HR TECH: How to thrive beyond go-live

You’ve introduced a new people technology platform – what’s next? Here, we unpack the biggest factors that’ll help your tech journey be successful long-term.

There are three key steps to set organisations up for HR tech success, according to Pinpoint HRM’s founder and managing director Craig Aunger.

The first, covered here, is the evaluation stage. The second, covered here, is the pre-implementation stage, which speaks to the importance of proper planning in order to set tech projects up for success.

Here, Aunger shares the third and most critical stage of the tech journey, revealing what needs to happen after go-live in determining the true success of HR transformation.

We’ve gone live, now what?

Rolling out a new tech solution doesn’t mean it’ll automatically be taken up by employees.

Research from Gartner found there is increasingly low end-user adoption when it comes to HR tech projects being rolled-out in organisations.

There’s a number of reasons as to why this might be, including insufficient communication with employees as to what the technology has been brought in to do and how they can use it best.

Further studies call out the impact of not involving key staff during the tech selection process. This can limit the take-up of the tech by employees once integrated into the business.

According to Aunger, the most common mistake organisations make is not giving enough attention to what happens after the initial implementation of technology. Success doesn’t happen at go-live, it’s about what comes next that determines the long-term transformational impacts.

“Too often there's this massive effort that goes into getting to go-live and if you get to that point and it's been an unpleasant experience, everyone can't wait to get away from it. Everyone just switches off and that's the reverse of what needs to happen,” Aunger said.

“I think if you ask any HR technology leader who's had a system for a year or two: ‘Are you getting the most out of a solution you've got?’ Invariably, the answer is, ‘No, I think I'm probably using less than 50 per cent of it’, and to me that's a tragedy.

“HR leaders spend all this time, energy and effort getting to go-live and then they walk away from the solution and it starts to die on the vine.”

“We see that time and time again and largely it’s a result of organisations not being focused on the post go-live part of the journey.”

Don’t set and forget

So, what does post go-live success look like?

Aunger said the key is having a structured, long-term approach to technology management. Continuous evolution, support and adaptation are essential to ensure that the tech you’ve introduced continues to meet the organisation’s needs over time.

“We say these solutions are not set and forget. You can't just turn it on and walk away. You've got to continue to invest in it and keep it aligned with your business,” he said.

“HR is going to change, your process is going to change, it's going to evolve, these systems are going to continue to change and evolve. There are new releases every three to four months, six months in some organisations, but they bring out new releases all the time. So, if you don't look at that for two years, you could be complaining saying, ‘Oh, this solution doesn't do this, that and the other’ [when in fact] it's brought out all this new, fantastic technology which would have enabled you to address the issue that you've got.”

"We've been really focused, particularly over the last couple of years, on helping customers to get set up right, to make sure that they've got people allocated to roles and responsibilities that are not about managing the implementation, but about managing the solution.”

Managing support requests are vital, Aunger added, noting that neglecting these can erode the confidence of employees in the tech solution.

“The vendors will support you a bit, but you've really got to manage these solutions yourself,” he said.

“If you don't support and manage the change requests that come in very quickly, the business is going to lose faith in the solution. They're going to say, ‘Well, this thing's not right for us’. So, it's really important you've got people in those roles with the skills to manage these solutions in that way.”

Continuous monitoring of integrations is also key in ensuring that they continue to work seamlessly, Aunger flags, as is actively supporting employees in understanding and using analytics.

“You want to continue to evolve the analytics and provide the business with more support to consume those analytics. And just by giving managers self-service on those analytics doesn't mean they're going to use them, they need to understand how to use them and that's HR's job,” he said.

Planning for the post go-live transition phase

That all being said, Aunger acknowledged that there is a ‘transition period’ that should be expected in any tech adoption journey. It’s a time post go-live when HR is moving into a higher value add environment.

Getting the HR tech governance and support model in place, establishing a change request process, introducing analytics and creating a roadmap for ongoing innovation are all critical during this time.

“So, these are all things that are part of getting set up and we call this the transition phase. Even if you've identified it in the implementation or pre-implementation stage, it's very hard to get your team up to speed to manage all these things from day one.”

“Fantastic if you can but generally it takes somewhere between 6-12 months post go-live in this transition period to really get the skills up and get the systems and processes working around managing the solution properly, such that you can then start to say, hand on heart, ‘We've got as high user adoption as we possibly could. We know that everyone's using this tool as well as all the functionality that we want them to. Now we can really start to optimise this solution ourselves and bring in other value-added solutions or processes that enable us to take it all to the next level’.

“This transition period doesn't just happen on its own. We're encouraging our customers to think of this period as if they're in the middle of their project; it's an extension of your implementation project for a period of probably 6-12 months to really get yourself established with milestones, just like a project. Don't let the people who are involved in the project move on. Keep them involved until you get to that point where you've got full user adoption and you can rely on the analytics that come out of a solution.”

Getting to the real business outcomes

In Pinpoint’s experience, there are three key business objectives that organisations, and in particular HR Leaders, are trying to achieve from their transformation journey:

1. Enhancing employee experience

“We typically find that when we ask the why, and we keep asking the why, why are we doing this project? There’s a whole range of objectives that come out that organisations talk about, but there’s always three in the top five. [The first is] we want to lift the employee experience,” Aunger said.

“Lifting employee experience isn’t just giving them consumer grade technology experience. It’s about providing employees with an organisation that demonstrates it cares about them and helps manage their career and helps develop them and helps deal with any personal issues that might be challenging, or financial issues.

“That duty of care that a great employer has, they’re the things that drive higher levels of employee engagement. It’s not the technology. Yes, that helps, but it’s really about the employee’s experience working for the organisation and how well that person’s being supported and how well their career is being developed.

“Those things are enabled by taking people who are in the HR function out of doing manual tasks into higher value added tasks. So that’s always one.”

2. Real-time analytics for informed decision-making

“Secondly, we’re always hearing that organisations are trying to provide leaders, managers, HR and employees themselves with access to real-time analytics that help them make better informed decisions in the flow of work,” Aunger said.

“If you allow people to have shadow systems, Excel spreadsheets and [tools] that they’ve traditionally used, you’ve got to eliminate those things. Otherwise, there is no integrity in the data, in the solution.

“That’s really critical to achieving that second key point.”

3. Moving HR from transactional to strategic

“The third one that we always hear is we’re trying to move HR from the transactional to the strategic, and it doesn’t matter whether currently HR is 80 per cent strategic and 20 per cent transactional, which is a very small number of cases, or if it’s down the other end of the spectrum where it’s only 10 per cent strategic and 90 per cent transactional.

“Everyone wants to move the dial in that they all want to move up the maturity curve, everyone in HR wants to be adding more value.

And really, I just can't imagine ever getting to being able to realise those three outcomes unless you take this post go-live management of your solution seriously.”

Partnering for the long game

As the HR tech project experts, Pinpoint HRM helps organisations effectively manage the full lifecycle of HR technology transformation projects - from vendor evaluation and pre-implementation planning, to go-live and well beyond.

“Part of what we're trying to do is help our customers to build confidence to do this because we're excited by it. Our team of 75, we love working on these projects because we know we can have a really material impact on the business and help HR lift its credibility,” Aunger said.

“We're not going to do it alone, we're going to do it with the customer, but we love being part of those transformations.”

In summary, Pinpoint HRM aims to be a valuable partner for organisations by helping them build confidence, achieve successful transformations, and enhance HR's credibility. Their collaborative approach and commitment to delivering positive outcomes go beyond the implementation phase, ensuring long-term effectiveness and success in managing technology solutions.

To find out more about how the team at Pinpoint HRM can help you on your tech journey, click here.

To hear more from Pinpoint HRM’s Craig Aunger, check out the latest podcast on HR Leader here