Outsourcing

As I was reading our assignment for this week on “outsourcing,” I couldn’t help but reflect on my benefits experience with my first employer in the early 90’s. I had a wonderful benefits introduction when I first joined the company, including a half-day orientation, and the assistance of an advisor to walk me through the various benefit plans. I could pick up the phone or go directly to the benefits office to get answers to any questions I had (which I usually did). Most of the personnel knew me by name, and in some cases were team members and even neighbors. About six months after I started, the company announced that it was going to outsource its benefits delivery system. The decision was based primarily on cost. It was estimated that labor and overhead costs would be reduced significantly. Additional benefits cited included 24-hour assistance, a wider range of benefits options, and access to benefits specialists.

Approximately 180 jobs within the company would be impacted by this decision. Employee Benefits personnel were asked to stay on and assist with the transfer of all pertinent employee and company information to the vendor. It took a little over a year before everything was finalized. Surprisingly, many of the employees within benefits department had resigned themselves to this decision and for the most part had positive attitudes about the decision. They were given career assistance and generous early out packages. It was those of us who remained who seemed most concerned. Could our jobs be outsourced? What impact would this decision have on our work? How would our benefits truly be impacted? It was not until a few years later that we started to see the real benefits. We ended up with more comprehensive health/medical care options, retirement investment plans, and pension and savings choices to name a few. And no it didn’t effect our jobs!

Change is inevitable and oftentimes uncomfortable (as we’ve seen recently with heath care reform). By nature, we resist change. Surprisingly, our benefit options did improve. No we didn’t’ still have the same close contact or hand-holding we had before. Most of our transactions were now done via phone or online. However, we ended up with a greater array of benefits for ourselves and families. It also allowed the Benefits department more time and resources to focus on developing more attractive benefit plans and ensuring that they our benefit plans aligned with the business strategy of the company.

Contingency Planning

I found out early on in my career about the importance of project management. Fresh out graduate school, I was assigned the lead on a major HR project with the company. This project took place once a year and consumed about 60% of my time. My team was comprised of employees from the corporate office, and from the company’s seven subsidiaries around the SE. This was a high-visibility project that was commissioned and sponsored by senior management.

I wore two hats on the project: one as an applied researcher and the other as a project manager. I was very successful as a researcher, but struggled managing the size and complexity of the work. The quality of our products and services was never questioned. However, a major element of the company’s culture was getting things done on time. I learned early on that timing was everything! During the first couple of years, our team struggled to stay on schedule. We were never fully prepared for untimely delays, resource shortages, or technical slowdowns or in some cases meltdowns. Yes, we got better at avoiding predictable occurrences, but we were never fully prepared for the unexpected. We’d usually end having to work long, long hours to make up for lost time – even then we oftentimes missed critical project milestones.

I realized that I needed to do something quickly. After some encouragement from management, I enrolled in a couple of project management classes. These classes equipped me with the skills I needed to become a more competent and confident project manager. The skills quickly paid off and I was quickly promoted to serve on other important projects within the company. I’m no longer with the company, but still use many of the skills I learned from my classroom and on-the-job training. Most of all, I’ve learned to spend a little more time upfront preparing for “Mr. Murphy,” because just when you think things are going smoothly the bottom can (or will) drop out. As we've all experienced and read in the CareGroup case study, having a carefully thought out back-up or contingency plan can bail you out of a lot of problems. Bottom-line – be prepared!

Spring Break

I don’t know about you, but it’s been pleasant having Spring Break -- having an extra week off between classes, and two weeks instead of one to do our homework. I didn’t do anything to exciting because my kids were in school. Their Spring Break actually begins in another couple of weeks. Great timing! Nonetheless, I’ve used the extra time to catch up on some things that I’ve been putting off for quite some time now. I took advantage of the beautiful weather Monday to get back to work on our deck. I started this project late last Fall and have had mixed success completing it because of my busy work schedule, inclement weather, and an abundance of school assignments. I ended up not making a lot of progress, but thoroughly enjoyed the fresh air and the warmer temperatures. Was also able to finish up some remodeling in our kitchen, as well check off some smaller things my “honey do list.”

I was also asked by a client of mine to write a letter of recommendation for an online Master’s program he is applying for in Business Intelligence at Saint Joseph’s University. Found this timely given our recent assignment on Business Intelligence. He feels this program will help him in his relatively new role at Southern Company in Business Intelligence. He hopes this program will enhance his ability to understand and manage data, apply data to business/HR issues and problems, interpret data using business analytics, and provide meaningful information and recommendations to business leaders. I felt a little more knowledgeable about the topic given the research we had just done on Business Intelligence.

In short, having the extra time has given me a chance to recharge my batteries and given me more time to spend on some of my interests and hobbies. It's great having breaks like this in our schedule. Summer break can't come soon enough. I don't know about you but I need to get back into the swing of things and finish up my last research assignment and case study for Monday. Yeah!!! I’m hoping I’m not too rusty after the time off. See you soon!

IT Support Meltdown!

I couldn’t help but empathize with Bob Turley, CIO of our iPremier in our case study this week. Last year we hosted an employee survey for a client that led to a couple long, sleepless nights. The survey was hosted by a web hosting provider here in Atlanta who we’ve been doing business with for several years. By and large, our experience has been very positive, including good reliability, low costs, and solid local customer service and support. However, our experience was very different this time around.

During the first week of the administration, things seemed to go very smoothly. Data was coming in steadily and the phone was quiet (that’s a good sign!) On Saturday night I thought I’d check in to see how the survey was going and was greeted with a “fatal system error” message. My blood pressure spiked momentarily, but I didn’t panic because this sometimes occurs when the server goes down momentarily for updates, maintenance, or whatever. I waited a couple of hours, but still no activity. I called my programmer, who helped set up the site, to see what he could make of it. He suggested that we call the company to see what’s going on. To our surprise, no support was available locally so we ended up dealing with client support in the Philippines. They spoke broken English, and we had a hard time getting a clear connection. So we ended up having to repeat things over an over again. Sound familiar? After talking to a number of technicians our problem was finally escalated to the next level of service. You can guess what happened next.

Early Sunday morning I checked in and the system was still down. Tried to call the help desk again (can’t repeat what I said), and still got the run around that they were doing everything they could to fix the problem. Again, I felt we weren’t making any progress and getting the run around. I finally resigned myself that this problem could only be fixed locally and that the only hope we had was waiting until Monday morning to get a hold of the Atlanta staff (if they still existed). Early Monday morning the system was still down. I called the help desk and told them that we only wanted to speak to the local staff in Atlanta. After some delay, they connected us to their Atlanta staff. Yea!!! We tried to explain things once again, and the person we talked with said he would get on it right away, informing us that the problem may have been caused when the company migrated to their new server over the weekend. Of course this is the first time we had heard this explanation. Surprisingly, he called me back about an hour and half later and told me the problem was fixed and the site was back up. Found out that when they migrated to the new server, the new plan I had signed up for a few months earlier had not transferred over. The new server was still pointing to the old plan.

What frustrates me more than anything else is all the time and energy that was spent to resolve an issue that could have been fixed in a relatively short period of time had the right people been available to fix the problem. For two days, all we kept getting were broken promises and unwarranted delays. You feel completely out of control, but there is hardly a thing you can do about it without the right kind of support and service. We found out later that the company had merged with another firm and the management and support staff had all changed – obviously for the worst! As you can imagine, we’re evaluating other web hosting service providers for our next online survey. Hopefully our next experience will end up a little more positively and with a fewer number of gray hairs. Stay tuned!

O Do I Need ERP!

We’re in the process of wrapping up the results for an employee opinion survey we administered for a client last year. It’s been a long drawn-out project, beginning last August with the development of the survey, the setup of the administration (online and paper) and now the analysis of about 1300 on responses, 800 written comments, and creation of 70 manager reports. This survey is quite a bit longer than many of the other surveys we do, consisting of 79 questions, 2 open text boxes for comments, and background and demographic information of the respondent. Currently, we use SPSS to crunch the numbers, ACCESS to transcribe and produce the comment reports, and EXCEL to generate the summary reports (includes graphs, tables, charts, and text). The reports include descriptive statistics, historical information from previous administrations, and highlighting of significant differences.

After our readings and discussions on ERP (and CRM), I’m convinced more than ever that my process is completely out-of-date, time consuming, and prone for error (if you have not already guessed). None of our systems are integrated or even partly integrated. Information has to be constantly saved and imported manually from one system to the next, with a lot of checking and rechecking of data on the back end. Surprisingly (and thankfully), we’ve never released information that has been in error, but we spend a lot of long hours reviewing and validating the results before delivering them to the client. You get the picture!

I realize that I’m going to have to figure out a way to simply this “monster” by either buying or developing a system that can house the data in preferably one place, and be easily retrievable to analyze findings and produce reports. I recognize that the customization and flexibility we give clients to tailor the results to their specific taste may need to change, but the potential cost savings, speed and potential quality, and accuracy may increase. After I finish up this job in the next couple of weeks, I will take a short breather and then begin exploring what current technology is available to make my job a whole lot easier.

Quick Access to Business Information?

Financial Times Press, a unit of Person, has just introduced two series of short, digital-only books for professionals who want a condensed version of the text. Timothy Moore, publisher of FT Press, says “It’s a good idea to be able to provide people with shorter, more expedient, more time-sensitive content.”

Its Element series is for already published works, stripped down to 1000-2000 word versions, and sells for $1.99. Its Shorts series is based on newly published works, with about 5,000 words, and priced at $2.99. FT Press has begun marketing these works through Kindle electronic bookstore on Amazon, and through Barnes and Noble’s e-book store. To spur sales, Amazon has already discounted the price of Shorts to $2.39 and Elments to $1.39. Barnes and Noble has kept the publisher’s pricing.

Some of the business titles include “Reengineering the Rules of Management,” by James Champy, “Keeping it Honest, from Kitchen to Coca-Cola,” by Seth Goldman. FT Press has already published 242 titles and plans to have 500 by the end of the year. Specifics about publishing fees and royalties are not available. Some fear that these condensed versions of the texts could cannibalize sales of traditional books. However, Mr. Champy says there are some individuals who only want access to certain elements of your work, and don’t have the appetite to read a long, serious business book.

I don’t know about you, but it certainly sounds like something worth exploring, given its low cost, easy access, and digital interface. I’ll be interested to see what business book titles and information will be available.

(New York Times, "Kindle Books in Snack Size,” article, 2/8/10)

Fond Memories of Those IBM Punch Cards

I had a moment of déjà vu while working on this week’s research assignment on the history of Information Systems. While growing up, my mom worked as a key punch operator for United Airlines during the 1960’s and 1970’s. A key punch operator’s job was to manually keystroke the data into punched cards by punching holes in designated locations on the card. The cards were then fed into a mainframe computer to record employee and customer information. A key punch station consisted of a small desk with a keyboard similar to a typewriter, with hoppers for blank cards and stackers for punched cards. As you could imagine, everyday there were hundreds of punch cards that would be discarded due to improper entry. Employees were oftentimes encouraged to take home any cards that were not useable. I remember my mom coming home with boxes, containing hundreds of IBM punch cards in a wide variety of colors -- red, blue, green, and yellow. As kids, we couldn’t wait to leaf through them, sorting them by size, color, punch count, and more importantly figuring out what we could make out of them.

I know this doesn’t sound very exciting by today’s standards, but back then anything in color was a novelty. Almost everything was in black in white, printed documents, photographs, and TV’s. I remember using them around the house as note cards, to decorate our bikes for parades, to make paper airplanes, to build a house of cards, and yes, even to make Christmas ornaments. Today the cards are a pretty much obsolete, and the mainframe has been replaced with high-speed networks, LAN’s, and the internet. Every once in a while I stumble upon a punch card while rummaging through some old box in my mom’s attic or happen to see one lying around at a flee market. I fondly remember the fun and excitement we all had mixing, matching, and manufacturing works of art from those old IBM punch cards.