HR administration outsourcing in large companies involves a large volume of work and constant interaction with the client's employees. To ensure quality and speed, we usually form a geographically distributed team: specialists in our offices and implants. An implant is an outsourcing company employee who works permanently at the client's office.
To help understand the specifics of this way of working, we spoke to a UCMS Group HR administration specialist who has worked as an implant at a large chemical company for more than three years.
400 employees
Specifics:
The client chose UCMS Group after a long tender. The tasks were: migrate from BOSS-Kadrovik to 1C:ZUP 3.1, implement the employee and manager self-service portals, and maintain HR records and payroll.
Changing an accounting system is always a large and complex task, because you cannot simply export a database from one system and load it into the new one. Every system is unique and contains many customisations. The UCMS Group implementation team developed its own methodology and special tools that make the data migration process easier.
How the implementation went:
In our practice we often encounter situations where clients' processes are configured incorrectly, which is why it is important to involve a team of methodologists and HR records specialists in the project. They help detect inconsistencies and preserve important data during the transition.
Usually an HR implant deals specifically with HR administration: preparing documents for hiring, transfers and dismissals, processing vacations and so on. But thanks to the implant's own proactivity and the client's trust, in this project the UCMS Group specialist is entrusted with work beyond ordinary HR administration, including active involvement in project work. The implant's main responsibilities at the company are described below.
HR administration.Working with the remote UCMS Group HR administration team: preparing and passing all necessary data to the project team, answering requests and so on.
Supporting the 1C and SAP systems.Processing all HR transfers in the system, monitoring changes in employee data and ensuring that data is available to managers, including for the Belarusian representative office.
Military registration.This is a very complex and extensive task for an outsourcer: to understand and comply with the requirements of all the military registration offices to which employees are attached. The implant's task is to inform the remote outsourcing team in good time about changes concerning employees subject to military registration.
Communication with the head office in Europe.For example, correspondence and sending documents when the company structure changes or HR transfers occur. The nuance is that, under security rules, the head office accepts messages only from specific employees, and the UCMS Group implant is among them, alongside the head of HR and the business partner.
Interaction with the client's other partners,for example on agreeing compensation, business trip and car rental expenses, checking final invoices and so on.
Congratulating employees on anniversaries.This means calculating length of service, preparing gifts on time and arranging bonuses for milestone dates. The company cares deeply about its employees, so it is essential not to forget anyone or make a mistake.
“Actually, that is only part of my tasks. For example, employees often come with questions about various types of leave or compensation, just as they would to a regular HR department employee.
And it is important to note here that I would find it very difficult to cope with half of these tasks without the UCMS Group team, that is, without the ability to draw on the company's huge expertise and other resources at any moment.
Here is an example: maternity payments were increased at the start of the new year. How should the data be entered in the accounting system so that an employee returning from maternity leave loses nothing? It seems easy, but the whole UCMS Group team worked out how it should be properly formalised.
My colleagues are super professionals, I am a million per cent confident in them.”
Taking part in implementing the 1C self-service portals is another important task.
We implemented the self-service portals with basic functionality in 2021. But we continue to refine them. For example, last year we improved work with vacation schedules: employees can now submit vacation requests and see the schedule in the self-service portal. And soon managers will get a visualisation of the vacation schedule.
Self-service portal capabilities in this project
We are also refining the assistant portals so that assistants in different offices can manage vacation requests and other documents on behalf of managers. This will reduce situations where approval is delayed because managers are busy.
The implant's tasks with the self-service portals are not limited to providing data and helping train employees. An important part of the work is seeing what can be improved and proposing refinements.
We have prepared recommendations to help build effective work with an implant.
Usually the client cannot choose the team, because outsourcing is the provision of a service, not the supply of an employee. But customer-oriented companies often accommodate such requests. They understand how important it is to establish contact with the person.
“When the client asked to arrange an interview, our team agreed. As a result I have been working here for three years, fully immersed in the processes, and I consider the client's employees my colleagues. As they do me: far from everyone knows that I am not on the staff. I do not hide it, it is just that nobody is interested.”
Successful integration of the implant into your team also depends on you. Yes, the client does not need to train the implant; that is the outsourcer's job. But it is important to immerse the person in the company's processes, introduce them to colleagues and provide all the accesses.
“On the first day the head of the HR department told me in detail about the company structure and the specifics of HR administration. There was a lot of information and I did not remember all of it, but colleagues helped me understand things, both on the client's HR side and on the UCMS Group side.”
Set out clearly in the contract all the implant's duties and areas of responsibility. This helps avoid misunderstandings and ensures all tasks are completed. Also remember that the outsourcing company is responsible for the implant's actions, but those actions must be set out in the contract.
“My responsibilities go far beyond what an implant usually does. But there are no employees here to shift these tasks to, so my area of responsibility has expanded. My authority matches it. For example, I can initiate some tasks for refining the self-service portals myself, because my manager at the client company trusts me. That attitude is very valuable to me.
Being an implant means maximum responsibility. Because I represent two companies and mistakes are simply not allowed.”
The most obvious option for cover during vacation is to entrust the duties to the remote team. However, if the role requires a physical presence in the office, difficulties arise. In an ideal world the outsourcer sends another specialist to the client's office, but that is hard, especially in remote cities. Moreover, it often makes no sense: getting up to speed with the company's specifics can take longer than the main employee is away.
“Replacing me for a period is a difficult task, so even on vacation I check my email, answer employees' calls and join team or company calls where possible. It is not only about the accesses, which are hard to obtain, but about the fact that I know all my tasks like nobody else: what takes me an hour, another specialist who is not so close to the company would take a day to do.
In this respect I am more like a regular employee: nobody looks for a replacement for an in-house accountant for a two-week vacation. Naturally, my vacation dates are always planned and agreed with my manager at the client company and fit fully into the overall schedule of the whole HR department team.”
And if the implant decides to leave, finding a replacement quickly and without loss of quality, training them, immersing them in the processes and handing over the work is the outsourcer's task. But do not forget to check that this is written in the contract.
The main reasons companies choose an implant are exactly the same as those for choosing outsourcing: expertise, relevant experience, optimising payroll costs and continuity of service. The main difference is that the implant becomes immersed in the client company's specifics and culture, which allows them not only to handle current tasks effectively but also to propose improvements promptly. And to be on the client's side.
“If a client has the opportunity to take on an implant, it is worth doing. It is not just a way of working, it is a different approach.
“The process of changing a payroll and HR administration provider is very long, laborious and nerve-racking. After all, you are entrusting one of your most important functions to a completely external organisation.
Our tender to select a provider lasted a little over 6 months. The most important selection criteria for us were: the stability of the provider's team, the extensive experience of its employees and the provider's proactivity in resolving issues.
We were genuinely lucky with the UCMS Group team, both the people on the implementation project and those who support us operationally every day. They are true professionals who have been proactively supporting us on all emerging issues for four years now.
As for implants, this is not a new concept for us. It is very important that the implant shares the company's values, understands its cultural code, does not set themselves against the client but works in tandem with them.
And we were lucky to get an employee who not only fitted into the team perfectly but actively proposes ideas for improving processes and fine-tuning communication channels. The HR team and the company's employees do not see her as some outsider. She is always happy to answer the widest range of employee questions, listen and advise who best to contact to solve a problem. She is a person with enormous HR experience and, you can see immediately, someone who loves her work.
Many thanks to the whole UCMS team for the high quality of work and customer focus!”
