Promise to open up call centre seals deal
Rogers Communication is saying goodbye to a good chunk of its HR function. The Toronto-based broadcasting and communications giant, which has 26,000 employees, signed a deal with Hewitt Associates, a Lincolnshire, Ill.-based HR consulting firm, to outsource most of the “business process” duties of Rogers’ HR department including payroll and the employee database records that support it.
Rogers joins the ranks of other large Canadian firms, including the Bank of Montreal, CIBC and Air Canada, that have off-loaded part of the HR function.
“Rogers, like the Bank of Montreal and Air Canada, has decided that in order to concentrate on their core competencies they will focus on just the strategic elements of HR and leave most of the administrative HR work to us,” said Shauna Cooper, who heads up business process outsourcing for Hewitt in Canada.
“So Rogers will retain the work of HR planning, policy, procedures and strategic initiatives as well as one or two other specific functions including pension work and recruiting.”
The target date for completely handing over the day-to-day HR work is early November, said Cooper. She expects the transition to go smoothly because Hewitt has been working with Rogers as a consultant for some time.
“We are already quite familiar with Rogers because we’ve been advising the company on their compensation and benefits for a number of years now,” she said.
One of the things that helped Hewitt seal the deal with Rogers was the promise to open an HR call centre, said Cooper.
“Any Rogers employee will be able to call in and pretty well ask any question from soup to nuts,” she said. “Questions like, ‘Why did my pay change last week?’ or ‘What benefits am I signed up for?’”
The outsourcing deal with Rogers could grow even further, said Cooper.
“We are in discussions with them about handling both their pension and disability management. And we do the recruiting for Bank of Montreal and Air Canada, so there is plenty of room for organic growth with Rogers,” she said.
One seed has already been sown. Hewitt is helping Rogers develop a website to attract new employees.
What evidently triggered the Hewitt-Rogers outsourcing agreement was the arrival in Toronto last year of Rogers’ new vice-president and chief human resources officer, Kevin Pennington.
“He came from the United States and was very familiar with HR outsourcing and was convinced it was the way to go,” said Cooper. “So when he came on board Rogers, he was the one who really pushed it.”
Pennington wasn’t available to comment for this story, and Rogers was unable to provide another spokesperson. Few, if any, HR staff are expected to be let go as a result of the deal, said Cooper.
“Rogers will keep all their HR strategy people, of course. And Rogers has been very diligent about looking at its employees who are doing their HR administration,” said Cooper. “So we are hiring a number of them and Rogers is looking at redeploying others to outlying offices in places like Montreal and Vancouver.”
Currently Hewitt and Rogers are in what Cooper described as a state of “transition” as they jointly implement a web-based platform dubbed “My HR.” Employees will be able to ask questions online, sign up for benefits, change their address, update other records and generally keep in close contact with HR. The go-live date for My HR at Rogers is Nov. 5, said Cooper.
Andy Shaw is a Toronto-based freelance writer.
Rogers joins the ranks of other large Canadian firms, including the Bank of Montreal, CIBC and Air Canada, that have off-loaded part of the HR function.
“Rogers, like the Bank of Montreal and Air Canada, has decided that in order to concentrate on their core competencies they will focus on just the strategic elements of HR and leave most of the administrative HR work to us,” said Shauna Cooper, who heads up business process outsourcing for Hewitt in Canada.
“So Rogers will retain the work of HR planning, policy, procedures and strategic initiatives as well as one or two other specific functions including pension work and recruiting.”
The target date for completely handing over the day-to-day HR work is early November, said Cooper. She expects the transition to go smoothly because Hewitt has been working with Rogers as a consultant for some time.
“We are already quite familiar with Rogers because we’ve been advising the company on their compensation and benefits for a number of years now,” she said.
One of the things that helped Hewitt seal the deal with Rogers was the promise to open an HR call centre, said Cooper.
“Any Rogers employee will be able to call in and pretty well ask any question from soup to nuts,” she said. “Questions like, ‘Why did my pay change last week?’ or ‘What benefits am I signed up for?’”
The outsourcing deal with Rogers could grow even further, said Cooper.
“We are in discussions with them about handling both their pension and disability management. And we do the recruiting for Bank of Montreal and Air Canada, so there is plenty of room for organic growth with Rogers,” she said.
One seed has already been sown. Hewitt is helping Rogers develop a website to attract new employees.
What evidently triggered the Hewitt-Rogers outsourcing agreement was the arrival in Toronto last year of Rogers’ new vice-president and chief human resources officer, Kevin Pennington.
“He came from the United States and was very familiar with HR outsourcing and was convinced it was the way to go,” said Cooper. “So when he came on board Rogers, he was the one who really pushed it.”
Pennington wasn’t available to comment for this story, and Rogers was unable to provide another spokesperson. Few, if any, HR staff are expected to be let go as a result of the deal, said Cooper.
“Rogers will keep all their HR strategy people, of course. And Rogers has been very diligent about looking at its employees who are doing their HR administration,” said Cooper. “So we are hiring a number of them and Rogers is looking at redeploying others to outlying offices in places like Montreal and Vancouver.”
Currently Hewitt and Rogers are in what Cooper described as a state of “transition” as they jointly implement a web-based platform dubbed “My HR.” Employees will be able to ask questions online, sign up for benefits, change their address, update other records and generally keep in close contact with HR. The go-live date for My HR at Rogers is Nov. 5, said Cooper.
Andy Shaw is a Toronto-based freelance writer.
