The story might be a familiar one - your firm just brought on an important lateral hire.  Perhaps a partner from a prestigious peer firm is coming over, bringing with her a small handful of teammates.  The call comes down to IT on a Friday afternoon:  "Please make sure that all systems are set up for them and ready by Monday morning."  An extreme scenario?  More than one firm tells us it's not as uncommon as you might think, and the repercussions are huge.  Imagine the fury of a highly compensated new partner who can't exit the elevator because key card security wasn't set correctly.

While HR manages a complex set of issues including recruiting, training, evaluations and benefits management, many of the operational tasks of bringing on new employees falls to IT.  Making sure new hires can be productive immediately is a key IT priority, and the stakes can be significant. 

IT becomes an early face of the firm for these new employees.  In any relationship, first impressions have a lasting effect.  This means if new staff members have a poor initial experience, it may unfairly color their impression of IT or even the firm from that moment forward.

Unfortunately, configuring technical infrastructure can be a time-consuming activity.  It's often dependent on manual processes and the good will and attention of a variety of participants across departments.

Examining the Process
In most cases, when personnel join (or leave) a firm, HR updates a centralized human resource management application such as Ceridian, ADP or PeopleSoft and then notifies IT by e-mail.  Administrators then manually update individual applications such as Active Directory, Exchange, document management and time tracking systems, creating and configuring user accounts one at a time - a task that makes IT dread the arrival of the summer associates.

In these situations, the procedure tends to be unstructured, and communication among stakeholders such as HR staff and application administrators tends to be e-mail-based and can be spotty.  The process is fragile, relying on:

Informal communication:  Typically impromptu, requests and responses can fall "off radar."

Untracked activity:  There are no means by which to submit and track requests or to monitor fulfillment.

Repetitive manual data entry:  System updates performed by hand increase delays and chances of human error.

The results are slower service, increased chance of error, sidetracked resources and less satisfied end users.  Even when informal processes work to maximum efficiency, these approaches result in delays, increase the risk of error and offer no centralized means for tracking and reporting.

Usually it all works out in the end because the IT staff works diligently to do whatever it takes to make sure new hires are provisioned appropriately.  However, in the extreme, this may mean calling on people to be heroes and detectives because of incomplete information, and in many cases, this process sidetracks resources from other projects requiring greater skill and delivering greater strategic benefits.

Automating New Personnel Intake
It's possible to streamline the process and reduce the risk, annoyance and frustration typically felt by organizations using manual approaches.  Intake processes are ripe for optimization because they're standardized in most cases.  Places where variation may be required can be identified and cleanly managed via user interaction at appropriate decision points.

The easiest way to streamline intake is by implementing a system that automates user account creation.  To do so, firms commonly connect relevant destination systems where accounts must be created with a source system where new user information is initially entered.  For example, a source system may be an HR or identity management application.  Or it may be a custom application built specifically for this purpose such as a workflow form.

As new employees join, the system creates and configures user accounts in real time at the push of a button rather than through manual activity and ad hoc communication.  This approach can also incorporate e-mail notification and logging to ensure the preservation of an audit trail so there are no surprises.

Better Approaches
By moving beyond informal methods, firms are cutting down the amount of manual intervention required, speeding the process, reducing errors and freeing staff for more critical projects.

Increasingly, organizations are looking to workflow applications with Web-based data entry and tracking dashboards as a way to better coordinate the human activity associated with repeatable processes.  These applications provide a good way to manage iterative interaction among interdependent resources.  For example, HR may need to provide new employee information to facilities personnel who,  in turn, need to set up a phone line and communicate the extension back to HR for entry into their database.

Firms may also take steps to automate the application and data management side of these processes, building custom applications or scripts.  Or they may use data integration solutions to automate the creation of user accounts and propagation of information such as phone extensions and e-mail addresses to relevant systems and repositories.

Addressing Potential Challenges
In addition to the usual barriers facing any change to the status quo, IT teams pursuing new user intake automation may encounter some specialized obstacles including process analysis and data security concerns:

Process definition:  Ad hoc approaches carry risks, but they also offer the perception of flexibility and freedom.  Trying to establish a standard process may call out weaknesses or gaps in current practices.  As with any business re-engineering project, establishing a target is essential before looking to technology to automate activity.  Without a solid plan and the support of those affected, firms run the risk of automating a broken process.

Data ownership:  When looking to use software tools to automate user account creation based on updates to an HR system, IT organizations may face resistance.  HR is understandably sensitive about allowing external access to the information it manages.

Several workarounds can be employed in these cases:  IT can use tools that restrict their access to specific data that HR is comfortable providing; IT can create secondary entry points such as a custom Web page for HR to enter new personnel information manually; IT can continue to collect information supplied by HR via e-mail and simply automate the process from that point forward.  For example, HR can kick off the process based on updates to an identity management repository they administer.  Whatever the workaround, comfort and cooperation is critical, and education, patience and iterative improvements are keys to achieving success.

Getting Started Is the Hardest Part
Obtaining buy-in for the resources necessary for new personnel intake initiatives can be the most challenging obstacle of all.  It's ironic that the commitment made by HR and IT staff which makes new user intake function relatively smooth under normal conditions masks the underlying problems and inefficiency those departments face.  One way to build support is by educating key stakeholders about the true opportunity costs and risks associated with current practices and the benefits of improvements.  Another complimentary approach is to combine personnel intake with other process optimization and integration efforts that are important to the firm.

By automating the setup processes for new users, IT can create a more stable, more efficient experience for everyone involved - including the new employee.  That will improve morale and efficiency significantly across several firm departments.

About our author . . .

John Hall is the President of Integration Appliance.  He has presented at several industry events on topics including business process optimization, ethical walls enforcement, information security management, and new business intake.  He can be reached at john.hall@intapp.com.