systematicHR

Many of the people I know have watched a film called “Up in the Air.”  Indeed, I suppose it was a popular file garnering several Oscar nominations.  (I have no idea if it won anything as I don’t watch the Oscars.)  Several people have told me how personal the film was, and other than the whole “affair thing” I’d have to say that I agree.  I’ll take a moment to point out that I am nowhere close to 10 million miles either.  However, there were certain points of the film that as I watched it (on a 4 hour flight of course) I chuckled to myself and realized that I do the same thing.  ((ok, I admit that I copied this intro from another post on the same movie))

At one point in the film, Cloony and Anna (someone or other) are passing through the security lines and he chooses the line with the Japanese businessmen.  While she accuses him of being racist ((perhaps I should define racism sometime, but I’m not sure this blog is the right place)), Cloony’s character explains about his choice.  The Japanese on one hand seem to like slip-on shoes, while the other security line had children or something or other.  Having passed through the security line just this morning, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I go through the same type of decision making process both before and during the security experience.  You see, even though I have many shoes with laces, I only own one pair that is slip-on.  These are my “airport shoes.”  God forbid that I would have to spend time taking off my shoes and then tying them back up when I should be running to my gate (for which I’m inevitably late for).

As I approached the ID checker with my driver’s license today, I quickly scanned the people in line in front of me.  Two lines, does everyone look like they travel?  Do they look like they know what they are doing?  Anyone with children?  Anyone look like they are from Idaho taking their first trip in 10 years?  Yes, I am that absurd and will happily deal with all your criticisms for it as it gets me through the security line seconds or minutes faster.

At the end of the day, my experience is all about process – usually a set of processes stacked end to end.  If I fail any one of these many airport processes, I’m annoyed and my entire user experience is diminished.  I have a regular driver that takes me to the airport (he is NEVER late), I check into my flight and scan seats on my phone while in the car, I print my boarding pass when I get to the airport, get through security as quickly as I can, head to the airport lounge where I don’t want anyone standing in front of me to check in, and then to the gate where again, I want to board early.  I have optimized my airport experience as much as possible from and end to end perspective, but I have also optimized each individual sub process such as the security line.

This is really no different from your HR service delivery end users whether it’s self service, a call center or dealing with an HR business partner locally.  The difference is that your end user customers don’t have as much flexibility in customizing their experience.  However, the same can be said for them – any failure in the end to end process inevitably taints their perception of the entire experience, not matter how trivial that taint was.

Today, the end user experience can be automated and made more efficient from a large cadre of technical capabilities.  Pop screens that alert call center reps to caller information have been around for ages, and the implementation and integration of HR knowledgebase to information governance is steadily becoming more prominent.  The knowledgebase information is becoming more available through tier 0 tools, and when tier 0 is not the right solution, case tracking at the end user level can be available.

I’m going to continue wearing slip-on shoes to the airport, only because I know it saves to 15 seconds.  It might seem trivial, but it’s those little things that make a difference in the end user experience.