How Institute of Higher Learning (IHL) Can Benefit from Ivanti/Cherwell’s ESM

How Institute of Higher Learning (IHL) Can Benefit from Ivanti/Cherwell’s ESM

Two renowned IHL(s) in Singapore were facing a classic administration issue. With multiple schools across the campus using their own resource management systems, Human Resource managers were very much overburdened due to a lack of centralisation.

The old pen-and-paper way may still work for a single institution under a single resource management system; however it frays at the seams when tasked with catering to 17000+ different users in different schools.

The challenge for Resource Management:

HR managers were frequently buried under an avalanche of employee requests and repetitive tasks. Because employees had no resource centre, they were unable to self-serve even on frequently consulted topics. With no logs or audits, there was no visibility on available resources – how many items are in circulation? Have they been loaned out? If they have, to whom? Who requested for it, who approved it, were there issues or losses?

With 150 facilities and 90,000 resource items being recorded in different ways, it was impossible to keep track of everything. To say the least, it was cumbersome and inefficient to attempt syncing in between facilities.

The challenge for Human Resource and Finance Processes:

In the absence of a comprehensive self-service portal, employees were stuck emailing or calling the human resource and finance department for every single question they had about common topics like payroll, time off and benefits. They had to manually apply every time they took time off, changed their mailing address and other such mundane, everyday issues.

Onboarding and offboarding employees were also difficult as it required a lot of coordination between multiple departments. Different institutions may use legacy spreadsheets, e-mail chains, or even sticky notes to handover work processes- in real life, this process is cumbersome and ineffective especially when multiple departments are involved. These time-consuming processes are ill-suited to the fast pace of modern life.

Clearly the HR department of this institution needed modernization. Modern HR Service Management (HRSM) solutions enable them to streamline and automate even the most complex cross-departmental workflows. They allow employees to find answers for common topics like leave benefits and payroll by themselves, without needing to phone or email an HR manager and wait for a reply. A comprehensive HRSM system can eliminate bottlenecks and improve service delivery and efficiency by automatically routing service requests to appropriate fulfillers like security, facilities and IT.

Employee Administration: The automated internal on-boarding processes and integration with other department workflows made new hire transitions easy and efficient.

Optimized Self-Service Portal: The HR Employee Service Center consolidated HR resources by providing a single place for employees to access information. HR employees could manage daily work directly through the portal. Employees could also review the status of their requests, provide information requested and attach documentation as requested to optimize the process. General knowledge and information was available from the portal home page for easy access.

Knowledge Management: Ivanti/Cherwell’s HR Service Management solution included a knowledge base that provides answers to questions and solutions to problems that are frequently asked of the HR department. This empowers employees to find accurate and consistent answers while increasing the efficiency of the HR department.

Improved workflow: Many requests made within the portal will require assistance from HR staff. The automated workflow capabilities of the portal ensure that when a request is made, the right information is routed to the right person, at the right time, for the right response. This reduces the amount of email and phone calls to and from HR to handle each employee question. By eliminating redundant, tedious tasks, employees and HR professionals alike can redirect their time toward higher value activities.