INDUSTRY
Public Services
Forward-thinking government for citizen-first services
Highlights
- Cloud migration enhances performance management of over 14,000 employees
- The solution covered the entire HR lifecycle of an employee, from recruitment to retirement
- Highest level of efficiency achieved through process simplification and standardization
In this article
Challenge
Minimizing silos, standardizing HR processes
Cardiff Council is the unitary authority for Cardiff, the capital of Wales, also its largest city and the tenth largest city in the United Kingdom.It is the biggest council in Wales, delivering services to an estimated 478,000 citizens. The Council, with a net budget in 2020-21 of GBP 656 million (USD 783 million) and an employee base of over 14,000 people, had embarked on a major review with an objective of being a “high-performing provider of value-for-money services for its citizens and customers by transforming ways of working to make better use of skills, knowledge, and assets”.
The HR and payroll department of the Council was reviewing staffing and systems as it had no employee self-service (ESS) and manager self-service (MSS) capabilities at the time and used non-standardized processes. The department operated in a transactional way with limited ability to view and monitor compliance. The knowledge management system did not use enterprise-wide policies and procedures. There were multiple variants of forms and processes that left the end-user confused. For example, 88 payroll forms were used for 11 processes.
The cost of a full-time equivalent (FTE) was approximately GBP 3.6 million (USD 430 million) per annum. Multiple systems were used for the same function and existed in silos. For instance, 11 document management systems and 13 case management systems were used along with paper-based processes.
Solution
TCS builds a cohesive, comprehensive HR transformation
Cardiff Council chose TCS’ Framework Oriented Architecture (FOA) model that customized and extended existing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products, to build an appropriate solution. We proposed an integrated solution with TCS DigiGOV™—an IT enabler framework—to configure the Council’s HR business processes as per their policies, and to integrate with their existing SAP payroll solution. The core SAP payroll modules were retained, while a complete HRMS solution was delivered using the flexible and scalable DigiGOV framework with rapid transformation methodology.
Features of TCS DigiGOV HR transformation:
Migrated the entire solution on the Council’s ‘private cloud’ (built on a Microsoft stack)
HR functions encompass the entire HR lifecycle of an employee—from recruitment to retirement—as a shared service across various council portfolios
Intuitive HR ESS and MSS business functions available through the internet (very few councils in the UK have ESS and MSS, and even fewer can access these online)
HR shared services platform
Functionality to identify real-time financial implication as a result of sickness absences across the Council
Ability to monitor and review individual performance with clearer objectives online
A single view of the employee enabled through a personal electronic file; with round-the-clock access to ESS and MSS over the internet via browsers and staff app; rationalization of all processes impacting HR and payroll functions
Smartphone compatible solution
Enabled the Council to implement the 1997 National Joint Council Single Status Agreement, affecting a minimum of 12,000 employees
Responsive web design—compliant and accessible on all devices. The DigiGOV™ Staff App (the ‘Working for Cardiff’ app) is available on Apple app store and Google Play store, allowing candidates and staff easy access
Enabled internal users (council and school staff) to create, track, and monitor requests for respective business processes via the self-service channel
Flexi clock system that allows employees to record their working time in line with the flexible working hours scheme designed to provide flexibility in service delivery to internal and external customers
Delivered a ‘Digital communication platform’ atop the DigiGOV™ framework, which now helps the Council reach out to their staff anytime, and anywhere. For example, when the pandemic erupted, the platform helped the Council stay in touch with employees
The implementation leveraged agile, intelligence, automation, and cloud – to deliver an 'Integrated Enterprise platform’ for Cardiff Council as an organization.
Benefits
TCS leverages its DigiGOV™ framework to bring about enterprise-level transformation
Benefits that arose from the use of the cohesive DigiGOV platform include:
Document and case management
Authentication and authorization
Executive dashboard, analytics, and management reporting
Interconnectivity through adapters and interfaces: The solution enabled the council to safeguard its investment in existing IT systems by ‘wrapping around’ or interconnecting various systems and applications. For example, the solution is interfaced with the SAP payroll system, the Commander Telephony solution used by HR shared service team, and with the recruitment portal and integration with MS Office 365—like, for single sign on (SSO) implementation over intranet, and to allow managers to authorize leaves and claims from email or Outlook.
Overall value additions
Potential for economies of scale and higher level of efficiency through simplification and standardization
Flexibility to configure new business processes on-demand and achieve desired benefits rapidly
More reliable, richer, and consistent management information, enabling efficiency and cost savings
Potential for quantifiable improvements to customer service and customer satisfaction
Potential for greater staff satisfaction demonstrated by a shift toward more value-added activities
Flexibility of workforce to meet peaks and troughs in the workload and deal with policy changes
Professional shared services capability that the Council can take to the market to generate new revenue and meet the mandates put forth by the Welsh government
Transparent, proactive, and customer-first approaches that are key to any successful partnership. Time and again, proactive propositions have helped the Council achieve results when it mattered most and has strengthened a decade long partnership further and motivated both the customer and TCS teams
Contextual knowledge of the industry and co-innovation agenda helped in keeping pace with the trends in the industry and changing user expectations
Scalability and flexibility of service to meet new challenges as the council transforms and evolves
Technology-enabled flexibility to deal with new policy changes
Technology to support the implementation of single status to eliminate gender-based pay gaps; introduce an ‘equality-proofed’ pay model; and harmonize the pay and terms and conditions between former manual and non-manual workers.
Year-on-year, the Council has been able to realize tangible and intangible benefits by leveraging the ‘Integrated Enterprise platform’ built on the DigiGOV framework. Furthermore, adhering to the organization’s vision and digital strategy, the framework currently drives various digital transformation implementations.
What Made it happen
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