Technical Review Service Catalogue

Transcription

1 Dear All, I am writing to give you an update on the progress that we have made with our work on HR transformation, to give you an indication of our plans for the coming weeks and months and to outline the opportunities you are going to have to contribute to the work and offer your feedback on proposals as they are developed. I am conscious that, having outlined that we are committed to significant changes across HR and Support Services more generally, that many of you may be concerned about what the future may bring. I am committed to providing regular updates as I know that these concerns can be exacerbated when little information is available regarding the programme and what could be happening in the near future. I acknowledge that the communication from the project to staff from across HR has been limited up to this point I apologise for this and if it has caused any concern. I can assure you that the commitment that we have made to providing opportunities to participate and feed into the process still stands. In many ways, our limited communication has reflected the fact that there hasn t been a lot to report as we have been undertaking a lot of preparatory, research and resourcing work. We have also been working closely with other support services departments and other College projects to ensure our work and methodology is aligned. I am now in a position to report on this work and outline what it to come. Background In my presentation to the CPD day in April I outlined some of the strategic background to the work and the initial research that we had undertaken. As a reminder, the strategic objectives were outlined in the Vision 2020 document (Adding Value and Saving Time). Our initial analysis involved individual discussions with all members of HR operational teams to understand the services that they deliver to our customers and the processes in which they participate. Following this I visited team meetings across the whole division to review the objectives of the programme, take any feedback and understand any concerns that were arising from the work. I am grateful to all of you for your contribution, which informed of our work in July to October and will continue to do so. During the past few months we have been working through a phase which we called discovery getting resources together, commissioning research, and developing documents and frameworks - that will help guide conversations and decisions over the coming months. In particular, we have done the following: Board The HR Transformation Board has been established, with a membership made up of HR stakeholders and service users across the college. This board will monitor the work of the project, approve plans and ensure that the project remains focused on its objectives as set out in Vision The board has begun meeting on a monthly basis and reports up to the People Board, which is chaired by Louise, and monitors progress on all projects outlined in the HR Vision 2020.

2 Technical Review We commissioned ICT to undertake some research into the use and functionality of our systems, and in particular our core database, known as ICIS HR, or Oracle HR. It s not controversial to say that ICIS HR is not well-loved and we need to begin the relatively long process of understanding how best to improve the situation. It s essential that we understand how we can use systems and information to underpin improvements to our services as we go forwards. The first stage of this work is now completed. In many ways it has confirmed what we already suspected: ICIS HR is a key part of the College s information architecture as well as its own functionality it feeds a vast number of other systems and processes (more than 20 that we are aware of). Over a long period we have heavily customised the database to fit the College s needs there are currently 897 customisations on the system, ranging from bespoke roles with specific responsibilities, to additional fields on forms, to extra pieces of text or guidance on certain screens, to links to other systems or programs. Each customisation has to be rebuilt on to the system each time it is upgraded, meaning that upgrading the software requires a disproportionate amount of time, money and effort. This software is due to go out of support (in 2021) meaning that Oracle will no longer provide support/upgrades. In this regard changing our core database is inevitable, it is more a question of when. Going forward there are only really four options. Firstly do nothing. Secondly, stick with the same product but redeploy it (essentially install a clean version of the database. Thirdly, change to a new, cloud-based Oracle product named Fusion Finally, scan the market for a completely new solution. Weighing up these options is complicated. It s important to remember that the HR module is only one of the Oracle products that the College uses and there are real benefits from the inherent integration that HR has with (for example) the Oracle finance modules. We have now commissioned some work which will weigh up the relative costs, risks and benefits of each option with a view to making a final recommendation (and request for funding) for the next steps by Easter Service Catalogue It s crucial that as part of the transformation work we have detailed dialogue with our customers from across the College. Essentially we want to understand our customers perspectives on the services we currently provide, which services they would like to see us provide in the future, and how different customers would prefer to receive certain services. When planning this work we realised quite quickly that we don t have a consolidated, clear and concise list of the services that HR provide. This realisation led to the development of our Service Catalogue. I ve attached it to this . We have redrafted it after discussing with staff from across HR a few of things to note when reading it:

3 Firstly, it tries to capture the list of all services that we think, at this stage, we should provide, so there are some items on the list (such as the management of casual/contingent workers) that we don t currently do a lot of. This is intentional. Secondly, grouping our activities by these service lines or service components does not mean that we will necessarily change how we are organised by these services. There are many of these services that are delivered by different teams within (and in some cases, outside of) HR, as may be the case in any future arrangements as well. Thirdly, it s not an attempt to list all the activity that HR undertakes. There are plenty of vital activities (such as mediation) that we would apply to a number of these service lines but we don t describe them as services in themselves. Fourthly, this isn t a catalogue in the Argos sense of the word! It won t be something we ask customers to select from, it s mainly a tool for us to have discussions about the nature of our services and how best to deliver them. In that regard we can be quite relaxed about whether we have the language exactly right at this stage. We are now using the service catalogue to help inform discussions with our customers. The information from these sessions (how our services are viewed and how customers would like to receive our services) will be a crucial factor in the recommendations we make in the coming weeks and months. We are being careful to talk to a full range of different types of customers, from Professors to shift-based staff to senior managers to understand the wide range of requirements and the complexity involved in designing effective services in such as diverse organisation. Process Architecture Vision 2020 has outlined a commitment to publish 100% of our business processes online. The effective documenting of our processes can make a huge difference to our effectiveness and efficiency, can improve the consistency of our service delivery across the College, and help us understand how we can improve our services. As part of this work we have developed and agreed our high-level process architecture. This captures our processes at a very high level and provide a structure for all our processes to be part of, understanding how they interact with and depend on each other and we move forward with documenting, reviewing and publishing our processes. In time we have a detailed list of all of our operational processes which will be crucial in facilitating improvements to our services. Next steps We are now moving forward with the second phase of the project. We are looking in to bring in a temporary project manager to help steer this section of the work but for now the key roles within the project are as follows: Joe Cooper Project Sponsor Leigh Sims People Board Programme Manager Lee Jenner Change Manager Matt Jowett - Communications and Research Lead Roland John Project Support and Governance Lorraine Templeton Cross ICT Liaison Once we have completed the customer research (we re calling it Voice of the Customer) we will

4 analyse the results and try and establish whether there are any changes we can make in the medium-term. The key factors in making this decision will be: Can we make a change that will improve the experience for our customers Can we make a change that will improve our processes and reduce risks? Can we make a change that will help us, or our customers, be more efficient? Can this change be delivered in a reasonable amount of time (essentially, without waiting for significant changes to/replacement of ICIS)? If we believe that there are changes that we can make, we will share these thoughts with you before deciding how to proceed. This will take the form of a Green Paper. It will outline the initial ideas we have, outline any questions or concerns that we have, and ask all HR staff to contribute their thoughts and ideas. To be clear, this will not be a formal consultation document the purpose will be to test or refine our ideas with a view to issuing a second document with more concrete proposal (a White Paper ) once we have received all the feedback. I am expecting to be able to send out the Green Paper in early December, giving staff at least three weeks to respond to the ideas. The paper will contain details of how to respond to the ideas and what we will do with the responses. I will issue the White Paper after considering the feedback, and other research we are undertaking, including process mapping. Process Mapping wave one During December and January, whilst we are awaiting contributions of ideas following the issuing of the Green Paper, we will be undertaking some process-mapping workshops. These will focus on the areas of activity that we have highlighted as potential areas for change in the Green Paper. The purpose of these workshops will be to understand how the relevant processes currently work and how they could work in the proposed new approach. This will help us understand whether these initial proposals would work in practice, what other work we would need to do to implement the changes, and understand how much effort would be required for each set of processes. We will need your assistance in these workshops, particularly if you are involved in one of the processes. We will be in touch in the next fortnight with details of timings and suggested participants but please be prepared to contribute your time and thoughts. The role of HR staff in the programme As I stated earlier I acknowledge and understand that the fact that we have committed to change has led to some feeling concerned or uncomfortable, and not knowing what is going on with the project can exacerbate these concerns. The main purpose of this note is to let you know where we are with the work and what to expect in the coming months. I want to reassure you that any commitments to change will follow a meaningful discussion with HR staff and consideration of your views. I do firmly believe that we have an exciting opportunity to make significant improvements to the services that we deliver and to further embed the crucial role that HR have within the College. I look forward to hearing your views on some specific proposals following the issuing of the Green Paper. In the meantime, if you have any questions, comments or concerns please don t hesitate in dropping me a line directly. Kind regards

5 Joe Joe Cooper Head of Service Transformation (HR) Imperial College London Faculty Building South Kensington SW7 2AZ T: +44 (0) M: +44 (0)