HRIS: what are the stages of change management?

There’s more to an HRIS project than choosing a solution and deploying it. The technical side, with its parameterization, data migration and integration, is just the tip of the iceberg. What really determines success is what happens on the user side: do they understand why things are changing? Are they ready? Do they know how to use it? Do they want to use it?

Change management answers precisely these questions. And contrary to what is still all too often heard, it doesn’t start at the moment of deployment, it starts right from the project’s framework.

What is change management in an HRIS project?

Change management refers to all the actions taken to accompany individuals and organizations through a transition.

As part of an HRIS project, it aims to prepare, mobilize and support all stakeholders: HR teams, managers, employees, IT, so that the new tool is not only deployed, but really adopted and used to its full potential.

It is based on three fundamental levers:

• communication (giving meaning and reassurance),
• training (empowerment)
• and accompaniment (long-term support).

An HRIS project that is well managed from a technical point of view, but poorly supported from a human point of view, almost always leads to the same result: an under-used tool, teams reverting to their old reflexes, and an ROI that never materializes.

Why is change management so often underestimated?

We see the technical deliverables, the screens, the workflows, the reports, but we don’t immediately see the simmering resistance, the accumulating misunderstandings, the users who bypass the tool because they weren’t sufficiently prepared.

HRIS projects in difficulty often share the same symptoms: communication too late, training courses too short or too generic, managers not involved, and change management reduced to a few presentation slides at the end of the project.

Conversely, successful projects all have one thing in common: change management has been conceived as a project in its own right, with its own resources, schedule and indicators.

7 steps to successful change management in an HRIS project

Step 1: Frame the project and define the vision

It all starts with a simple question: why this project? Not from a technical point of view, but from a user’s point of view. What will this new HRIS change in their daily lives? What will they concretely gain?

This vision must be defined, shared and supported by the project sponsor, ideally the HR department, backed by senior management. It is the common thread running through the entire change management process.

At this stage, it’s also essential to define the scope of the transformation: which processes are impacted, which populations are concerned, and what are the key deadlines and milestones.

Step 2: Map stakeholders and their resistance

An HRIS project mobilizes a wide range of players with very different interests and levels of exposure: the HR team, which will be changing its day-to-day practices; managers, who will become HR players; employees, who will be using the self-service; the IT department, which will be managing integration; employee representative bodies…

By mapping these stakeholders, we can identify allies, skeptics and potential resistance, and adapt our support actions accordingly. A convinced manager becomes a valuable ambassador. An ill-informed employee will become an obstacle.

Step 3: Analyze the impact on businesses and processes

Before communicating and training, we need to understand what is really changing. An impact analysis enables us to measure, for each population, the extent of the transformations: new tools, new processes, new roles, new responsibilities.

This analysis is the foundation on which all subsequent actions are built. It enables us to target training and support efforts where they are really needed, and to avoid drowning everyone in information that doesn’t concern them.

Step 4: Build and deploy the communication plan

Information is not enough. You have to motivate, reassure and get people on board. An effective communication plan for an HRIS project is based on a few key principles:

• Start early: the first communications should take place well in advance of deployment, to avoid rumours preceding facts.
• Explain the “why” before the “how”: employees adhere to concrete benefits, not functionalities.
• Adapt messages to each target: what interests a manager is not what interests an employee or a payroll manager.
• Vary formats: team meetings, newsletters, videos, testimonials, online FAQs, etc. Repetition in different forms reinforces assimilation.

Communication must be continuous throughout the project, with regular milestones to show progress and celebrate early successes.

Step 5: Targeted user training

Training is often the most visible aspect of change management, and one of the most poorly calibrated. Train too early, and users forget before they’ve had a chance to practice. Train too late, and they arrive at go-live with no bearings. Train everyone the same way, and no one is really ready.

An effective training strategy in an HRIS project distinguishes several levels:

• Administrators and HR team: in-depth training on all functionalities, including parameterization and reporting
• Managers: training focused on their specific actions: leave validation, access to team indicators, interview management, etc.
• Employees: short, practical training session on self-service: booking an absence, accessing pay slips, updating information

Format is as important as content. Short, on-the-job training sessions, with materials accessible after the session (video tutorials, step-by-step guides) are generally more effective than long, top-down sessions.

Step 6: Monitor adoption and adjust in real time

Go-live is not the end of the project, it’s the beginning of the most critical phase. The first few weeks of use are crucial: this is when new reflexes are formed (or broken down).

Steering adoption requires defining key indicators upstream:

• HRIS connection rate by population
• Completion rate for self-service procedures
• Volume of support requests
• Qualitative feedback from users (satisfaction surveys, field feedback)

These indicators can be used to quickly identify areas of friction and make adjustments: additional communication here, an extra training session there, a correction to settings if necessary.

Reactive, accessible support is essential during this period. A blocked user who doesn’t get a quick response picks up the phone and doesn’t come back easily.

Step 7: anchoring change over time

A successful HRIS project is not one that went well at go-live. It’s a project whose benefits are still visible twelve months later.

Anchoring change over the long term means maintaining active functional governance after deployment: an HRIS referent identified in each entity, regular user committees, monitoring of regulatory and functional changes, and a structured process for collecting and prioritizing requests for improvement.

It’s also at this stage that the real ROI of the project is measured: time saved on administration, reduced errors, improved employee experience, increased ability to manage using data.

Key factors for successful HRIS change management

Beyond the individual steps, a few conditions are crucial to success:

Management sponsorship.

Change management without top-level support remains an exercise in internal communication with no real impact. The HR department, and ideally general management, must embody and support the project.

Manager involvement.

Managers are the first to communicate change to their teams. If they are not convinced, or if they don’t understand what the project will change for them, their skepticism is naturally passed on to their colleagues.

Internal ambassadors.

Identifying referents in each department: volunteer employees, trained in advance and available to support their colleagues, multiplies the support capacity and anchors the project in the reality on the ground.

Change management commensurate with the project.

Not all transformations require the same level ofsupport. The challenge is to adapt the intensity of actions to the complexity of the change and the level of exposure of the populations concerned.

Conclusion: AMOA’s role in change management

In large-scale HRIS projects, change management is often led by an AMOA team. Its role is to act as a link between the business and technical teams, to ensure that the solution deployed corresponds to the real needs of users, and to orchestrateall support actions.

TheAMOA brings a dual value: HR functional expertise, which enables it to understand the business impacts, and the ability to structure and manage a transformation project over the long term. It ensures that the project is not simply a technical implementation, but leads to a real transformation of business practices.

At SQORUS, change management is an integral part of every HR transformation project we undertake. Our Project Management and Change Management consultants are involved from the outset, building an approach tailored to your organization, your people and your challenges.

Are you preparing an HRIS project and need to structure your change management approach? Contact our experts!

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