IT/HR relations: services in a state of upheaval
HR: a technology boom
In the context of the technological development that companies are experiencing today, one department seems to be facing more difficulties than the others: the human resources department. Even if the constraints and opportunities associated with this growth seem to have been taken on board, we are seeing a digital upheaval that is sometimes difficult to cope with.
Not so long ago, in 2017 in a study carried out by ADP and IDC, we discovered that human management was done by hand in 22% of cases! 2020 has brought its great shift and enabled extreme digitalization of all corporate services.
On the other hand, HR has a central role in the company, and can be seen as a hub that interacts with all departments.
In 2017, 28% of HR teams said that IT was not really involved in the decision to choose HCM solutions.
That's the big change we need to make. But on the IT side, how are things going?
IT: a changing role
Some time ago, we witnessed a profound change in the position of IT departments, which until recently had an executor's role.
They were consulted on day-to-day IT matters, but were not often invited to take part in the choice of new tools, and their requests for investment in IT systems and security were very often put off until later.
Today, they have a role to play in the company and participate in major decisions. They are the key to digital transformation, and their connection with all the company's services puts them in a balancing act: ensuring security and meeting everyone's needs.
It's up to the IT Department to manage its governance and instigate new directions, so as not to be the victim of change. It must demonstrate its added value, especially as digital technology has taken on such importance within companies of late!
Another big issue of late has been cybersecurity. Although companies have shied away from this subject for years, they can no longer avoid it, and are even trembling in the face of the havoc wreaked by cyber-attacks. IT needs to position itself as an expert on the subject, and impose its priorities on the broad outlines of corporate development.
Digital transformation within companies: HR and IT hand in hand (or almost!)
HR used to operate in a top-down fashion, i.e. they would give a piece of information, an instruction, and this would reach the managers and employees without any feedback on their part. Information was seen as imposed.
To counter this miscommunication, SaaS software came along and, what's more, met different needs. Relationships improved, and the work of human resources changed.
Digital transformation doesn't just concern HR or IT, but all corporate departments. It is HR and IT that must accompany and support this transformation. The HR department supports all employees in this change of behavior to avoid resistance, while the IT department works on changing tools and processes.
This is where shared work comes into play, to avoid tug-of-war between departments, or worse, between HR and IT. We absolutely must automate HR processes and involve IT in the choice of HRIS.
We can no longer have two conflicting visions:
- HR: employee management
- IT: account management
The IT department has understood this: we no longer manage accounts, but users with multiple accounts.
IT to the rescue of human resources
IT services and society have pushed HR departments to modernize rapidly in recent years. We've seen major developments in HRIS, software and communication. Most recently, telecommuting has brought about a quantum leap in employee management!
- HRIS systems no longer just manage payroll, leave or schedules, they go further and enable us to work on predictive recruitment.
- The cloud has also simplified the work of human resources, and SaaS solutions bring simplicity and efficiency.
- We've also seen a recent surge in corporate social networking with Slack or Teams, which has been further strengthened with telecommuting.
Employees 'consume' the company like any other service, and want to enjoy an exhilarating customer experience.
These major changes have enabled companies to adapt to the new expectations of employees, who 'consume' the company as an everyday commodity. They expect a "customer experience", and they want HR to provide "services" such as payroll, vacation, training and support...
- With this in mind, employees will appreciate it if all their data is requested only once. It's up to HR and IT to coordinate their efforts to connect the HRIS with other tools. It is therefore the role of the IT department to ensure this connection, and for HR to fill in all the information correctly at the outset.
- At the same time, it's IT's job to ensure the company's security by creating user accounts. IT must provide technical support to HR.
- The IT department must act as a go-between for the employee. If they wish to contact a department, it must be simple, and there must not be one channel for each department, but a single channel for the whole company. It's up to IS to manage this technically.
- HR departments accumulate a vast amount of information, but they don't always have the skills to exploit it, and especially not the tools to manage it (extract, group and present). It's up to IT to make proposals and help HR make the most of this data.
HR and IT must therefore work hand in hand.
IT must help HR to automate their actions, to obtain a modern and pleasant image for candidates and employees who are becoming more and more volatile.
As for HR, it must enable IT to have a good relationship with the other departments of the company thanks to great communication.
The IT department is just as responsible for the employer brand image as the HR department.
A strategic crossroads for both sides
So what's the 'sticking point' between these two great services, which have been able to get along like cats and dogs at times?
These two entities operate in radically different work ecosystems. While HR has an environment and processes that may have been very manual and very human-oriented, IT departments are forerunners in automating tasks and managing accounts.
Yet the two profiles come into contact at key moments for the company: employee arrivals, departures and changes. The quality of these points depends largely on the ability of HR and IT to synchronize their tasks. If communication is poor, malfunctions occur, and it's the employee who suffers the damage, tarnishing the company's image in the process.
Confronting these two worlds and asking them to find a compromise without speaking the same language - what a challenge!
How HR and IT come together in the administrative management of an employee.
Human Resources is the point of entry with the employee. They manage not only the contract, but also information about the manager, the position, the function, the type of contract and its duration...
The transmission of information to IT departments is asynchronous: they will not have all this information at the same time as HR, but only snippets of information that HR and potentially the manager will transmit to IT. At that point, they will be asked to create specific accounts such as internal messaging, mailboxes and sometimes specific business software. It's then up to IT to create the accounts, taking into account everything that's required, such as Active Directory, Office 365 and other applications. The creation process is rather vague, as IT has to guess what the employee will need. What's more, it doesn't know what rights to apply to all the accounts created.
In this respect, the exchange of information between HR and IT is not fluid. Human resources don't necessarily think twice about not including IT in the loop of the arrival or departure process, but they don't think about it. For them, IT is informed of the accounts to be created, and that's enough, but as we know, IT needs more information.
There can also be 'missteps', with the cancellation of an employee's arrival, or a delay in his or her arrival that is not made clear to IT.
At the time of departure, HR will not necessarily think of informing IT of an employee's departure, and at the same time, from their point of view, IT has no role to play at that point.
The misunderstanding stems from the fact that HR feels it's playing its role correctly, and IT feels it's being sidelined.
At last, a common language for human resources and IT?
So what do we do?
There's no point in blaming one or the other when you're not really at fault. So we need to find a common language to facilitate dialogue and exchanges.
This is where IAM tools come into play. What's IAM? IAM stands for Identity and Access Management. These are solutions that automate onboarding and offboarding processes, as well as the management of user accounts and software access rights.
An IAM links HR and IT in one place, so that everyone can find the information they need. HR can facilitate arrivals and departures with workflows and checklists, while IT receives information in real time and can automatically create all the accounts needed for the employee, with the right adjustment of rights.
IT can set up a rights monitoring system while the employee is still with the company. When the employee leaves, HR automatically sends a message to suspend all his or her accounts.
With an IAM solution, there are no more communication problems, no more wasted time, and even fewer security breaches.
The idea here is not to overburden HR departments with additional tasks originally performed by IT, but rather to restore meaning to certain manual and laborious HR actions. Managing employees/users directly from a collaborative tool helps to clean up communication between departments over the long term, and thus streamline processes.
