Nissan North America Transform HR Services

As part of the series in association with HR SSON Enwisen, SSON spoke to customers about their Nissan North American strategy and how HR Shared Services Enwisen played a key role in cost reduction and value added.

SSON: Let me start by asking you to explain Nissan North America HR shared services strategy.

Dwain Stevens: Our strategy was not only for the development of human resources shared services, was to transform the human resources across the entire company, to add more to the business. As part of this transformation strategy, one of the final product was to develop shared services and common services strategy has been to standardize virtually all HR practices as possible throughout the company, as well as delete whatever transactional type of administrative tasks from HR staff within the different locations.

SSON: How have you used technology to transform human resources efficiently and cost?

Dwain: In the past we have not had an effective way to share information with all employees who were HR-centric. We had an employee intranet, but because of the way in which it was conceived technically, all employees have had access to it, only a few employees. So we need technology, a dynamic portal for employees, where we could put all sorts of HR information, and make it available to employees 24/7. This way, when people have a question, you can look up the answer themselves through any computer - and most of our employees do not have a computer, either at work or at home. What's more, if people needed to do some sort of change that was HR related or performance related, could go online and make those changes, you, and not having to wait for someone in HR to fill out forms , enter data, make that change and then see the change take effect later. Online access has improved the lives of all - helping employees to obtain information more quickly, because the operations to be faster. He also removed a lot of duplicate entry and non-value added activities by HR.

SSON: But you moved to a different technology platform, and what was the business case for doing this?

Dwain: The business case was to save money in a much more efficient and effective. We performed an analysis to understand how a portal that could help us do this or how can a shared service center could do it. And we did the numbers, and believed - and confirmed - that has made us more effective and more efficient.

SSON: What are the technological requirements has chosen, and why did you choose them?

Dwain: Our technology requirements were an employee portal that was available 24/7, and was available to 100% of our employees. We wanted single sign-on capabilities, and we wanted it to HR-centric - in other words, we do not want generic or standard service portal or call center tracking technology. We wanted an integrated solution - are not two separate solutions that would integrate ourselves. And, again, single sign-on capability, which then binds directly to our HRMS system - these were the main requirements. After extensive research, including a lot of analysis, and a lot of demos, we have chosen the suite of Enwisen AnswerSource HR Service Delivery because it met our technology requirements, and it was a great value.

SSON: Have you considered other suppliers of technologies before Enwisen?

Dwain: We did see a lot of different technology vendors. What made Enwisen stand out is that you have met all technical requirements, and we were convinced that the speed of execution will be faster - and the amount of work that our people would have done would have been much less because of the seller, Enwisen, would require that on. We were up and running in less than three and a half months.

SSON: Fantastic, and what were the challenges in the transition to the new platform and integrate the new system?

Dwain: The biggest challenge facing any organization is change. Since we were basically the transformation of human resources, we were going to change the way in which they were delivered HR services across the entire company. It affected employees, managers, and especially HR people. We discovered that communicating what we were doing, and when and how, and do so in a way that encouraged employees to believe that it would be best for the entire company has worked better. This was one of great change, because if you think about it, we were going to change their work, what they did, where they did, and the technology they used. We pretty upset their entire world. And then from the point of view of workers, have been used to seeing people of human resources, human resources and more people in the facility by answering their questions, instead of searching for information on their own. So using the technology we have encouraged employees to do more for themselves. It 'was a big challenge. Many people, myself included, like someone to hold my hand.

SSON: You think you've learned and now has never really accepted at ground level?

Dwain: I think it's definitely been accepted, because I would say that while they have no choice, but people still have human resources in these affiliates. But what people are doing HR in plants is very different from what they were doing before. And it is still accepted as our call volume is still steady, and sometimes grows. When we HR initiatives, we do a good job of communicating what these initiatives - which could be a simple change in benefits, could be a big change in benefits, and may be communications from the CEO. So, when communicating to employees, which will call the service center. The service center has become a hub for different types of action when employees have questions. The initial notification goes out, directing calls to the service center for this kind of thing, as long as they are routine, and has become far more accepted.

SSON: What do you think are the main benefits of moving to the new platform? As the integration of a multi-layered approach?

Dwain: The main benefits affect different groups of people differently. From the perspective of an employee, because we have an HR portal, a lot of HR information - for example, policies, menus canteens - plugs directly into their payroll system. They can see their paychecks to providers, can find all kinds of information, such as what to do when they have a son, married, or just the events of life. With this technology, encourages people to help themselves. People want information when they want it, and do not want to wait for someone else to provide, in a way that improves the quality of life.

Then, when it comes to transactions, there is less paper to fill out. For example, do not have to fill out a paper with the change form - they do online. So the problems of the form lost or delayed when someone receives when someone enters that information, they are gone. Accelerates the transactional process, from the perspective of the employee.

From the HR point of view, since we removed the administrative / transactional stage from some of the HR people, we can focus on different types of work. We have a group of people at the center of HR services that focus on management as well as the transactional side, but also the service center partners with other groups of people such as members of work, when they have a big change. We are their partners in managing change, and we are partners with skills in speech performance. We have information of data, we know what questions people have and work with them to share information to say: 'here is what they want, here is what you do not like,' They are better able to get better with a change in benefits. And then from the commercial point of view, because we have become much more efficient, more effective, we saved money, and save time. So, everybody wins: the 'HR employee and the company.

SSON: Dwain, what you have saved since the system integration? Or you can put a percentage on it?

Dwain: I think the amount of money we saved would be confidential, but let me say this: When we did the analysis of human resources, we were in the lowest quartile of expenditures.That means that we were spending more money than our peers. Since we set up the transformation of HR, we are now in the top quartile, spending the least amount of money compared to our peers.

SSON: How long did it take to accomplish this?

Dwain: The overall transformation, if you think about it from beginning to end, was probably a couple of years - maybe two or three years - but the transformation of the HR service center, which actually saved the most money, was probably a and-a-half years from start to finish. If you look at the total analysis run, technological change, and the launch of the service center, which was three to three and a half months. We did a few months of preparatory work before.

SSON: What were some of your key performance indicators to measure success? You have just explained cost savings, but how are you monitoring of key performance indicators and how to meet them?

Dwain: Our main call center KPIs are connected, and service-related. For example, how quickly you answer the phone - this is a KPI. The other KPI is to make sure that people do not abandon the call. So the first KPI service levels, the second KPI is the dropout rate. And then the other key measure is the first contact resolution, which is an indication of customer service. On all these three main KPIs, we are equal or superior to measures worldwide.

SSON: How CSR does not have to serve the population of 12,000 people?

Dwain: How we are organized can be different for others, because of what tasks we are responsible. There are basically three groups of people, and we follow the traditional terminology, a level that many call centers use HR, or any type of call center really. Level Zero is our knowledge of HR technology based portal, Tier One is the service center of the HR staff reporting directly to the phones of employees. For us, our directors are Tier Two benefits, and then we have our COE, which is Tier Three. For Tier One - we have eight people for 12,000 employees and we have two people in the nights, and although it might not have any calls during the night than we do currently for employee relations.

We are a non-union company, and want to support that, so we found a balance between people holding hands and being available for people - that's why we have people at night. I would say this to have a centralized HR service center: some people say, 'Well, you took a person away from us in the plant HR.' But what really matters, instead of a person being taken away from the plant, we added eight people at your disposal, basically twenty hours a day, five days a week. With the addition of eight customer service representatives, we have more people available to take calls in such a way that enhances customer service for employees.

SSON: the self-service platform was obviously very effective, because if you can reduce to eight people who respond to 12,000 employees, do you agree with this?

Dwain: Yes, I know, but it is difficult to quantify how many people get their answers to questions from the technology. We know how many people access to technology, but we do not know how many people have their questions answered by it. We know, because of dashboard technology, the portal has a lot of use. When people call the service center, usually their questions are more complicated than just simple information, so that the length of calls is longer. Is fine with us, why we are here to answer these complex calls. I would also say that our Tier One people on mobile phones, do other things in addition to responding to calls, because the volume of calls is unpredictable, and there are times when call volume is low. So we took the administrative tasks that can be made between calls, or we can take someone off the phone to give them time to do these administrative tasks. Taking on administrative tasks to Tier One, and removes the job from other higher, more expensive Tier Two and Three personnel. And we also have centralized some of those tasks that were done by local affiliates nationwide. So we are able to best use our resources.

SSON: Are there other parameters that can be shared by the project 'Win' HR?

Dwain: Our service levels are in the mid-eighties, so that means that 84-85% of calls are answered within sixty seconds or less. Then our average talk time is four-and - half for five minutes. Our first contact resolution rate is not as high as I would like, but there is a factor here that is beyond our control. Our first contact resolution rate is when the representative is unable to answer the first question on the first call, and this is in the low to mid eighties, anywhere between 82-84% in general, sometimes higher. The reason is not higher is that we have worked with other groups that do not fall under the HR umbrella. For example, the payroll does not fall under the HR umbrella, even a group of people called Car Lease, a benefit that we give to our employees. Why not have full access to information that these groups do, and we are the central point of contact, employees who call us with questions or wages for their questions Car Leases require more time for research. And we can answer these questions anywhere between 60-70% of the resolution, contact the first time. But that brings the lowest overall score. If we pulled out of Car Lease, and if we pulled out of paychecks, our first contact resolution would be over half of the nineties.

SSON: What other HR areas become know in the next two or three years?

Dwain: From the perspective of the service center, even a day after we launched - we went live in September within three or four months - we started an initiative to change the way we provide health care coverage. Instead of a traditional PPO plan, we went to a consumer-driven health plan, which is important change in health care is delivered. Within twelve months the whole company was in this new health plan CDHP. Now that the amount of work has taken a huge amount of time - not only from our CEO, but from the service center, too, and we were able to do so within a year. And that was just launched a service center with new people and accountability launched recently and we did very effectively.

So we always found a way to standardize our processes, consolidate our policies, automate processes and to simplify matters - in other words, more ways to do more with less. A good example of this is when we launched this new CDHP plan. When it came time for people to sign up - it was compulsory for the 13,000 employees at that time - and we were looking at ways in which we were going to take the call volume, with eight repetitions, we took into account the assumption more reps and even outsourcing first-level calls. It is estimated that we needed some seventy people to take all calls on the basis of our population and the type of plan that was changing. Nissan is very frugal, which is part of our culture and we are very aggressive on costs, too .. So, we literally took twenty-four people ourselves, trained them, gave them intensive training on new technology as well as the new plans, and then with the right tools, training and the right time, were able to take the volume of new call with the new CDHP membership. And our service levels, even if our call volume increased six times the average of the standard, our levels of service were in the mid-nineties, with only twenty four other people - which is a testimony of our people , as well as we did and how the training worked with our contractors, but also a testament to technology that we used.

SSON:. The automotive industry has been greatly affected by the recession, you see the green shoots' of recovery?

Dwain: Yes, HR really opened the way for the re-engineering efforts, but started a couple of years ago. The company has found a way to restructure itself without affecting too many people - we hardly had layoffs, we had people who volunteered to leave, and were encouraged to do so. Because we have been very aggressive in our re-engineering efforts and our cost cutting. Again, this is no forced massive layoffs in order to enable us to save money. So we managed to turn a profit - I think we lost a quarter, and then turned around the next quarter. So it would not have happened without the aggressive re-engineering, not only within HR, but from other parts of the organization. In fact, our market share had risen during this recession, while othershave lost. This is without any government bailouts .......