HR departments are now being asked to do more with less. To meet this challenge head on, forward-thinking executives are thinking out of the box to transform their fundamental approach to operations. They are adopting progressive approaches including self-service, shared services, and business process outsourcing to gain efficiency, lower costs, and increase service quality on a global scale. Through this transformation, they are finding compelling ways to spend less time on repetitive transactional tasks and focus more on activities and programs that have a greater sustainable impact on the business.

To achieve HR efficiency, software and services from SAP and our partners combine a deep understanding of developing and implementing seamless business models with industry best practices in HR service delivery

With SAP software and services, you can:

• Provide self-service access to standard processes via kiosk, laptops, telephony, or mobile devices, so employees can complete routine tasks without the aid of HR staff
• Support a shared-services model for centralizing expertise, which improves quality and consistency while lowering costs
• Reach all employees in a cost-efficient manner via a centralized help desk

Self-Service Is the First Step

The first step in maximizing efficiency in HR operations is to automate your standard processes and provide self-service access through the use of portals or familiar, user friendly environments such as Microsoft Office using Duet and SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe. These tools interface with SAP's human capital management solution, enabling employees and managers to perform required activities and directly access and maintain their personnel data – and, in many cases, without having to learn how to use an entirely new system.

Utilizing Shared-Services Strategy

Once considered a vehicle for simple cost savings, centralized and standardized service delivery is now helping to increase the quality and accelerate deployment of HR services. Centralizing expertise enables your organization to provide superior training for your HR experts and enable knowledge-sharing – leading to consistent and more accurate answers to employees' questions that cannot be handled via self-services.

Strong Options for Business Process Outsourcing

Another option for companies looking to meet their strategic goals is to outsource core HR operations to a third party. Business process outsourcing lets you leverage the services of specialized organizations that are optimized and dedicated to excellence in specific areas, freeing your organization to focus on more strategic activities. SAP provides enabling solutions and services to a wide range of business process outsourcing providers that deliver industry-leading services that can address your unique needs. As a result, SAP ensures that select business process outsourcing providers have the solutions, know-how, and support required to create sustainable business value for their clients.

Learn More

Get involved: Visit a discussion forum for SAP ERP Human Capital Management at Inside Access.

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