My HR Tech Ops Strategy

Net idea: I have taken on a new role as the Director of HR Technology & Operations at Double Verify, a company that is expanding quickly and has a bright future ahead. To support our expected growth, I have developed a strategy for our People Services that I hope will be of interest to my HR peers.

I am very excited to support HR transformation projects that bring together the best and the brightest on topics of human capital management, global integration and technology. We are looking to build a truly scalable HR infrastructure in a world that is changing rapidly. I hope I can share some of that experience, and help HR teams apply some of the things I am learning.

In that respect, I want to share the things I am focused on as I build my strategy for 2021 - the priority areas, and some topics that I hope to dive into further as I execute on that strategy.  Hopefully, it may help others in a similar position build their own framework.

Here are my notes on our strategic focus areas:

People:

Objective: build a people oriented services infrastructure that is focused on client experience. The user should not feel that process compliance is the objective, but instead that we are working to solve their challenge in a way that is focused on the business problem. In parallel, the HR Services team should have a clear operational structure to support that mission.

Tech/Operations: clearly established guidance for handling people oriented problems - total rewards management, payroll, managing life events, performance, promotions, hiring. A team that is trained to solve client problems and a technology that supports their collaboration to do so, such as workflow management tools like Monday, Confluence, & Jira.

Process:

Objective: to document key HR process end to end, measure and adjust. This requires focused collaboration with process owners to map out their process across each touch point and technology. Who does what when? What is needed to move forward - an approval? How do we document that? Is the information updated across systems? Can we automate that?

Tech/Operations: Luckily the demand for this documentation has generated some very good technology to help document workflows. I have recently discovered the power of LucidSpark and LucidChart to brainstorm & document process maps.

Technology:

Objective: To develop integrated applications in a cloud infrastructure that are secure and support clients to manage people related process across the talent lifecycle: planning, hiring, performance, total rewards, analytics, career & skills.

Tech/Operations: The fact that the market for these solutions has blossomed so much in the past 5 years is an indication of the growing need to solve unique problems. The challenge is to select the optimal Software as a Service, and stay within a reasonable budget without compromising too much on process control as we work to integrate all the various solutions.

Governance:

Objective: To make sure that HR data is 100% reliable, secure and available as a result of improved process and service enablement. As organizations grow it is easy to loose control over how data is entered and how/where it is stored. As resources come and go, looking back historically may not be possible. We must be ready to audit any past procedure.

Tech/Operations: The risk of the burgeoning SaaS market for HR solutions is related to the law of entropy. Things have a natural tendency to drift toward less structure. Technologies like One Identify Management (OIM) and workflow management tools like Workato or Zapier can help HR Tech Ops professionals gain control over automation & data quality.

Thank you for reading this post.. more to come as I navigate the challenges above!