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25 Jul 2016

Can You Answer These 13 Questions? Your HR Tech Project May Be At Stake

Mike Molinaro

How well do you know your HR team strategy? Do you have a clear vision for your HR function or do you live by a “fly by the seat of our pantsâ€' philosophy? While a fast and loose mentality may work well at times, one of those times shouldn't be when rolling out HR Technology.

As you go down the long road of HR Tech roll outs, with a seemly endless calendar of meetings, I guarantee you are going to be asked some questions that are going to expose some gaps in your HR strategy. The result? You'll be left scrambling to put together a strategy under insane deadlines so the HR technology rollout can continue on time.

To help you prepare, here are 13 important questions about your HR team you need to ask (and answer) before your HR technology project even starts.

For a full list of questions, download this free eBook: 47 Strategy Questions to Ask (and Answer) Before Implementing HR Technology.

1. What are you trying to accomplish as an HR function?

2. What is good going to look like?

3. Where do you want to be as an HR function?

4. Are you polite? Are you police? Are you players?

5. How do you want to be seen by the outside world?

6. Are your HR roles well defined? (I guarantee this one will come up time and time again during implementation)

7. Can you get the role of HR to be consistent?

8. Where should HR be involved in a process, and where should they not be involved in a process?

Typically HR either want to be involved in everything or nothing. There's very little in between. They either see themselves as the gatekeeper on everything that gets done, or they don't want to be involved at all. You must determine what HRs involvement should be from the start otherwise your HR technology project will suffer.

9. What can you expect your line managers to do?

10. How can you get them to buy into that role?

11. In diverse companies where you will never get line manager roles to align, how can you keep a consistent process that allows for differences in these roles?

In one company I worked with I had line managers on one side of the company that looked after tellers in a bank, and line managers that trade millions of dollars in commodities in the investment bank side. And we were trying to get both of those versions of line managers to do the same things which is very difficult. So you have to think these roles thorough very carefully.

12. Have you done a SWOT?

Take a look at your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities and your threats.

13. Does everybody know your overall mission and vision?

Start your project with a mission and vision for HR. It will guide the decisions that you make going forward. If you are not defining what HR is about within your company, someone else is going to tell you what HR is about, and you probably will not like the answer. Define it for yourself before someone else defines it for you.

These questions are an excerpt from my eBook: 47 Strategy Questions to Ask (and Answer) Before Implementing HR Technology.

About the Author

Mike Molinaro

Mike Molinaro is an expert with over 20 years' experience in HR transformation and technology projects. Prior to joining Barclays Bank as COO-Human Resources & HR Transformation Lead, he has worked in HR technology and transformation roles at Megitt PLC, NBC Universal and Comcast.

Mike is a regular speaker on the subjects of change management, leadership, HR systems and implementation. You can download his free eBook “47 Strategy Questions to Ask (And Answer) Before Implementing HR Technology“ which is based on his presentation at HR Tech Fest 2015.

 

47 Strategy Questions Free eBook

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