AskHR is a new HR Service Centre for Aberdeen City Council that delivers cost effective and high quality services. It does this by supplying a streamlinedand improvedtransactional HR and payroll service for all our internal customers. AskHR is a key element of a shared services model for the Council’s HR service,introduced in response to the business needs of the organisation. Under the brand name AskHR, the HR Service Centre has become the first point of contact for customers looking to access a full range of HR and payroll services, queries and requests for HR support as a “one stop shop”. Real improvements in efficiency savings and customer service have been achieved as a result of the project.
PLANNING / · a clear rationale, defined processes and focus on stakeholder needs· contributes to organisation’s goals and addresses current or emerging challenges
Meeting the needs of our customers
When reviewing the way in which HR services were being accessed by and delivered to customers, we surveyed a large sample of managers and benchmarked across a wide range of public and private sector organisations. Our customers told us that they wanted clarity about who to contact when they wanted to access HR services, consistent HR advice, more cost effective services and a speedier response. We then carried out an options appraisal whereby we considered the pros and cons of a variety of options for delivering HR advisory and transactional services in order to meet these customer requirements. This included a visit to Bristol City Council to gather vital information about how they developed and introduced their HR Service Centre and the key lessons learned. Following consultation with key stakeholders across the Council, including the trades unions, the preferred option was to adopt an HR Service Centre approach.
Achieving organisational goals
Aberdeen City Council, like many public organisations, is constantly seeking ways to improve the quality of its services whilst operating under significant and increasing cost constraints. Support services such as HR need to ensure the service it provides continues to fulfil and respond to the needs of the Council and is able to demonstrate how it adds value to the business. The introduction of an HR Service Centre presented the opportunity to provide significant economies of scale in transactional work, more efficient service delivery, significant reduction in staff costs and ultimately a centre of excellence. Transactional HR work involves providing an efficient and accurate response to general HR queries such as recruitment issues, recording absence, maternity leave, payroll queries and training opportunities. Customers seeking this level of activity include colleagues across the council as well as senior managers and team leaders. This option was presented to Elected Members who were satisfied that the proposal for introducing an HR Service Centre met the organisational goals of an accurate, effective service providing best value for all customers.
Designing the service delivery and gaining staff/customer commitment
A project team comprising a range of HR practitioners and key customers was formed to develop the future structure of HR Service Centre andhow it would operate. This project team was established for 4 months with the HR Service Centre open for business a mere 4 months later in October 2010. Prior to this date there had been five separate ‘staffing’ teams across the organisation in different locations, carrying out very similar support functions. These teams along with the payroll teamall re-located and integrated to create one HR Service Centre team.
Considerable staff engagement was necessary to secure ‘buy in’ from the teams. This included regular newsletters, briefings and the opportunity to ask questions through a dedicated web site during the formative stage. Internal customers were also regularly updated on the implications of the changes to their HR services. Effective communication and the need to build a strong team culture was the key here. This was essential to overcome barriers of resistance to change from some staff transferring to the new HR Service Centre and also from some customers who were not yet convinced by the new model.
DELIVERING / · implemented in all relevant areas and across all the required stakeholders· carried out in a structured and logical way , using robust and sustainable methods
Introducing ‘Ask HR’
An implementation/project plan for AskHRwas produced including key actions, timescales and outcomes. A two-stage phased approach was taken. The first phase involved the transfer of knowledge and functions to the HR Service Centre. The second phase involved finalising the structure and multi-task role of people working in the HR Service Centre. Thisimplementation plan, along with progress reports, was communicated to staff joining the HR Service Centre team and also to customers through regular newsletters. The Service Centre was branded and presented to customers as AskHR with access through a generic email address and single phone number.
‘Development Wednesdays’ - equipping staff with the necessary skills
Staff transferring to the Service Centre generally had service specific knowledge and skills. In order to provide customers with a consistently high quality of service, staff had to quickly become capable of supporting all Council services and therefore acquire a ‘generic’ set of competencies and skills.
This has been achieved through ‘Development Wednesdays’ when managers set aside Wednesday mornings for training and briefings designed to equip the team with the knowledge they need. These briefings could be in response to a new HR Policy or emerging issues and queries from AskHR.
Staff are also required to rotate between the transactional teams within the HR Service Centre to widen their knowledge and skills and, from an operational perspective, be capable of assisting each other at peak times.
This has been hugely successful in terms of equipping and motivating staff to deliver high quality services and has enabled us to meet our key aim of making the HR Service Centre an excellent place to work, offering genuine career and succession planning opportunities. Our ‘flexible’, multi-skilled team is the key to our success.
In addition, as a measure of the quality of effective partnership working we have developed, we recently worked in partnership with our Education, Culture & Sport Service to redeploy 6 staff members into the HR Service Centre who were at risk of redundancy due to budgetary pressures. The quality of training and support we provide has resulted in a smooth transition for those staff (this would otherwise have been a difficult step) and they have all commented on the strong team culture and work ethic that has been created.
Delivering better processes
Bringing five teams together, and working very closely with payroll colleagues, has given all staff an excellent opportunity to examine the various HR transactional process and procedures and develop a set of streamlined, standardised processes that are more efficient and effective.
Measuring our standard of delivery
Using a database for recording and logging HR queries (soon to be replaced by a more sophisticated electronic case management system), we are able to measure and analyse critical HR data. This forms the basis of a quarterly HR Performance Report that provides a useful baseline for the Council in terms of tracking HR issues having the most impact on managers, aligning HR support to the needs of the business and enabling us to continue improving the service we deliver to customers. For example, a measure of our success is to resolve as many queries as possible at the first point of contact (known as ‘first fix’). Our analysis informs us how many first fixes we achieve, how long it takes to respond to customers, the level of improvement achieved in both aspects and the type of training needed to improve the service we provide. We set targets in order to evidence improvement. We also have a high level service level agreement in place for our customers to help manage the expectations of both these customers and HR Service Centre staff.
INNOVATION + LEADING PRACTICE / ·Demonstrates leading practice, and is capable of replication elsewhere·Achieves genuine innovation or new ways of working
Developing our database
The database we use for logging and escalating queries to AskHR was developed ‘in house’ and whilst it will eventually be replaced by a more sophisticated case management system, it has proved very effective in terms of enabling us to become the frontline HR service and manage and analyse queries. It requires minimal training and is easy to use.
HR Service Centre model
Whilst not unique, very few HR Service Centres exist within the Scottish public sector. Considerable interest has been shown in the model we have developed by other Scottish local authorities, to the extent that other authorities and a leading, global company have visited our HR Service Centre to learn how it was developed and operates. As other organisations face similar challenges in terms of reducing costs and improving efficiency, we are confident that our HR Service Centre will become attractive to partner organisations who may be interested in sharing the services we provide. This would offer the opportunity for income generation at a time when we constantly need to look at creative ways of reducing our costs.
Redesigning processes
The pulling together of all HR processes has provided an exciting opportunity to develop more streamlined, innovative procedures that are more efficient for all users, including our customers. An excellent example of this has been the centralisation of absence management administration and the introduction of an e-forms reporting system to make the process slicker and more effective. This in turn will help managers to more effectively manage absence and should lead to significantly reduced absence rates. A further roll out of e-forms for other HR transactions is expected to generate more cost and operational efficiencies.
RESULTS + IMPACT / · a convincing mix of customer and internal performance measures· clear line of sight to the delivery of better outcomes for communities
· a full range of relevant results– either already achieved or with potential to deliverover time
Performance measuring
Analysis demonstrates the number of ‘first fixes’ is steadily improving and further target setting coupled with training, available information and improved technology will show considerable improvement over the coming months. This will of course lead to a better customer experience. For example, 94% of first fix queries are now resolved in 30 minutes compared to 79% 6 months ago
Results and impact of the service we deliver
Analysis of the considerable progress made so far shows that:
- economies of scale in staffing and administration have been realised with improved customer service;
- the number of customer queries is steadily increasing (from 783 in July to 1341 in September);
- the response times for queries has reduced by 75% over the last 6 months;
- consistency of service delivery with reduced duplication and faster processing times;
- the number of first call resolutions is steadily increasing and as the team build up knowledge and expertise, couple with improved technology, this number is going to increase dramatically very soon;
- specialist queries are being escalated more quickly and to the correct source first time
- we have streamlined, simplified and improved HR processes;
- we are more able to collate comprehensive management information to help the organisation achieve its goals;
- we now have the infrastructure to enable us to share our services with external customers;
- we have enhanced service delivery at a vastly reduced cost – with ongoing savings of £700,00 expected to be achieved over the next 2 years.
COSLA EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2012 Page | 1
COSLA EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2012 Page | 1