Casey G. Brower

Data analysis was being conducted in multiple areas of the corporate HR department and throughout the field in a 20,000-employee organization. Multiple versions of calculations and data access existed and were decentralized. As a result, executives and leadership received different results from different resources, causing a lack of trust and credibility in the data.

Working with HR leadership to understand the needs of the business functions, I developed a formal pitch for a centralized people analytics department. The pitch included current and future needs assessments, resource allocation and budget requests, 1-3-5 year plans, documented responsibilities and owners, a governance outline, and an organizational structure.

As a result of my efforts, a formal people analytics (PA) function was approved and created in the HR department. I was appointed to lead the function, further developing the department vision and implementing finalized requirements from leadership. As data was centralized, and governance and security were in place, trust in the data increased due to the PA department's formal ownership.

The communication workflow was long, and gaining approval within the HR department was difficult. Once approved by the department, most communications then had to be approved by corporate communications. This resulted in employee satisfaction issues, as information was disseminated without enough notice. Additionally, documentation and materials contained in communications did not have a central location.

Faced with these issues, my team identified solutions to provide communication through multiple channels, including email, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint newsletters. The workflow was designed to limit bottlenecks and only have necessary approvers. A document repository was created in SharePoint, by function, to organize required and distributed materials.

My team's efforts made the communication process successful. By providing multiple communication vehicles, HR employees became more informed and self-sufficient. This was evidenced by a downward trend of general questions and document request-related cases in the HR case management system dashboard.

Quarterly bonus processing took more than 180 hours across three resources. The forms were in Microsoft Excel and 100% manual, resulting in errors and inconsistency.

Forms were reviewed against the organization's job library for a 1-1 ratio of forms to jobs. The forms were then designed and locked so that only required fields were editable. Employee data was automated from the HCM and entered into the forms. Macros were created to review completed forms for errors and aggregate data for review. Stakeholder sign-off was then required from functional job owners and managers. In addition, the delivery of employee-level forms was automated to reduce administration.

Our revamped system reduced the processing time of quarterly bonuses by 80%, resulting in only 36 hours of quarterly processing. Automation further resulted in a 99.98% bonus process accuracy.

In a large global employer, onboarding was performed partially in the HCM system and partially through paper. With 20+ languages spoken in this organization, a translator was required for many documents. In addition, some employees lacked technology literacy.

A full review of onboarding requirements at the federal, state, province, and country levels was conducted with experts around the organization. As a result of our efforts, all documents were provided and acknowledged electronically. Processes were developed within local resource scheduling to ensure a translator was available when documentation was not yet converted to an employee's native language. Electronic workflows were designed for routing and approval based on employee attributes and kiosks were implemented for employees without computer access. This project resulted in a time-to-productivity reduction of 20%.

Data was scattered across multiple sources and fragmented throughout the HR department. Ad-hoc reporting was very manual and took up much time for minimal resources. Insights and metrics were provided to the business outside the HR department inconsistently. There needed to be a way to access and report data efficiently.

Working with multiple functions within HR and external departments, my team analyzed data sources for integration into a single source of truth. We identified data-cleaning procedures to ensure information accuracy. In addition, we derived requirements for an HR core foundational dashboard comprising high-volume and stakeholder requests.

The project involved integrating all HR data sources with external sources from the IT and BI departments. Data was extracted, transformed, and loaded into a data warehouse and business intelligence solution. Security was designed and implemented to allow for enterprise-wide access to the implemented foundational HR dashboard. This allowed for deeper insights by integrating metrics outside the HR department.

There was a lack of understanding of how HR operations were impacting the organization and how time was being utilized. Requests were being sent to functional "catch-all" inboxes worked on by multiple resources. Processes were fragmented, decentralized and inconsistent.

To solve these issues, I proposed a case management solution so requests could be tracked and saved in one system of record. I worked with the IT team to identify a currently implemented system that contained a non-utilized HR module. Working with each functional leader, I documented process and workflow requirements for the vendor to work on within the case management system. I further monitored the vendor's SOW to ensure compliance.

As a result of our efforts, all HR functions had a single, centralized system to intake and resolve HR-related requests and concerns. The system impacted over 250 HR professionals and currently services over 24,000 cases annually. Dashboards and reporting tools utilize the data to inform HR operations enhancements, break-fix items, and key initiatives. Through carefully monitoring the SOW with the vendor, I was able to catch time errors and keep the project on time and under budget.