How do you design and implement a HRIS change management strategy that minimizes disruption and resistance?

Identify existing processes, user needs, and potential areas of resistance. Example: Conducting surveys and interviews to understand current workflows and pain points!!

In my experience it is integral to understand the current core HR processes and whether they are outdated, effective or have the ability to be streamlined. These processes will form the basis of your system requirements and if you don’t maximize the opportunity to strengthen your core processes then you can severely limit your ROI and create technical limitations. Before anyone begins preparing to set your HRIS strategy they need to be clear on the key objectives of the implementation and understand the level of change to processes going in. This will allow implementation consultants and the vendor to better deliver end to end solutions as they design the architecture of the system.

The above is probably most helpful in building the business case for a new system. However when thinking about Change Management, and impact assessment is critical in creating a CM plan that ensures strategies and tactics are appropriately aligned to the group(s) targeted by the changes.

En los proyectos de HRIS en los que participo, durante una primera etapa definimos los requerimientos técnicos y funcionales que necesitará contar el SaaS, pero también invertimos tiempo en conocer los procesos actuales del área. Al conocer "cómo lo está haciendo la organización" y "a dónde le gustaría llegar" se identifica un gap entre realidad versus situación ideal, poniendo de manifiesto los procesos que necesitan revisarse y adaptarse. Además, esta etapa de reflexión permite abordar los proyectos alineando los procesos del área de Personas con la cultura organizacional, un factor clave para que todos los empleados valoren la transparencia y la coherencia de la compañía y lo vean reflejado en cada una de sus interacciones con el HRIS.

Before beginning a digital transformation, we should assess: - Business Needs: Understand company objectives and how HR can support in achieving them. - Leadership Vision: Align transformation goals with the leader’s vision to ensure cohesive direction. - Employee Pain Points: Identify challenges employees face that digital transformation can address. After evaluating these factors, we can develop a strategic digital transformation plan and select the partner best suited to support our goals. This approach ensures a transformation that meets business objectives, aligns with leadership, and enhances employee experience.

Engage key stakeholders from the start to ensure their perspectives are considered. Form a cross-functional team comprising HR professionals, IT experts, and end-users. This collaborative approach fosters a sense of ownership and encourages support for the upcoming changes.

Involve them before designing the change. I am not sure when most of my HR Tribe got it wrong, but often the change is designed far away from the reality of the personas using it, and then it's cascaded, communicated, ask for feedback. And then, I am afraid often it's wrong, too late. It might not work. Please first map your stakeholders, identify who is using it, and whom it will impact and get them as part of the design team, then iterate and iterate and keep the rest of the stakeholders involved in the feedback loop. It is a key nuance!

A key conversation that needs to happen early with your stakeholders is identifying your affected populations, and assigning champions to those populations from among your key stakeholders. Consider how your populations are going to be impacted by the change, try to anticipate resistance, identify strategies to navigate them through that change, how you'll respond to pushback, and allow your champions to be the ones to shepherd their client populations through the change. When selecting your champions for affected populations, keep in mind not only who should be messaging to them, but how, through what medium(s), and on what cadence. This will help ensure the smoothest path to successful adoption for your users.

I would add that stakeholder engagement needs to happen before, during and AFTER the change. And how you engage each stakeholder will vary based on their power/influence and interest in the change. Meaning a stakeholder assessment and plan is an important step in developing the overall change management plan.

Successful HRIS implementation depends on getting everyone to adopt the new technology. To this end, continuous internal communication and involving people before and during the project begin is essential, promoting: -Share with them information about the new project that the organization is going to lead. -Involve teams in pilot tests to test their operation and listen to their opinions. - Rely on people who are a role model for their colleagues. - Design training according to their user roles to bring the new technology closer to everyone. -Explain the benefits that its implementation will bring, explaining what areas of improvement will be achieved (problem -> solution).

Tailor the HRIS solution to meet specific organizational needs. Customize workflows and functionalities to streamline processes and align with employee expectations. Ensure that the solution addresses identified pain points and enhances overall efficiency.

This is a really good point Mario. The HRIS platforms will tell you they can do it all. And it may be true that they offer a solution, but it may not be a fully designed solution. It’s hard to be the best at all things. Having clearly defined priorities and evaluating your solution against those priorities is key. Third party offerings (in the area of professional development for example) that are built to integrate to the main HRIS may be the way to get that top level full service product in the end. Make sure when you are doing your evaluations of a platform that you are asking the right questions and evaluating each module like you are buying it on its own.

While this is true there is an inherent risk I see developing in the market these days. Large ERP products are growing at a rapid rate as they add the newest/best functionality but those changes can be excessive & not particularly relevant to each customer. Choosing an HRIS solution is a significant business decision. Choosing the wrong one that is not the best fit for your core business needs can create a platform commitment you can not easily pivot away from. With a new technology market landscape today, new products being developed & new companies emerging, it might be time to consider a different type of product suite. One that uses different vendor products that are each more tuned to user experience could provide more flexibility.

Ideally, implementing an HRIS solution should not be a lift and shift exercise, but an opportunity to optimize processes and leverage new functionality to improve your operations. And this step is important in the overall project management However from a change management perspective, the focus should be on identifying shifts from current state to future state. And then determining approaches to support the people in making the behavior changes needed to drive adoption, utilization and overall attainment of the business objectives.

Patricia, tu aportación en relación a la importancia de conocer el alcance de las funcionalidades, vistas como módulos independientes, me parece un acierto. La mayoría de HRIS han desarrollado mismas funcionalidades (por ejemplo, todos cuentan con Reclutamiento o Evaluaciones), pero es al profundizar sobre las características de cada módulo cuando se descubre que solo algunos posibilitan video-entrevistas o disponen de eNPS. La selección de un HRIS, como decía Mario, es una decisión estratégica. Si no se tiene un conocimiento profundo sobre producto de HRIS, cualquier Demo de un proveedor tecnológico convencerá de ser la solución adecuada. Pero con el tiempo, a veces la compañía descubre que el HRIS seleccionado no cubre sus necesidades.

Roll out the HRIS solution gradually to minimize disruption. Start with a pilot group to identify and address any issues before full deployment. Provide ample support during the transition, including training programs, user guides, and responsive helpdesk support.

During the implementation of any new HRIS system or module testing will be critical. This testing will only be as good as the details developed for the use case scenarios. The engagement of specialists & SMEs who have experience with all the real life scenarios will be essential to ensuring that processes are built with the correct restrictions & flexibility to be effective. Missing of use case scenarios could result in a significant gap which could require manual workarounds & limit ROI.

Implementing an HRIS solution typically follows either the waterfall or agile methodology. I recommend the waterfall approach : - Kick-Off: Align all stakeholders with a shared understanding of the implementation - Requirement Gathering: Collect and design requirements with key users, identify gaps, and plan change management. - Configuration & Development: Build HRIS based on user requirements. - Testing: Conduct SIT and UAT to validate system against realworld scenarios. - Data Migration: Transfer real data into the production environment. - Training: Train trainers and end-users, ensuring organization-wide socialization. - Go Live: Launch the system with a focus on stabilization. While ensuring RAID communicated on each activity

Cada proyecto de implementación de HRIS es único. Dependiendo de distintos factores, como las funcionalidades e integraciones a coordinar, la estructura organizativa de la empresa (impactando en la configuración de los roles y permisos de los usuarios), la complejidad de los procesos existentes del área o el tipo de implementación (implementar un HRIS por 1ª vez versus un cambio de proveedor tecnológico, donde la migración de datos posiblemente esté dentro del alcance del proyecto), la duración estimada de la implementación puede variar entre 2 y 8 meses en pymes. La gestión del cambio es esencial para la adopción del HRIS. Escuchar el feedback de los empleados para detectar áreas de mejora y crear un equipo transversal será crucial.

An often forgotten element of an HRIS implementation is the transition period, this will require a dedicated approach and means both HR teams, leaders and employees are essentially learning two ways of doing things. What activities are critical to keep running manually during any moratorium you place before go live? Ensuring people are ready for both the transition period and go live is critical. As someone else mentioned, do the analysis on your most commonly used processes and those that are less frequent. Also do the analysis to work out which stakeholders use those processes most and focus your energies on training them appropriately.

Comprehensive training programs are essential for user proficiency. Conduct virtual workshops, create user-friendly guides, and offer ongoing support to help employees adapt to the new system. Address any concerns and encourage a positive attitude toward the change.!!

While traditional training as mentioned above may be appropriate, consideration of on the job performance support tools in my experience is more impactful. Users want just in time information, especially for tasks or processes that are not done frequently. Consider ways to embed resources into your system (links to job aids, videos, on screen help text) or for focal point activities (approving time, performance reviews, etc) the use of office hours is very powerful. People learn best when they DO.

Por una parte, la formación se ha de personalizar según roles de usuario (administrador de la plataforma, equipo de People&Culture/HR, managers y usuarios), ya que cada grupo tendrá permisos y responsabilidades diferentes. Además, las personas necesitan guiarse por indicaciones y buenas prácticas para un uso homogéneo. Por otra parte, hay que poner en valor la formación CONTINUA de todas las personas por 2 motivos principales: - Los proveedores de HRIS publican continuamente producto (nuevas funcionalidades, mejoras en las funcionalidades existentes, nuevas integraciones). - Los procesos y los workflows del HRIS se irán modificando cuando se identifiquen áreas de mejora y se diseñen soluciones que respondan a las necesidades emergentes.

Key factors for successful implementation and adoption of HRIS during training and socialization include: - Identifying Key Users/Change Agents: Engage them early to champion the change. - Personalized Socialization: Tailor communication formats to each persona—Director, Manager, Employee—ensuring relevance. - Pre-Go Live Training: Conduct comprehensive training sessions to equip users with the necessary knowledge and skills. - Gamification: Incorporate gamified elements during socialization to boost engagement and drive adoption. By addressing these factors, organizations can ensure a smooth transition and maximize HRIS adoption.

Regularly assess the performance of the HRIS solution and gather feedback from users. Use surveys, analytics, and user input to identify areas for improvement. This continuous evaluation process ensures that the system evolves to meet changing needs.!!

El despliegue del HRIS en la organización solo es el punto de partida de un nuevo recorrido por andar. Evaluar si el HRIS logra los objetivos por los que se implementó (conseguir un aumento de +1,5pp en la participación de los empleados en las encuestas semestrales o facilitar la trazabilidad del seguimiento de las formaciones para conocer si se finalizan más del 60%) e identificar las áreas de mejora en cuanto a la usabilidad del HRIS por parte de los empleados conlleva inevitablemente a una mejora continua de la solución. En cuanto al conjunto de datos generados (como son las puntuaciones en las evaluaciones de desempeño o los resultados de la 9 box) son la base para crear iniciativas y planes de acción, siendo el motor para el cambio.

Some of the things that we do are try to incorporate some of the new system changes as part of a cyclic process, for instance if it's a change to the performance system, do it along with one of the performance cycles so that employees can be trained as part of the cycle and process adoption is seamless. One other option for large organizations is to pilot the program with key stakeholders and their teams and rolling it out gradually and have the pilot teams as change management champions.

Post-go-live phase is critical for ensuring stabilization, often referred to as the hypercare period. Key actions to focus on include: - L1 Support: Establish a dedicated first-level support team to address initial queries and concerns during the first few weeks. - User Feedback: Collect feedback on first-time impressions to identify improvement areas. - Issue Tracking: Maintain a comprehensive log of issues and ensure resolution within defined SLAs. - Key User Engagement: Conduct regular catch-ups with key users to prioritize and address high-priority challenges. These steps are essential for achieving smooth stabilization and building user confidence in the new system.

The key to minimising resistance, and ensuring success is to remember Why, are we doing the change in the first place. And remember: HRIS is at the service of people, not the other way around. HRIS is not the goal is the mean, the medium.

You need both Project Management AND Change Management to achieve the identified business objectives that led to this system implementation decision. Many of the items noted in this post are project management focused, so ensuring you have a solid understanding of Change Management and the resources (internal or external) to plan and lead those efforts is vitally important.

Maintain open communication channels throughout the process. Address concerns promptly and celebrate successes to create a positive atmosphere. Regular town hall meetings can be effective in addressing queries and recognizing achievements, fostering a culture of collaboration and adaptability!!

Key factors that determine the success of any implementation include: - Leadership Support: Secure alignment and backing from leadership to ensure a smooth top-down approach. - Data Migration: Seamlessly transition from any legacy systems to prevent blind spots or data loss during the process. - Resistance Management: Identify potential resistance factors, both internally and externally, to proactively address concerns and minimize risks. By focusing on these critical areas, organizations can ensure a smoother implementation journey and maximize the chances of success.