Putting the 'ESS' in success - Enterprise Information

Feature

posted 20 Jul 2004 in Volume 1 Issue 2

Putting the ‘ESS’ in success

Almost one year after implementing a new Employee Self-Service Programme designed to trim costs, British Airways has exceeded the benchmarks it set itself. Bill Francis, programme manager for BA, explains how success was attained.

Faced with plunging profits after a series of incidents that, beginning with 11 September, 2001, shook the global economy, British Airways (BA) decided on a major and permanent cost-cutting exercise. To support the manpower reduction target of 13,000, BA created the Employee Self- Service (ESS) Programme. Designed to engender a radical simplification of the airline’s back office, the plan was designed to save the company £50m by automating processes and creating a novel ESS culture by launching a new, personalised portal.

Between 2000 and 2003, the airline had been developing its e-working infrastructure and web-based security to ensure employees could take advantage of online services. This proved to be a strong foundation for e-working and helped create a new global intranet and a growing number of web-based applications.

But creating real and lasting change in business and process terms remained incremental and was achieved through an evolutionary route. A number of new online channels had been added, but many were making things more complex by creating duplicate information and administration conduits. Departmental buy-in to e-working was proving challenging and turning the vision into reality remained an uphill task.

With the manpower reduction target already set in 2002, the board agreed on a business plan for 2003-2005. It included two new corporate programmes key to supporting future transformational change: a customer enabled BA (CEBA) for 34 million customers and an ESS for 47,500 staff worldwide.

The fundamental difference between e-working and ESS at BA would be:

A significantly strengthened governance group;
Four key transformational targets set for 15 departments;
A renewed but limited financial investment to meet the target of saving £50m by March 2005 through performing administrative tasks online.

The first target focused on online corporate processes that affected everyone in the airline. Examples include people administration, staff travel and help desks.

The second target aimed for the 15 departments within BA to create their own local ESS plan for change, cutting out endless paper trails and removing duplicate manual systems and processes.

As e-learning was already established within BA, the third target was intended to promote some of the existing 450 training courses available online. BA also hopes this will challenge any future training programmes to include at least one online component.

The fourth target combines both intranet and e-mail for communication with a stream of work enabling self-served reporting for key information across the airline.

Launching employee self service

With strong governance from directors and general managers, establishing ESS as a strategic corporate programme has significantly increased its visibility and priority across the business. Creating a well-controlled programme has ensured we’re able to track and manage progress, focus on priorities for business and track benefits across the programme. The next step was to launch ESS to all employees worldwide.

BA agreed on a clear direction for the programme at the first ESS meeting:

ESS would provide a benefit of £50m in savings, but must also drive transformational change in employee self-service culture;
Duplicate channels must be turned off and processes should follow a single corporate path wherever possible, rather than many departmental variations on the same theme.

To bring ESS to everyone’s attention within BA, a company-wide launch focusing on three key challenges was planned for September 2003:

ESS must be simple to use and easy to access;
A single PIN or password is needed as the key to all ESS applications;
Implement one key initiative that needs everyone’s interaction in the first six months.

A new ESS portal met the first challenge. Personalised to show each staff member’s own applications it also, for the first time, drew all ESS applications into a single ‘front door’. Access to the portal was given high prominence on the homepage of the BA intranet and on each of its 8,000 pages. Access from home or away from base was promoted using the BA intranet via the internet service.

The second challenge saw us extend our own BSAFE security password to more of the ESS applications. This meant everyone would have one ‘key’ to the door of ESS that would single-sign them into the majority of applications. To help everyone obtain a password, a new application was simultaneously launched online.

The last challenge was perhaps the hardest. To get people engaged, you have to target administration processes that make a difference to everyone. The shortlist included annual leave, pay, staff travel and security passes. To give maximum reach to as many people as possible, the list was narrowed down to online payslips for all UK staff and expanded staff travel functionality to be offered worldwide.

The internal publicity campaign went into overdrive in September 2003. We communicated through the internal BA newspaper, local departmental publications, online intranet news items and specials, online voting and discussion rooms, as well as a series of management presentations across all departments. The month culminated with an IT fair at BA’s Waterside head office, with ESS and CEBA as prime themes.

One year later

Knowing you are making progress and understanding what success looks like is essential. Establishing a good baseline for ‘where are we now’ at the beginning of the ESS programme has proved invaluable.

The ESS programme office developed a standard ‘dashboard’ of key milestones, measures and targets that have been updated and published on a monthly basis for the ESS sponsors. The drive has been to demonstrate real change in the employee self-service culture.

These include: 75 per cent increase in training days online; 100 per cent of staff travel bookings self-served online; 80 per cent of UK transactions procured online; 80 per cent of personal details updated online; 95 per cent of UK staff connected to ESS.

As noted earlier, launching a new personalised portal drew all ESS applications into a single front door. Staff can connect to ESS to view their pay packet online, book their leave, change their roster, read corporate information on the intranet, update their personal details or help themselves through online FAQs.

Progress against each of these targets continues, but they have all required a corporate business plan and departmental plan to encourage self-service. A growing number of corporate directives that turn off alternative channels and add incentive to online versus offline practices are also necessary.

Lessons learnt

Having corporate sponsorship within the business plan has given new priority to the ESS programme. Establishing a strong governance structure with senior representatives from across the business has provided real strength and a central decision-making process, which is essential when trying to turn off existing channels and processes.

Early in a programme like this, you need to establish targets and measures that are owned by the business and routinely tracked for progress. They need to be the right measures that demonstrate real transformational change in employee culture. As statistics show, we’ve done that.

The ESS programme has been a success because it has a strong ‘what’s in it for me’ element with employees. Experience has shown once staff connect to ESS for personal reasons, they will also take the opportunity to read corporate information and announcements on the intranet, update their personal details or assist themselves via online help desks and FAQs.

The ESS programme is on track to hit its £50m in savings target. But it has also transformed the way BA employees view their job. Making access simple either on the job or at home has given everyone a choice over how they combine their work and lifestyles.