10 tips for successful eHR delivery

As organizations automate HR content and processes, many are overlooking a critical opportunity to maximize return on investment.

By failing to properly align the Web-based HR delivery channel (HR portal) with organizational objectives, as well as HR customer expectations, companies frequently create a suite of eHR resources that is less than the sum of its parts.

While automating and transforming individual processes are important, how an organization aggregates those processes and presents them to its internal customers can have a huge impact on eHR utilization, ROI and customer satisfaction. So how can you maximize the impact of your organization’s HR portal? Consider these tips:

1. Be customer-focused. Make it painless for employees, managers and other HR customers to take responsibility for their own self-service outcomes by making it easy to “do business” with the organization. Organize content and functionality into categories that make sense to customers — not just HR staff. If you aren’t sure how to do this, ask your customers (via focus groups or surveys). They’ll be happy to tell you how to get started.

2. Be proactive. If your organization is planning a significant expansion of new self-service or content-delivery initiatives in the coming year, assess the impact of the changes on your current HR portal. Plug them into a prototype and test to see if customers will be able to easily find new tools, content and processes. If they can’t, consider reorganizing or reworking your HR portal to make new functionality easier to find. If a series of major initiatives are on the way, consider developing a “strategic intent prototype” of what your HR portal may look like a few years from now, and then work towards this vision.

3. Be concise. Remember, your HR portal — and your intranet — are productivity tools. Avoid lengthy menus that obscure links to important tools and information. Meanwhile, when presenting content, use short sentences, concise paragraphs and make frequent use of bullet points to facilitate rapid scanning of pages. This decreases the amount of time it takes end-users to find what they need.

4. Be clear. In both navigation elements and content pages, always use short, descriptive words and phrases whenever possible. Avoid using acronyms, especially in link names and page titles. Moreover, avoid using “HR-speak” — invented buzzwords used to market a program or service rather than to accurately describe it. A link that goes to a page listing performance planning resources should be called “Managing Your Performance” or “Performance Planning Tools” and not “MVP,” “Performance Plus” or “MasterPlan.”

5. Be consistent. Comply with your organization’s HR/intranet/portal content style guide and develop and use a consistent “voice” for online HR content.

6. Be aligned. Ensure that the presentation of content and functionality is completely consistent with your organization’s internal brand and brand messages. As more elements of the employment relationship are delivered online — from work tools to employee communication — online resources are becoming a critical factor in promoting the value of the overall employment relationship. Take advantage of the opportunity to use the portal as a lever to promote and deliver the kind of relationship necessary to meet talent retention and motivation needs.

7. Be credible. Ensure processes exist to keep all tools and content accurate, up-to-date and consistent with your HR and company brand(s), and compliant with legal requirements. To help, date-stamp content posting or change dates for all content pages and display the name of whoever is responsible for content maintenance and accuracy. Also identify and eliminate or consolidate redundant content on other internal sites to avoid user confusion and problems resulting from content originating from “unauthorized sources.”

8. Be connected. On content pages, provide links to related topics, tools, forms and transactional applications. Well-written content is good, but “actionable” well-written content is even better. Conversely, also make it easy for customers to access decision-support content from transactional tools.

9. Be searchable. A high percentage of users prefer to use a search tool to find information and services rather than clicking through menus. Always make sure that all pages are properly indexed to work with your intranet’s search engine. Then test common user search inquiries to verify that search results are concise and easy to use.

10. Be wired. Leverage existing enterprise tools and processes — including portal and content management tools — to deliver HR services, analytics and content. If enterprise tools do not exist, define HR’s business requirements, work with technology experts to evaluate options and build a business case to implement the right solution.

Source: Hewitt Associates. For more information contact (416) 225-5001.

To read the full story, login below.

Not a subscriber?

Start your subscription today!