Article: Automating Transactional Tasks: Rajan Dutta

Technology

Automating Transactional Tasks: Rajan Dutta

Rajan Dutta, President - Corporate HR, Reliance Communications
Automating Transactional Tasks:  Rajan Dutta

In the past few years, the rapid evolvement of technology has led to its deployment in all phases of an employee lifecycle tenure with an organization namely, recruitment, development, performance evaluation, compensation and finally separation. This is especially needed today in large companies whose headcount is voluminous and in a competitive industry where employee inflow and outflow is very rapid. One cannot imagine dealing with the pressures of volume and time without technical aids and automation.

Both the technical product and solution offerings have matured enormously over the past few years, focusing on automating most of the day-to-day transactional tasks. Even strategizing is improving through the advanced data analytics and reporting capabilities. Besides providing the standard functionalities that are common across verticals, several vendors are also differentiating themselves by providing tools specific to a business segment and domain. For example, in a company whose revenues are primarily through retail sales, there is an entire sales force management suite available to measure employee engagement and productivity.

Yet another trend seen recently is the integration capability of these tools with mobile devices - smart phones, tablets, etc. This way the user need not be near his PC to be able to use the system. This is very crucial for field employees and top executives of companies who travel rigorously. A manager might approve a purchase order or his subordinate's leave even while he is on vacation or is on a business travel. This helps in reducing turnaround time and improves operational efficiencies.

In our company, various HR related software solutions from recruitment till separation are being deployed to manage end-to-end HR related tasks, thereby reducing the time spent by employees on non-value adding activity and also reducing the operational cost. Our employees can access their e-mails through VPN, apply for leaves through their mobiles, access reports and data on their smart phones/Reliance TAB's. Such interventions have dramatically improved our peoples' mobility and HR’s ability to effectively execute people relationship management and further solidify our organizations’ employer brand.

The future has a lot in store for organizations that are keen on handling their human assets using sophisticated tools and technologies. The suppliers are coming up with innovative ideas, customizable features and product packaging to distinguish themselves. In return, they may expect to gain not only by competitive pricing, but also by establishing long-term strategic alliances with their customers. In this win-win situation, the customers benefit most in terms of having the authority to choose and negotiate from the large number of options at their disposal.

As companies increasingly adopt cloud computing applications, HR organizations are spending less time maintaining in-house talent management tools and more time on how to most effectively use these tools to increase employee productivity. The shift to the cloud also enables HR technology vendors to invest more resources into creating highly scalable, user--friendly applications that embed HR expertise in tools that are accessible to line managers. This allows HR professionals to shift their energy from managing processes to actively supporting business execution and being seen as a business partner. HR is now focusing less on simply keeping track of who the employees are, and more on ensuring these employees are being used effectively to support the company’s short and long-term business strategies.
In our organization, we get most of our needs fulfilled by the ERP software SAP (version 6). SAP had been a proven industry leader and has swiftly evolved with the needs of the industry. We have also chosen our vendor based on the quality and promptness of support offered by it.

We have currently implemented SAP HCM ECC 6.0 version for all the HR related applications, Total Solutions for Learning Solutions and Cynergies for our Manpower Services providing Company. We also have our own internal IT Company, which helps us in developing in-house process/portals.

We have robust set of rules and guidelines for hiring of vendors and assessing their effectiveness on a timely basis.
 

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Topics: Technology, Strategic HR, Performance Management

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