The traditional role of Human Resources (HR) has been largely transactional and, at best, only loosely integrated with the key business functions with which it interacts – safety, legal, finance and operations.
HR has existed primarily to fulfill staffing requirements handed down by the C-level suite and to deal reactively with HR exceptions and issues as they arise.
This model is no longer sufficient to deliver effective employee engagement. The value of employees as a key business asset continues to grow, with external regulation as an increasingly important factor, and employees’ expectations of their work experience are continuing to evolve and grow. Traditional HR approaches are no longer sufficient to keep up with these demands.
Moving from a reactive to a proactive approach to HR is one essential foundation for meeting these challenges, a topic which is explored in another article in this series.
This article explores the role of integration between HR, safety, legal, finance and operations as a key enabler for improving employee engagement. It highlights how this increases the efficiency of HR processes while reducing the cost of HR management and issue resolution. It considers how partnering with Sodales Solutions as an expert in integration can accelerate and ease the journey to an integrated HR process.
Why integration is critical in today’s business environment
Effective employee engagement today relies on all stakeholders having the same, timely and accurate information at their fingertips when they need it, together with a shared set of effective, clear processes. Gaps, delays and mismatches are costly and erode employee confidence, which ultimately impacts employee retention.
Integration means there is a single, unified approach and shared information and systems set from strategy to operation for all departments with a stake in employee engagement – HR, safety, legal, finance and operations. Effective, nimble technology deployment is a key enabler.
What does integration mean in practice?
Integration works both horizontally, across the organization and vertically, from top to bottom.
Horizontal integration means HR, safety, legal, finance, operations, unions have all the processes, systems and data they need, when they need them, in order to fulfil their role and collaborate effectively with other stakeholders
Vertical integration means that employee engagement is embodied from top to bottom of the organization, from corporate vision through to the systems and procedures that employees use every day.
At a practical level, integration involves:
Aligning employee and safety goals at a corporate vision level. Incentivizing rather than punishing staff for calling out issues, embedding employee and safety objectives you’re your corporate mission and goals, and setting safety goals at an individual site level to promote engagement.
Adapting flexibly to different use cases and user experiences. Different functions have different profiles and touch-points. Integration means making the right contextual information available at the right point in the process for that function, rather than creating a central dump of information that takes people away from the process they are engaged in.
Promoting and supporting collaboration across roles. Managing an integrated, cross-functional approach to employee relations and safety is a huge task which can discourage resource-strapped departments from taking ownership.
Having the right supporting information and structures in place, with complete digital support for the full employee lifecycle, and promoting collaboration, mitigates this.
Creating strategies, frameworks, processes and systems that enable proactivity and prevention. Integration means promoting collaboration across HR, safety, finance, legal, operations, employees and unions, supported by the shared information and integrated systems which make it easier to collaborate than to maintain organizational silos and barriers between functions.
How Sodales Solutions add value, helping our clients deliver effective integration
Engaging with a partner with proven experience in helping clients integrate HR, safety, legal, finance brings all the benefits of experience from an industry expert who has tackled the journey many times before.
As an award-winning solution built on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), Sodales Solutions offers proven capabilities in the key areas needed to create the integration between HR and other key functions that today’s business environment demands when it comes to health, safety and employee relations.
To find out more, and to continue the conversation, visit the contact us page.
