An interview with Ph.D. Doctor of Science Andrew Andreev, PMP, Founder and Managing Director of BINETIX LLC

HR automation as a business flow, has many aspects, dimensions, and internal or external roles. Therefore, I will cover these top challenges, which a Portfolio, Programme, or Project Manager could face when rolling-out new endeavour.

Before recognizing the key issues, let me summarize the HR knowledge area from P&PM perspective in four points: proper planning, fluent acquisition, strong team development, and of course, continuous monitoring and control. The key deliverables on each of these points are many, considering the construction of organizational chart (what is needed); definition of HR roles and responsibilities (why is needed), development of staffing plan (how to manage – acquisition, resource calendars, release, training, compliance, etc.); running staff selection and assignments; conducting team performance assessment, results monitoring and control of organizational, PM, and staff changes.

Challenge 1 – Alignment with organizational assets: Yes, we are not living in vacuum. HR planning must be aligned simultaneously with (a.) the organizational ground rules, (b.) with the overall strategy and governance (especially when we are conducting programme or we have a complex context like a portfolio with other programmes and projects), and (c.) with the goals and objectives of the running endeavour. Properly speaking, as professionals, the true challenge for us is not to define this intersection of the things, but to find the right information from different sources.

Challenge 2 – Accessing HR knowledge base: Intentionally I am not saying “database”. During the development of the staff management plan we must be aware not only of what and why we need it, but also can we achieve it at all. Ultimately our goal is to create exhaustive and feasible plan. On this ground, later we will make important and cost-effective decisions regarding the acquisition of external experts, outsourcing or in-sourcing of some activities, optimal utilization of HR, etc. There is no integrated HR and content management system capable of gathering and analysing with full-text search unstructured data like mails, attachments, local files (PDFs, DOCs, and more), external HRMS database, SharePoint storages, etc.

Challenge 3 – Searching in the mess. According to Computer World magazine, the “Usually, unstructured information might account for more than 70%–80% of all data in organizations”. This trend is estimated to keep the same pace by year 2024. But I will add something more – the chaos is natural! Today, and just five years from now, if we want to automate the HR management in our organizations, including the P&PM activities, we have to start looking for alternative solutions capable to search quickly into massive amount of unstructured information.

Challenge 4 – Selecting the right people for the right role. This issue is an old story. Even if we have crystal vision what roles and responsibilities we need for our project, there is no guarantee that the selected expert will do the job. Why is that? The question is sensitive because it has two major aspects: (a.) According to Tuckman, all newly formed teams go through five stages of development – Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. Consequently, like good managers it is our responsibility to build the project team and to motivate each of its members. This is important because that team will secure the good results of the running endeavour. (b.) However, as individuals we are carrying different knowledge, experience, ethics, personal and group behaviour when performing particular job. Very often, it is not a matter of good will to do the job but it is a matter of individual capacity. From automation perspective, we need a system capable to search and analyse the intersection between our business needs and demands, and the individual experience, education, and successful results.

Challenge 5 – Verifying and validating the results. Last but not least is the continuous monitoring and control on the staff activities. In general, the Manager is not a policeman or S.W.A.T. officer. We should have in our pocket methodology and objective criteria to compare the results with our strategic goals. The thin red line here is that this comparison should be applied with some tolerance, or threshold to the final programme/project deliverables. Each deliverable should have quantitative and qualitative characteristics but the ultimate acceptance is our responsibility as Managers. Therefore, the human factor cannot be excluded, and we can automate the verification, validation and acceptance processes partially.

I should have started with some motivation for this article at the beginning, but I have decided to do this here. I am realizing that these five challenges in HR automation can be prioritized in different way, or can be extended with more examples and information. The reality is that today, the companies definitely need simplified but powerful and integrated HR with CMS solutions which are capable to process structured and unstructured information, and to access simultaneously different data sources. This itself is a professional challenge for all parties in HR management.

Personally, I have decided to deploy HRMS in BINETIX LLC with the presumption to select suitable product in order to cover my expectation in saving time and money. After screening the market, and exchanging information with different software providers, we have discovered true “software monsters” with thousands of functions. Nevertheless, I found out that from practical point of view there is no appropriate solution to resolve these key issues and challenges mentioned above. Finally, I have decided that my company will develop new solution, which now is in the final stage of testing and will be ready soon. Of course, if you are interested in it, I will be delighted to share more information. You can contact the company by clicking here.