01 Feb 2007
City of Edinburgh Council has signed a £10m deal with BT to modernise its human resources (HR) and payroll department with the introduction of electronic tools.
The e-HR system will streamline the council’s core HR processes, ranging from recruitment, health and safety and absence management, and enable managers to access information more easily while reducing paper transactions.
It also offers a self-service facility to staff where they will be able to conduct a range of transactions online.
It will go live in the first department this summer and be rolled out to all council departments by next year.
Andrew Unsworth, head of e-government at the council and sponsor of the e-HR project, has operated separate HR and payroll systems for the past 10 years.
‘This project will draw together a shared payroll and HR operation and introduce a self-service function that is more efficient and responsive to staff,’ he said.
Unsworth expects the project to deliver savings of £12m by 2016, with £1.5m saved per annum from 2009-2010.
‘We will create a shared service centre and new management practices on the back of the IT system,’ he said. ‘Savings will be realised because there will not be as many bits of paper being sent between the two offices, and less paper chasing.’
New management practices will take a similar approach to those used in the council’s customer services operation. For example, calls will be directed across the operational group depending on availability rather than calls going through to answer machines.
‘We will be able to do many things associated with best practice, such as monitoring calls. We will also have online recruitment, and staff can look at their pay bill or report sickness online rather than having to use paper,’ said Unsworth.
Two-thirds of the 20,000 council employees will use the self-service f unction. Unsworth says little training will be required because it is similar t o familiar services such as online banking.
What do you think? Email us at: feedback@computing.co.uk
Have your say on this article
Newsletters
Latest stories from Ecommerce
Latest videos
You may also like
Ecommerce jobs
Technology Patent Wars
Staff are increasingly using their personal devices for work. Productivity may increase as a result, but the trend brings with it security risks
Case studies from large organisations across all sectors
... And rich media, and flexible working, and peaks in traffic ...
Upcoming Events
Join us for this Computing web seminar, in which the Head of BI at the Co-operative Group Nick Colebourn will be explaining just how he reigned in the Group’s sprawling database estate and how significant savings were realised and data quality improved as a result.
Date: 31 May 2012
Time: 11:00 AM
Live June 13th 11:00am: Register now. During this web seminar we will be looking at the sorts of incidents that can bring data centres grinding to a halt and what can be done about them.
Date: 13 Jun 2012
Time: 11:00 am
Receive the latest jobs direct to your inbox
Are you being paid what you are worth?
