Content to order: a knowledge base is one key to Seagate's HR systems strategy - HR Technology: Systems & Solutions - Seagate Technology Inc - human resources

HR Magazine, July, 2002 by Bill Roberts

When Seagate Technology LLC decided to reorganize HR to meet the growing company's needs, it adopted several technologies to deliver better information more quickly to a global workforce.

Installing a modern HR management system (HRMS) was a priority for the Scotts Valley, Calif.-based computer disk drive maker. Company officials knew that HR could provide more effective service from a few call centers rather than from each site. They also recognized that HR could better serve all constituents if information about benefits, policies and processes was available through web self-service.

But the switch wouldn't be simple. It would take too long to input, format and organize for the web the thousands of pages that form Seagate's domestic HR benefits and policies, and HR didn't know which information employees would need most.

The solution was an HR knowledge base. "Now that we have implemented the knowledge base, we can track the hits, track the kind of information asked for at the call centers and develop content to be used by employees," says Peter Gannon, an HR information systems (HRIS) project manager.

Seagate is also learning that a knowledge base can be more than a repository for HR content. It also can help an HR project team manage volumes of information about policies and benefits. And it can be the string that helps bind a web portal, an HR call center, an HRMS, and self-service applications for employees and managers.

Better, Faster, Global

Three years ago, Seagate faced a problem familiar to global companies: Its HR strategy had not kept pace with growth. Seagate did not have a global HR outlook nor did it have one global HRMS. Its 50,000-plus employees were spread around the world, and many disparate systems and policies were in use, including two in the United States.

"HR was not meeting Seagate's HR information access needs consistently across the company," says Gannon. "We had at least 17 different HR management systems and a fairly rudimentary intranet, especially the HR portion of it. It contained basic information and was accessible globally. But there was no consistent navigation to benefits and other HR pages, and it wasn't of much value to the user."

Karen Hanlon, vice president of HR, says Seagate decided to trans form its human resource function with a six-point plan: establish global HR centers of expertise rather than the country-by-country approach; align HR with company business leaders and designate an HR go-to person for the 100 top executives; set up regional HR service centers; implement manager self-service (MSS); implement employee self-service (ESS); and designate local HR staff to provide services best offered at each site. "All this would enable us to be better, faster and more global in helping our business," she says.

Because top management demanded better HR service, HR had scant trouble convincing them of the system's return on investment, Hanlon says. "Just getting a global HRMS was enough of a business case. Our CFO said to look at it as deferred maintenance, that we didn't need any bigger business case than that."

Seagate also undertook several other HR technology projects at the same time and outsourced payroll in each country, says Gannon.

Project No. 1 was installing the HRMS suite from Oracle Corp. of Redwood Shores, Calif. It went live outside the United States in late 2001 and domestically in early 2002.

Project No. 2 was building regional FIR call centers in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico and the United States. Those centers would handle China virtually, and Europe would continue to be handled on a site-by-site basis. Seagate launched the U.S. call center in February 2001, before the Oracle rollout, and the other centers were operating before the end of 2001.

Project No. 3 was developing a knowledge base for each call center, a central repository for information on benefits, policies and processes. The content, accessible over the web, would be used by call center staff, by HR staff at each site, and by employees and managers, and it would be used eventually for ESS and MSS applications such as performance management, career management and online learning programs. Seagate rolled out the regional knowledge base about the time the first call center went live in February 2001. The HR knowledge bases would own a fixed position on Seagate's web portal to remind employees the information was available.

Knowledge Central

An HRMS is a relational database designed to store and maintain employee information, and to perform transactions with that data. An HRMS typically does not contain HR content--information about procedures, policies and benefits packages. Enter the knowledge base, a relational database designed to store chunks of content that can be served to users based on their needs.

Seagate plans to integrate its Oracle HRMS with its knowledge base. For example, the knowledge base would find employee data from the HRMS before deciding which content to serve the employee when requested. The HRMS would use the knowledge base to determine which procedures or benefits apply in advanced self-service applications.