Halian is an IT services company, dedicated to helping organisations develop, transform and improve their business performance through the effective use of technology and people. Halian has been providing an onsite Resource Management (RM) service to a Global IT Vendor’s Dutch subsidiary for several years, and as part of our commitment to improve the level of service, it was clear that a technology solution would be required.

Halian were looking for a tool that could provide:

• A searchable database for all third party consultants
• Management reporting capability
• Workflow-based processes
• Web-enabled for global outreach

Vizual Business Tools plc are a specialist third party software provider of human resource management systems. Established in 1996, the company has built its reputation on a philosophy that remains simple and is still taking the company from strength to strength – to provide customers with quality solutions that are easy to use, quick to deploy and offer exceptional value for money.

In 2004, a new generation of HR software solutions was launched. HR.net is designed to meet both current and future business needs and is a break from the past – it introduces a whole new way of managing your workforce data, processes and policies and contains all the functionality needed to manage the entire employee lifecycle in one solution. Vizual Business Tools plc developed the pilot project over a period of two weeks and the benefits were realised soon after; namely, a web-enabled resource management tool with integrated workflow and MIS capability, which met all of our business requirements.

The project went smoothly and was delivered to a very high standard. The Vizual team qualified the business requirements accurately and diligently, and their collaborative approach minimised disruption to our usual business activities.

Stephen Ousley, Channel Director at Vizual Business Tools comments: "Having recognised the business benefits that could be achieved through HR.net, Halian ensured the success of this project by applying their Resource Management expertise to the definition of a clear specification, and then working in partnership with the Vizual HR.net team to deliver the solution on time and on budget."

Using the latest .Net technology, HR.net allows any manual HR process to be replicated in electronic form, enabling a wide variety of tasks to be carried out by employees on a 24/7, self-service basis. HR.net offers a number of standard workflows, designed to automate processes such as recruitment or fleet management. At the same time, the system’s workflow engine is highly flexible, enabling organisations to either customise the standard modules or automate other administrative procedures, including non-HR specific business processes.

The application was built on top of the HR.net core, affording us all the functionality of the vanilla HR suite, but also allowing Halian to configure the specific requirements of a resource management solution into the system. These included CV management, forecasting and month-end reporting.

Project Benefits

Halian now manage the application and have implemented it across four other European sites. The following are clear benefits to Halian for having implemented HR.net:

• Halian now have a complete Resource Management service offering that is consistent across all the clients’ subsidiaries in Europe.
• We have been able to standardise many of our third-party labour processes across Central and Northern Europe.
• With the integrated workflow facility, we can ensure that Halian’s internal best practice methodologies are maintained with little management overhead.
• The addition of month-end reporting improving the visibility of our European teams.
• The ease at which the reports may be generated has saved a significant amount of time and money.

Clients have benefited from the implementation in a number of ways, including:

• The reporting output allows the client to have an instant single view of all their project-based consultants from a headcount and financial perspective.
• The onsite Halian Resource Managers have more time to engage directly with the Client’s internal project offices to be able to better understand the project resource requirements.
• The increased automation of menial tasks has allowed the Resource Managers to collaborate with the client on their sales activities, which has led to better quality client propositions and a better quality resource deliverable when the project is won.
• It allows a greater visibility to each of the client’s subsidiaries of the rest of the European offices existing business and contactor-based business pipeline.

Stephen Ousley, Channel Director at Vizual Business Tools adds: "Automation of manual operations to deliver real operational efficiencies was a key driver in Halian’s decision to move forward with HR.net. Their Resource Management team worked in close partnership with Vizual's consultants to quickly realise the potential, however they haven't stood still and have since continued development to achieve even greater business benefits."