3 Tips for Better HRMS Team Engagement

Engagement is critical to business success… every employment expert tells us so. But when it comes to an HRMS team there are two facets to engagement. First of all, there is the need to engage the team in its task; secondly the team (in its management and driving of the project) must engage with the various stakeholders.

Engaging the Team

The key components of HRMS team development have been covered elsewhere but a swift recap and slight expansion with a focus on engagement might look like this: set a clear vision for the team, give them a common purpose that each individual can buy into; listen to what your team members have to say (you selected them for what they had to offer, it would be foolish to ignore it!), consult on the detail of the project, invite input and appreciate it, empower, delegate, and hand over control wherever appropriate and possible (while continuing to support!); and finally, encourage, provide training/coaching and reward both effort and results.

With Whom in Turn Should the Team Engage?

It’s easy (and possibly simplistic) to say stakeholders, but who actually are they? Hopefully you will have conducted a stakeholder analysis exercise before you embarked on your HRMS project, prior to selecting your HRMS team (because you need the team to represent or access key stakeholders groups) but part of engaging the team in the process of engagement is to refine your stakeholder analysis as a joint activity or exercise.

A “stakeholder” is essentially anyone (or group of people) who has an interest in the HRMS project and/or some influence over its outcomes. Key stakeholder groups might include. C-level decision-makers, managers and employee users, and the HR teams whose roles the HRMS is intended to augment. Different groups will vary in their interest and influence and these variations will inform the team’s engagement strategies.

Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholders can be divided into four basic categories according to whether their interest and influence in the project is high or low.

High influence, high interest – must be fully engaged and have their needs satisfied.

High influence, low interest – should be kept satisfied, but bear in mind that they will probably have little to do with your project.

Low influence, high interest – usually those who will be day-to-day users of the HRMS; as such most of the bugs and teething troubles may be identified and addressed with their input and help.

Low influence, low interest – should be kept informed but otherwise little time should be spent here.

Likely stakeholder groups will be: C-suite; Employees; Managers; HR; IT; Procurement; Customers (although there’s unlikely to be a direct impact on this group, the performance of the in-house groups will ultimately be discerned by the customer).

Engaging with your team and then helping them to identify and in turn engage with their key stakeholders is a critical success activity for any HRMS software project. Often the communications and engagement activities are a big part of each HRMS team member’s role and frequently more demanding and prone to failure than the ‘mere’ technical elements.