HR Rethink: Mastering an HRTech strategy

This is where HR teams mostly go wrong. I have seen this countless times; an eager HR team rushing to invest in a new flashy tool, expecting it to magically fix all their operational challenges. Most of the time however, this doesn’t solve the problem - it only adds to the confusion. The real issue isn’t the obvious 'problem' causing the chaos; it’s a symptom of a deeper dysfunction earlier in the organization’s people processes. 

Rushing to fix the problem without really understanding the deeper causes is like trying to put up pretty curtains on the second floor of the house when the foundation hasn't even been poured yet. 

So if you want to avoid this lack of problem analyses, planning, and alignment that leads to user adoption issues, integration frustration, and ultimately, the project failing, read ahead.  

Build your HR house from the ground up 

To put together an HRTech strategy that truly works and makes a positive impact on your business, you need to take the time to thoughtfully and carefully go through each of the following steps: =

1. Draw and design - analyze where you are now, where you want to go, and how you plan to get there. This a phase of blueprinting your future HR`service. 
2. Make a ton of decisions - choosing what technology to buy, how to integrate it, and who you need to make it happen. 
3. Build it - deliver the actual change. In a controlled and well-planned manner. With the right skill set available around project management, data management, and a lot of eye for change and communication. 
4. Improve and upgrade - continuously improve your way of working and keep up with new features and releases. 

Over the coming weeks, I’ll dive into each of these steps in detail, breaking them down to give you a clear roadmap for tackling every aspect. Each step will be featured in its own post, where I’ll share valuable insights and lessons my team and I have gained over the years through our experience with HR Transformation projects. 

Phase 1: Draw & Design 

In the first stage, you focus on designing your house—your future HR service—by creating a detailed blueprint for what’s to come. 

This is where your vision takes shape, as you carefully plan and construct it step by step, both in your mind and on paper. 

Do you have multiple floors? How about natural light? Do you want more privacy or an open space? What kind of material do you use? What’s your budget for it? 

In HR terms, this means you should:  

• create a sharp vision for HR and a set of design principles for your transformation. 
• draw your end-state HR platform and what you need to make it happen. 
• map out your employee journey describing how your people processes should flow before optimizing and automating them. 
• capture project implementation fundamentals and set up a project team and a project plan. 
• draw up a business case and make explicit what are the risks involved in the project. 

Phase 2: Making a Ton of Decisions 

In the second stage, you need to make a ton of decisions.  

With the ideal vision for your HR house in mind, you need to choose the intricate details of the house. How many windows and doors do you want? What will your bathroom tiles look like? Will it have underfloor heating? Do you use the electric or gas kitchen stove? How many electric outlets do you want? Where should they be placed?  

In this stage, you’re choosing the right tools that will enable you to implement your HR vision and design principles. In HR terms, that means you should: 

• describe your HR use cases & requirements for vendors; what vendors need to understand about you, and what you expect from a software solution. 
• map out your technical architecture for HR. Understand how data, technology and different apps fit together for a synergistic effect. 
• organize demos, vendor management, and finally buying the right solution.  

Phase 3: The Actual Build 

In the third stage, you’re actually building your ideal house. 

This is where your ideas and vision meet the real world. As Winston Churchill famously said, “Plans are useless, but planning is essential.” In other words, be prepared to adapt your initial plans because unexpected issues will arise - like uneven floors, misplaced AC units, or exposed water pipes you didn’t account for. 

To keep your vision and goals on track, you’ll need a solid team to see the project through to completion. Ideally, this team should include people who were part of the earlier stages, as they’ll bring valuable context and expertise to the table. 

Also, there will be a lot of specialists on-site, but you need one person who will be the main contact, the one who will lead the communication between the visionaries of the project and the implementors of it.  

In HR terms, that means you need to typically find people who will fill the following roles: 

• HR Implementation Lead. This specialist ensures that your new software meets all of your business requirements.  
• HR Project Manager. This specialist plans and executes project deliverables and keeps the train on track.  
• HR Change Manager. This specialist guides the employees through the organizational change so that the plans get perfectly executed and users adapt to your new way of working.  

Phase 4: Constant Improvement 

In the fourth stage, you’re doing maintenance and making things better and better.  

When is the house “done”? It’s never completely done. There are always things that you need to do and maintain to ensure that the house stays in that visionary state that you had in mind at the beginning. 

This means you need to organize for top-notch user support and every once in a while, you’ll have to do some small renovations and repairs to ensure everything runs smoothly.  

In HR terms, that means that you should: 

• have a skilled (remote) system administrator available to the team. 
• Keep up with new features and upgrades by organizing proper release management processes.  
• Offer good training for end-users. 

Conclusion 

Building your HRTech project means taking it one step at a time, just like you would with building a house. You can’t jump steps and then wonder why the house crumbled down. 

In the following weeks, I’ll share more on each of these stages needed to ensure that you implement a successful HR tech project so stay tuned.