canada Bread consider the implementation a success that illustrates the complexities of today’s dynamic business environment, and the challenges that they pose for human resources and other departments.
There are about 17,000 employees under the umbrella of Maple Leaf Foods, about 6,000 of them with Canada Bread. In 1998, when Canada Bread, which also has headquarters in Toronto, had only about 3,000 employees, it was looking for a comprehensive suite of HR applications that could also interface with the new payroll system, says Vince Fornella, HR manager at Canada Bread.
“We needed an HR system, and because we were part of Maple Leaf, it was decided that the search for a system would be a combined effort,” he says. At the time, Canada Bread was using an HR system that had been written in-house in 1992.
At that time, there was recognition of the need, sooner or later, for “a global or corporate standard for an HR-type application that would support Maple Leaf Foods globally,” says Kevin Charbonneau, director of application development in Maple Leaf’s corporate information systems department.
The selection group included HR leaders from all the Maple Leaf companies, who developed a list of requirements and agreed to have Canada Bread undergo the pilot implementation. Part of what they were looking for was an HR system that would operate on a client/server basis through Maple Leaf’s nation-wide computer network.
That means that the product essentially feeds into a large, centralized data repository that can be accessed from any of the Canada Bread sites. Information is up to date and consolidated for the entire organization, making it easier to generate strategic reports based on current information.
The decision to go with HRWare’s product was based partly on the fact that is was the most comprehensive package for the price, says Charbonneau. The system was also Microsoft-centric, and most importantly, “once it was installed, we could make changes to it. It was structured so that we could basically align it better to our processes and make those changes internally, without having to go to HRWare all the time.”
Rod Snyder is a business systems analyst with Maple Leaf’s corporate information systems department, specializing in HR and payroll applications. He was on the original selection committee, and was responsible for the implementation project at Canada Bread, as well as for other Maple Leaf organizations.
He recalls the Canada Bread implementation struggle vividly. “It was, to be very honest, murder.” Part of the problem was simply that “there were 125 different locations that you could define in the system and no standardization.” Three businesses had been amalgamated to form Canada Bread, and each one was used to its own way of doing things.
Despite the problems encountered with the pilot implementation at Canada Bread, “it has been just tremendous,” says Snyder. He’s responsible for training, and there’s an administrator responsible for the HRWare system at each of the IOCs who can call him if there’s a problem, but “To be honest, once it’s in, I feel like the Maytag repairman.”
After successive implementations, the process is almost routine now. It has been left to IOCs to make the decision to implement the HR package if they have funds in their budget, and the system continues to spread throughout the Maple Leaf organization.
Snyder says there are numerous lessons from the Canada Bread implementation. One is that HR has to know what it wants to do, and commit resources to doing it. “You definitely have to get them involved, and you have to get them wanting it,” he says.
Ontario-based HRWare, obtained exclusive Canadian rights to the software — branded in Canada as HRWare Empower — in the mid-1990s through a license from PWA Group Limited in the United Kingdom. Since the Empower implementation at Canada Bread, PWA was acquired by Great Plains, which was in turn acquired by Microsoft. As a result, HRWare is now a “Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions Partner.”
Canada Bread has expanded significantly since 1998, doubling the number of employees while increasing sales from $500 million to more than $1 billion. Most of the company’s acquisitions didn’t have an HR system, says Charbonneau. “Most of them of course had payroll, but in terms of HR it was mostly manual records.”
In 2001, Maple Leaf Foods acquired Quebec-based Multi Marques Inc., a company that consisted of three companies with 12 bakeries. Each of the entities had its own system, but nothing was as sophisticated as the HRWare product, says David Aird, Canada Bread IS analyst responsible for HR.
“One of the challenges that we have now with the Multi Marques acquisition is that we have to make the system fully bilingual,” says Aird. But Fornella notes that Canada Bread had identified the fact that it would eventually need a bilingual HR system when it bought the HRWare package.
“We’re a national company, and we were growing, and our intent was to become the primary bread company or bakery in Canada, and that would include Quebec,” says Fornella. “It was just a matter of time.”
During the initial implementation phase at Canada Bread, Charbonneau was asked to prepare a report with a recommendation about whether to proceed or not. After a detailed analysis in 1999, he concluded that the product was sound, but the implementation process needed some refinement. One of his recommendations was to get the information technology staff more engaged.
One issue he identified was that extent of HR resources required to implement the new system had been underestimated. Another implementation challenge was the fact that there were two separate but related projects happening at the same time, one for payroll and the other for HR. “That complicated matters,” Charbonneau notes.
“We’ve made significant changes to the application. We’ve also integrated it into our payroll system and our ERP system,” he says. “There’s a lot of functionality inherent in the product that we’re not using to the full extent.”
Head count tracking and analysis were put in place, with some customization. Salary and bonus administration have been partially implemented, but also underwent some customization. Benefits administration was tackled separately, but has been put in place.
The package is being used to track applicants. There is also “more functionality than we require” for fleet administration and company asset tracking (such as identification cards, keys, laptop computers and other items), Charbonneau says.
Provisions for succession planning haven’t yet been implemented. Neither has the labour administration module. A module for workers’ compensation boards requires a third-party add-on, and hasn’t been implemented to date, says Charbonneau.
Based on the Canada Bread experience, three of Maple Leaf’s other divisions or IOCs have subsequently implemented the HR package: Maple Leaf Consumer Foods, Maple Leaf Pork and Maple Leaf Bakery, U.S.A.
Meanwhile, the HRWare package “has been enhanced many times over,” not only to interface with other applications but to accommodate performance assessment and other functions. In the U.S., there is also mandatory reporting of minority hiring, and retirement savings, known as 401Ks, differ from their Canadian equivalents.
Few of the HR personnel were exposed to this kind of technology until they joined Canada Bread, and have never had information available at their fingertips before, says Fornella. “Once they go through the training and understand the capabilities, they’re extremely excited about what it can do.”
As they become more competent using the system, they become increasingly sophisticated users, and learn to draw more and more information out of the system, that enables them to make more competent decisions based on live information rather than on static information that might be a week old or a couple of months old.
It also facilitates automation of previously manual processes, such as mailings to employees in a given geographic area, says Aird. A letter can be prepared in minutes instead of days.
“If I want to do costing on our benefits, by group or by location, I click a few buttons and I get it. If I want to do a compensation analysis, or salary plan development, I click a few buttons and I have it. In the ‘good old days,’ those kinds of things took an army of people days or weeks to accomplish,” Aird says.
Fornella says the changes didn’t result in downsizing of the HR department. He says that in his experience, the focus and function of staff change as the new technology is implemented. “What generally happens is that once people understand its capabilities, you get more demands for information,” which means there’s work that wasn’t expected before. In addition, data input is required to keep the information current, and the system requires maintenance. The focus of HR staff simply shifts to doing things that “contribute to the organization, within the HR function.”
He and Aird say it’s hard to calculate any return on the investment. “There are hard costs and soft costs,” says Aird. “I know the HR function is more efficient because we have the system in place, which means we’re spending less time pushing paper and more time being strategic in the HR function.”
Maple Leaf Foods and Canada Bread consider the implementation a success that illustrates the complexities of today’s dynamic business environment, and the challenges that they pose for human resources and other departments.
There are about 17,000 employees under the umbrella of Maple Leaf Foods, about 6,000 of them with Canada Bread. In 1998, when Canada Bread, which also has headquarters in Toronto, had only about 3,000 employees, it was looking for a comprehensive suite of HR applications that could also interface with the new payroll system, says Vince Fornella, HR manager at Canada Bread.
“We needed an HR system, and because we were part of Maple Leaf, it was decided that the search for a system would be a combined effort,” he says. At the time, Canada Bread was using an HR system that had been written in-house in 1992.
At that time, there was recognition of the need, sooner or later, for “a global or corporate standard for an HR-type application that would support Maple Leaf Foods globally,” says Kevin Charbonneau, director of application development in Maple Leaf’s corporate information systems department.
The selection group included HR leaders from all the Maple Leaf companies, who developed a list of requirements and agreed to have Canada Bread undergo the pilot implementation. Part of what they were looking for was an HR system that would operate on a client/server basis through Maple Leaf’s nation-wide computer network.
That means that the product essentially feeds into a large, centralized data repository that can be accessed from any of the Canada Bread sites. Information is up to date and consolidated for the entire organization, making it easier to generate strategic reports based on current information.
The decision to go with HRWare’s product was based partly on the fact that is was the most comprehensive package for the price, says Charbonneau. The system was also Microsoft-centric, and most importantly, “once it was installed, we could make changes to it. It was structured so that we could basically align it better to our processes and make those changes internally, without having to go to HRWare all the time.”
Rod Snyder is a business systems analyst with Maple Leaf’s corporate information systems department, specializing in HR and payroll applications. He was on the original selection committee, and was responsible for the implementation project at Canada Bread, as well as for other Maple Leaf organizations.
He recalls the Canada Bread implementation struggle vividly. “It was, to be very honest, murder.” Part of the problem was simply that “there were 125 different locations that you could define in the system and no standardization.” Three businesses had been amalgamated to form Canada Bread, and each one was used to its own way of doing things.
Despite the problems encountered with the pilot implementation at Canada Bread, “it has been just tremendous,” says Snyder. He’s responsible for training, and there’s an administrator responsible for the HRWare system at each of the IOCs who can call him if there’s a problem, but “To be honest, once it’s in, I feel like the Maytag repairman.”
After successive implementations, the process is almost routine now. It has been left to IOCs to make the decision to implement the HR package if they have funds in their budget, and the system continues to spread throughout the Maple Leaf organization.
Snyder says there are numerous lessons from the Canada Bread implementation. One is that HR has to know what it wants to do, and commit resources to doing it. “You definitely have to get them involved, and you have to get them wanting it,” he says.
Ontario-based HRWare, obtained exclusive Canadian rights to the software — branded in Canada as HRWare Empower — in the mid-1990s through a license from PWA Group Limited in the United Kingdom. Since the Empower implementation at Canada Bread, PWA was acquired by Great Plains, which was in turn acquired by Microsoft. As a result, HRWare is now a “Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions Partner.”
Canada Bread has expanded significantly since 1998, doubling the number of employees while increasing sales from $500 million to more than $1 billion. Most of the company’s acquisitions didn’t have an HR system, says Charbonneau. “Most of them of course had payroll, but in terms of HR it was mostly manual records.”
In 2001, Maple Leaf Foods acquired Quebec-based Multi Marques Inc., a company that consisted of three companies with 12 bakeries. Each of the entities had its own system, but nothing was as sophisticated as the HRWare product, says David Aird, Canada Bread IS analyst responsible for HR.
“One of the challenges that we have now with the Multi Marques acquisition is that we have to make the system fully bilingual,” says Aird. But Fornella notes that Canada Bread had identified the fact that it would eventually need a bilingual HR system when it bought the HRWare package.
“We’re a national company, and we were growing, and our intent was to become the primary bread company or bakery in Canada, and that would include Quebec,” says Fornella. “It was just a matter of time.”
During the initial implementation phase at Canada Bread, Charbonneau was asked to prepare a report with a recommendation about whether to proceed or not. After a detailed analysis in 1999, he concluded that the product was sound, but the implementation process needed some refinement. One of his recommendations was to get the information technology staff more engaged.
One issue he identified was that extent of HR resources required to implement the new system had been underestimated. Another implementation challenge was the fact that there were two separate but related projects happening at the same time, one for payroll and the other for HR. “That complicated matters,” Charbonneau notes.
“We’ve made significant changes to the application. We’ve also integrated it into our payroll system and our ERP system,” he says. “There’s a lot of functionality inherent in the product that we’re not using to the full extent.”
Head count tracking and analysis were put in place, with some customization. Salary and bonus administration have been partially implemented, but also underwent some customization. Benefits administration was tackled separately, but has been put in place.
The package is being used to track applicants. There is also “more functionality than we require” for fleet administration and company asset tracking (such as identification cards, keys, laptop computers and other items), Charbonneau says.
Provisions for succession planning haven’t yet been implemented. Neither has the labour administration module. A module for workers’ compensation boards requires a third-party add-on, and hasn’t been implemented to date, says Charbonneau.
Based on the Canada Bread experience, three of Maple Leaf’s other divisions or IOCs have subsequently implemented the HR package: Maple Leaf Consumer Foods, Maple Leaf Pork and Maple Leaf Bakery, U.S.A.
Meanwhile, the HRWare package “has been enhanced many times over,” not only to interface with other applications but to accommodate performance assessment and other functions. In the U.S., there is also mandatory reporting of minority hiring, and retirement savings, known as 401Ks, differ from their Canadian equivalents.
Few of the HR personnel were exposed to this kind of technology until they joined Canada Bread, and have never had information available at their fingertips before, says Fornella. “Once they go through the training and understand the capabilities, they’re extremely excited about what it can do.”
As they become more competent using the system, they become increasingly sophisticated users, and learn to draw more and more information out of the system, that enables them to make more competent decisions based on live information rather than on static information that might be a week old or a couple of months old.
It also facilitates automation of previously manual processes, such as mailings to employees in a given geographic area, says Aird. A letter can be prepared in minutes instead of days.
“If I want to do costing on our benefits, by group or by location, I click a few buttons and I get it. If I want to do a compensation analysis, or salary plan development, I click a few buttons and I have it. In the ‘good old days,’ those kinds of things took an army of people days or weeks to accomplish,” Aird says.
Fornella says the changes didn’t result in downsizing of the HR department. He says that in his experience, the focus and function of staff change as the new technology is implemented. “What generally happens is that once people understand its capabilities, you get more demands for information,” which means there’s work that wasn’t expected before. In addition, data input is required to keep the information current, and the system requires maintenance. The focus of HR staff simply shifts to doing things that “contribute to the organization, within the HR function.”
He and Aird say it’s hard to calculate any return on the investment. “There are hard costs and soft costs,” says Aird. “I know the HR function is more efficient because we have the system in place, which means we’re spending less time pushing paper and more time being strategic in the HR function.”
