You may be considering a HR21 implementation. I know from experience that there are a significant number of organisations who use Chris21 and haven’t implemented HR21 – you may be one of these. Given the obvious advantages of online employee self-service systems I often wonder why this is the case.

The answer may be that you think a HR21 implementation is complicated and a heavy drain on your resources. It can be, but it can also be a relatively straightforward process. It all depends on the approach you take.

There are two ways you can go about it. The first is to implement the system with all the functionality your organisation requires in one fell swoop. The second is to implement in stages. From my experience, the staged approach usually works best.

What do I mean by a staged approach?

I consider a good staged approach to be:

• Stage 1. A basic HR21 implementation that gives employees access to their information but with limited opportunity to perform updates. Simple information updates such as address details are ok. Not much can go wrong at this stage and, when complete, you have implemented a functional system.
• Stage 2. Introduce workflow. As a minimum you will want to implement leave workflow so that employees can request leave online. This stage introduces some complexity, for instance, workflow escalation and email functionality. This will take some planning and testing.
• Stage 3. Open up the system to allow employees to update more of their information. There are many areas you can comfortably allow this, such as personal details, work details, and bank details. While this is a very straightforward stage to configure, you will need to consider user training and your own reporting requirements to track updates.
• Stage 4. Consider implementing some of the other HR features. For example, e-Performance, e-Recruitment, online training requests. There will be much more work involved when considering these options but once done it is just a matter of adding a new menu option to HR21.

Of course, once stage 1 is implemented the other stages can follow at a time that suits your timetable.

Why is the staged approach better?

From my personal experience implementing HR21 for clients I prefer a staged approach because:

• By its very nature, HR21 is a system that will be used by many of your employees, if not all. Therefore, there is a risk involved – if things don’t go right, users will lose confidence in the system. You can mitigate this risk to a large degree by approaching your HR21 implementation in stages.
• It will make training easier. HR21 is a simple system to use, especially for employees who are already used to browsing the internet. The first stage is very basic and will require minimal training. In my experience a short user manual covering things like how to access and navigate the system usually suffices.
• It enables you to deliver a functional system to employees within a short period of time and with little risk. Employees will now have access to their details such as leave balances and history, payslips, training history, and other details depending on how the system is implemented.
• It gives you time to receive and digest user feedback. This is critical before you go to the next stage. Better to address issues before ploughing ahead with more features.

How long does it take to complete stage 1?

If you are considering a basic HR21 implementation similar to the one I suggest at Stage 1, I would estimate two days for an experienced consultant. This is assuming you have completed the planning, documentation and approval processes within your organisation. The two days includes:

• Installing HR21
• Creating the menu and sub-menus
• Configuring security
• Installing your logo and colour scheme
• Testing

See my blog “HR21 Implementation – Some Useful Information” for more details.

You would also need to consider the degree of training required. As mentioned, for a basic implementation this could be minimal. Your planning process should have already determined this.

Once your HR21 implementation is complete you can plan your rollout to users. The system is ready to use but users won’t be able to login until you setup their security access. This way, you can control the rollout to be all users at once or in groups.

As you can see, your HR21 implementation doesn’t have to be a long, drawn out, onerous process. You can take the plunge and have a functional system within a few days. Then you can add more stages to the implementation as a work in progress.

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions from your own experience implementing HR21.

The post Don’t Overdo Your HR21 Implementation appeared first on System Logic.

Now is a good time to review your HR21 implementation. You may have been using HR21 in your organisation for a number of years now. If so, you probably haven’t had to do much except for the annual upgrades that accompany the Chris21 upgrades.

For those who haven’t yet implemented HR21, now is a great opportunity. This is because of the impending upgrade to Chris 21 version 8.7. As mentioned, with each Chris21 upgrade you will receive the very latest version of HR21.

HR21, or employee self-service as it is commonly known, provides many benefits to organisations. Due to this, it is a very worthwhile exercise to review your HR21 implementation.

I often see organisations who have implemented HR21 and then nothing much else happens. In other words, the system is rolled out with minimal features and left like that indefinitely. This is a pity because there are many features available that can deliver tangible savings, in both time and money.

Examples of recent advances in HR21 functionality

A few year’s ago I wrote a blog on this topic and back then I mentioned some of these features:

• Emailing password protected payslips. These are delivered in PDF format. If an employee doesn’t have an email address, the payslip can be emailed to their private email address. Just make sure this email address is specified on their Details (DET) record. Printing and delivering payslips to employees can be a thing of the past;
• Making payment summaries available in HR21. During your end of year processing the Payment Summary File (GCF) process allows payment summaries to be generated in PDF format in HR21. No more printing and mailing payment summaries. And if employees lose them, which I hear is quite common, then they can simply print another one directly from HR21.Employee updates.
• You can now configure HR21 from within Chris21. This means you can decide whether a form is updateable or whether individual fields on forms are read only or updateable. This gives you much more control over what employees can change. See my blog HR21 Implementation – Some Useful Information, which explains more about this. In addition, you can setup email alerts to go to payroll or HR whenever an employee makes a change in HR21. This is particularly useful if you allow employees to update critical information, such as their bank details.
• Workflow functionality. Most organisations setup leave workflow when they implement HR21. Managing leave via HR21 has many advantages and works well. There are other functions that can be implemented with workflow, such as timesheets, training, expenses, flexi-time and travel. These all have the potential to deliver great benefits, yet are often overlooked.

Since the earlier blog was written, another new feature worth mentioning is:

• Relationship based reporting. This allows managers to run reports from HR21 that show information related to only the manager’s direct reports. I recently wrote this blog, which goes into more detail about this feature – Understanding Chris21 Relationships for HR21 Workflow and Reporting.

So you can see that it is worthwhile keeping abreast of advancements in HR21. Furthermore, it is a good idea to review your HR21 implementation from time to time to take advantage of these advancements. Giving employees access to more functions in HR21 empowers them and at the same time frees up payroll and HR staff to focus on more strategic activities.

I hope this article has given you some ideas to help you to get more value from your HR21 system. I would be interested to hear your thoughts if you have implemented features of HR21 that have delivered real benefits to your organisation.

The post Why it’s a Good Idea to Review Your HR21 Implementation appeared first on System Logic.

Different in a good way though. This is because HR21 version 3 is much more configurable than the older version.  Gone are the days where you have to contact the vendor and arrange for changes to be made.

What can you do with your HR21 Implementation?

With the new version of HR21 you are now in control of the following:

• The menu layout.
• The forms you want to display.
• The fields you want to display.
• Whether or not a form is updateable or view only.
• Whether or not individual fields are updateable or view only.
• Help notes on forms and fields.
• Notes placed on pages.
• Colour themes and logos.
• Making payment summaries available to employees online.

The big advantage of this is that you can better control your HR21 implementation by making changes when and as required. If you have some skills in-house you can do this work yourself, you can ask the vendor to do the work for you, or you can use an experienced consultant.

How do you do this?

You can undertake your own HR21 implementation by making the following changes in Chris21:

• The Menu Designer. You use the menu designer to create the menu options you want to make available in HR21. Create the menu and then assign this to HR21 user access records.
• The Data Dictionary. This is where you go to customise Chris21. You can now also use it to customise HR21. Use this area to create the HR21 pages to display, including the fields you want to display and their position on the page. Here you can also control whether or not a field is updateable.
• Chris21 security. Configure your security profile to define which forms can be updated and which are view only. Assign profiles and menus to users when setting up user access.

A sound knowledge of these areas is essential. I would recommend using an experienced consultant to help out if you don’t have the skills in-house. The consultant should be able to transfer sufficient knowledge to your Chris21 administrator so that ongoing maintenance can be handled in-house.

The role of Workflow

As a minimum you will be looking to setup your leave workflow so that the leave request process can be managed on-line. Some thought should go into your workflow requirements to ensure it meets your organisational needs.

Some key points to keep in mind are:

• Make sure your organisation structure (REL) is up to date. This defines the reporting structure HR21 workflow uses.
• Consider what to do with ‘broken’ workflows. For instance, if there is no one in a manager position the leave request will go to the fallback manager. Who is the best person for this?
• Consider using workflow escalations. If a manager hasn’t responded to a leave request in a given number of days, the request can be forwarded to the next manager in the organisation structure.
• Make sure you create the relevant email notifications. You will need one each for leave request, leave approval, leave forwarding, delete, decline and reject.
• What types of leave can employees request online? Some leave types may need more than one level of approval. This will need to be built into your workflow definition.

You have the ability to create quite complex workflow definitions in Chris21, so you should be able to create the right workflow for your needs.

As you can see, you now have the tools available to embark on a HR21 implementation that can be configured to meet your specific requirements. In addition, you can make your own changes as and when required. For more information see my blog Employee Self Service Implementations – Ensuring Success.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need advice. I’ve done many HR21 implementations and will be happy to offer advice. Or you can just leave a comment!

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