HR Service Delivery: Implementing a Multitier Model

In a continuing effort to cut costs, improve efficiency, and enable HR to play a more strategic role in the organization, companies are moving toward a unified approach to delivering HR services, which increasingly means a tiered (or multi-tier) model. According to Gartner , "The multi-tier model provides the best balance between cost and quality of service delivery.”

Delivering HR Services: Challenges and Opportunities

A perpetual challenge for HR is demonstrating its strategic value to executive management, which too often sees HR as a cost center and administrative function. And no wonder: HR organizations can’t focus on strategic activities when they’re spending as much as 70% to 80% of their time fielding repetitive questions from employees and managers and handling basic administrative tasks. A tiered service delivery model can give HR time for high-value activities by expanding the use of self-service applications, leveraging less-expensive service agents to handle routine tasks, and freeing up HR domain experts to use their expertise in a more strategic way.

Enabling Employee and Manager Self-Service

A self-service application is the first level in a tiered HR service delivery model. A self-service portal, such as one built on Neocase Self Service (SF), gives employees and business managers faster access to HR information, such as benefit information, and the ability to access it whenever they want. Employees and managers also gain the ability to perform basic activities on their own, such as updating personal data or managing personnel actions.

The Middle Tier: Supporting Case Management in the Service Center

Not even the best self-service application can answer every question for employees. As the "middle tier” in tiered HR service delivery, a service center enables employees and managers to contact a human resources agent who is trained to answer most HR questions. For maximum efficiency and cost effectiveness, the service center application should be tightly integrated with the self-service portal, leveraging a common infrastructure, including knowledge base. For example, the case management functionality of Neocase HRPower and Neocase HRForce is used to deliver employee inquiries directly to the appropriate HR agent’s desktop.

Tapping the Expertise of Your HR Experts

When a service center agent can’t resolve an employee’s or manager’s issue, it’s escalated to an HR expert with specific domain knowledge. This is the final tier in HR service delivery. HR personnel at this level are subject-matter experts who handle only a small percentage of employee questions – typically, complex problems or policy-related issues. An HR service delivery system built on Neocase HRForce or Neocase HRPower includes business process management for automatically routing and escalating issues to the right agents or experts at the appropriate time.

The Importance of an Integrated Knowledge Base

An integrated knowledge base is an important component for each tier in HR service delivery. Service center agents need access to that same knowledge base as employees and mangers; their greater familiarity with KB information allows them to find answers that employees were not able to discover on their own. And of course, Neocase Knowledge Base enables HR experts not only to look up information but, perhaps more importantly, contribute articles to the knowledge base for the future benefit of employees and service center agents.

Neocase: A Solution at Every Level in Tiered HR Service Delivery

Neocase Software includes key components to enable a tiered HR service delivery model, including an HR help desk application for mid-size and large organizations, a self-service portal, and an integrated knowledge base. Numerous successful organizations, such as Air France, Atkins, and Guardian Life Insurance, have realized substantial benefits from implementing a Neocase solution. For more information or a demonstration of how Neocase can help you cut costs and improve efficiency within your HR organization, contact us today.