Strategy
Showcase:: Turner’s Global Employee Portal Snaps into
Action
 The
implementation of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.’s
Global Employee Portal earned the company’s HR Technology
Team (pictured at right) CTHRA’s 2010 Operational Efficiencies
Award. Dubbed snap (defined as “an effortless
task or easy job”), the portal served as the home of
all of Turner’s HR content, the gateway for access
to employee-facing systems via single sign-on, and the repository
for employee self-service (ESS) and manager self-service
(MSS) transactions including payroll, HR, benefits, and
expense functions. (Read
more about snap.)
We asked Matt Lehmann, Turner’s Senior Manager
of HR Technology, to share some insight into the initiative.
Q. What motivated
the HR Tech team to set a goal to leverage HR technology
systems globally?
Matt: Core tenets of Turner’s business strategy
for several years now have been execution, international
expansion, and developing new audiences. In late 2005, we
developed a long-term HR technology roadmap in alignment
with the HR and business strategy. Fortunately for us, from
a technology standpoint, the HR and business priorities
aligned quite well with our roadmap’s planned activities.
From an execution standpoint, we needed
to standardize and automate HR processes and leverage foundational
data from our HR systems to deliver personalized and relevant
information to our employees and managers. From an international
expansion perspective, we needed to consolidate multiple
systems globally to reduce our ongoing efforts for maintenance
and upgrades and focus on deploying common platforms for
managing talent. Finally, in terms of developing new audiences,
we strove to develop deeper, more collaborative relationships
with our international HR and business stakeholders to ensure
we were listening to their needs and developing solutions
that would be adopted locally, yet would be aligned with
the need to scale globally.
Q. What was the
biggest challenge you faced – and conquered –
in launching Turner’s Global Employee Portal?
Matt: Turner builds branded networks and media environments.
That same focus on branding carries over to internal, employee-focused
brands. Before we launched snap, our employee portal,
we had multiple internal web sites that employees visited
to learn about benefits offerings, check their pay advices,
update personal information, etc. Our international regions
also had different levels of HR information and forms posted
on their regional intranets. Each of those sites had separate
log-ins, different appearance and navigation, and levels
of sophistication. Add to that multiple third-party benefit
provider web sites that employees were required to visit
in order to complete other transactions, and the result
was a less streamlined approach than one would want for
new employees.
Since we consolidated much of the information
and functionality across those disparate sites with snap’s
launch, we had to work with each of the sites’ owners
to ensure they understood the rationale for relinquishing
their individual brands and rolling their functionality
under the snap banner. By focusing on bettering the
employee experience, we were able to overcome any initial
reluctance.
Q. Conversely,
was there any part of it that proved more difficult than
expected?
Matt: I like to use the analogy of an iceberg when
describing a global employee portal project. What you see
above the waterline, are the typical steps you forecast
in the project plan, mostly around process and solution
definition, the build out of the technology, and the approach
to rolling out the system to users. But below the surface
can be many challenging ‘mini-projects’ that if
not handled properly can delay your launch, or at worst,
derail your effort. Some examples of these ‘below the
surface’ sub-projects can be data privacy, data cleanliness,
maintenance windows, network speed, and user support structures.
At Turner, we were able to navigate around the icebergs,
but for some, the level of effort was greater than originally
anticipated.
Q. What have you
learned during this implementation – about yourself,
your colleagues, the nature of the technology or the rollout
process itself – that will help you in other aspects
of your job?
Matt: Prior to joining Turner, I was in an HR process
and systems implementation role at a large consulting firm.
While I enjoyed the diversity of experiences at many companies
over a short tenure, I often found it frustrating that I
was not able to see a project through from start to finish.
With the snap initiative in particular,
it’s been very rewarding to work within a small team
to oversee the project from concept creation through to
our initial implementation and then continue with ongoing
refinement with each subsequent release. It’s truly
been a team effort in working with our traditional partners
in the HR generalist and IT organizations, but also leveraging
the talents of new partners in the business like CNN marketing,
CNN.com, Turner Studios, Image Management, and the (diversity)
business resource groups.
Some other specific lessons learned that
we are carrying forward to future projects from snap
are networking with other companies, focusing on usability
testing, and celebrating successes. In regards to sharing
information, we continue to participate in professional
organizations such as CTHRA, whereby we can learn from the
prior work of other HR organizations and share what we’ve
done with others. Usability testing is now hardwired into
any project we do as we have learned that it’s nearly
impossible to train 12,000+ employees globally prior to
any roll out, so it’s critical that employees can get
going without HR involvement. Finally, with each major release
of snap, we have made a conscious effort to mark
the milestone. It’s important to acknowledge the work
that goes into a long-term project like this as it’s
happening, and to celebrate the completion of critical parts.
Q. Now that the
Global Employee Portal is in place in Turner locations around
the globe, you’ve said that you will continue to build
on its potential. What are your plans?
Matt: Where to start? We certainly have come a long
way over the past 4 ½ years, but feel we have a long
way to go in implementing new technologies and optimizing
others to help drive Turner’s business globally.
snap was a driver in re-defining
our relationship with our partners in International HR.
We are continuing our ongoing dialog with all of the regions
on their needs and we have a team member departing now for
a short term assignment in Hong Kong to ensure we’re
providing a higher level of real-time support to the Asia
Pacific region and also are working towards developing local
capabilities for future HR technology projects.
In mid-2010, to support our talent management
strategy, we are deploying a new global learning/compliance
management system and a global succession management system.
These modules will be fully integrated with our previously
launched global performance management system and all accessible
to employees via snap. Later this year and into 2011,
we plan to work on increasing our footprint of employee
lifecycle transactions available via manager self-service
both in terms of more transaction types and greater penetration
within our international regions.
Finally, in 2011, we aim to focus on several
sub-projects under the banner of onboarding, from position
requests and approvals through to provisioning of new employees
prior to day 1. But regardless of how the roadmap evolves
with the business strategy, we remain focused on leveraging
snap as our long-term hub and engine.
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