4 Ways to Successfully Onboard an HRMS Consultant

You have gone through the process of recruiting an HRMS consultant, and now you want ensure you utilize them to their full potential.

Fundamentally speaking, the rule with any new recruit or addition to the organisation is: “get ‘em up and running as soon as possible.” But when the newbie in question is your HRMS consultant, charging only-you-know-what per day, you really don’t want too much wheel-spinning while they attempt to get some traction with the project. So, as with anybody else on their first day, the secret lies in the arrangements you put in place for induction and onboarding an HRMS consultant. This is the time to deal with practical issues which, if left unaddressed, could become barriers to the consultant’s performance (and therefore threats to project success).

1. Give Them Access

It’s an obvious one, but if they need a swipe card for doors, a password and username for the IT, a car parking space, whatever it is, it should be ready and waiting for their arrival. You don’t want them to earn their first hour’s money standing in the lobby.

2. Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

They’ll need to get up to speed quickly and that usually means talking to key people, so prepare a list of those people and their contact details. Furthermore, whether it’s face-to-face, video conference, or just the old-fashioned telephone, set up meetings with key stakeholders in advance and make the necessary introductions. A focused meet’n’greet can smooth the way enormously.

Hire and onboard the right consultant for your project with this comprehensive guide to working with HRMS consultants

3. Provide All the Necessary Information

What it is will depend on what they’re there to do. But whether it’s technical, people-focused, or both, your HRMS consultant will benefit from having some in-depth knowledge about the organisation. Hopefully they did their homework as part of preparing for the consultant selection process but that’s a dangerous assumption and besides, their information may be out of date. Equip them for success with all the necessary background: business structure and size, strategic priorities and goals, technical requirements, and so on.

4. Prepare Your People

It’s sometimes an unpleasant fact of life that people can resent or be guarded around outsiders. And your HRMS consultant is just that. What’s worse is that they’re an expert outsider (or they should be!) and that can lead to being perceived as a know-it-all. The chances are that your team, your employees, particularly those who will work or come into contact with the consultant, will benefit from you communicating some clear expectations about what the consultant’s role will (and won’t) be. Avoid competitive feelings and get them on the same side from the get-go.

Specific points aside, the basic principle for onboarding an HRMS consultant are fairly simple in concept. You want them to understand and connect to your organisation, plus engage with your HRMS team, its strategic goals and its everyday working reality.

Put simply, your HRMS consultant is there to add value that no-one else can (whether it be due to lack of skills, experience, or simply availability) and aligning them with the existing workforce is the best way to start seeing that value sooner rather than later.