Shared Services and Work Force Issues

With the increasing popularity of shared services in government, more public-sector employees are affected by the changes that shared services can bring.

Managing work force issues is very important. Even the best shared services process won't work if the right employees aren't there, doing the job well. It helps if those employees want to be there. Employees must be considered from the outset, and it often works best if their input is actively sought during the planning process.

Putting in shared services can mean processes are re-engineered and people are shifted to new jobs or different agencies. Yet workers are often affected in a positive way. Many times, using shared services for transactional functions and other routine tasks frees employees to do more strategic and customer-facing work.

Employees often learn new skills and have a better-defined career path thanks to shared services. Although some workers will be unhappy with their new situations, the vast majority of them will be happier, say those who've worked in shared services.

When a new shared services project is being considered, one of the first things to come up is the impact on employees, according to Mark Howard, who leads the shared services efforts for the U.S. public sector at Accenture, a company with global experience in helping clients set up shared services. "When I first start talking with executives about shared services, it takes approximately 30 seconds for them to ask me, 'How do we deal with the work force issues?'" said Howard. "It tends to be the very first thing that they zero in on, and the very first thing that they are concerned about."

Striving for Balance
Howard says it's important to strike the proper balance between improving services for citizens and being fair to the workers who provide those services. Organizations move to shared services to improve processes. So it usually starts with the way things are done, not who does them. That's one reason government was slower than the private sector to adopt shared services. In the private sector, it's more about the bottom line; in the public sector, job security is a bigger issue.

The shared services business model brings cultural change, and there is often fear of that change. Government agencies fear they will lose employees. Employees fear they'll lose their jobs. For a long time, government didn't want to get into that situation, but with today's economic pressures, government must provide more services with less funding. Shared services is now embraced more often because it's perfectly suited to help with that problem.

Workers can benefit from the change. The shared services environment often relieves people of the repetitive tasks that are better left to automation. That lets employees focus on other important work, making them more valuable to the organization.

Howard points out that the shared services model is always striving for improved processes and service. "That's a career," he said, "because you are constantly finding new ways to do things in processes, with improved technology and better training of people. The move to a shared services center, if done well, creates true career opportunities, rather than treating the back office as a necessary evil."

Managers often say they end up with better-trained, more productive employees once shared services are put in. That's part of improving the entire process, whether for HR, billing, IT or other services.

A Good Fit
Bexar County, Texas, and its county seat, San Antonio, are working together on two, large shared-services projects that will affect government employees. One is a computer-aided dispatch and records management system; the other is a court and case management system. Richard Varn, CIO of San Antonio, says shared services should be run like a customer-oriented business, which affects the employees.

"The only people that are going to survive are people who like to work in that kind of organization," said Varn. "So you're going to hire for it, and you're going to have to manage to that skill set of being customer-friendly, customer-oriented, service-oriented, and meeting your service-level agreements, being responsive to changes in the demands of your customers -- or you're no longer their provider."

A shared services environment can help with recruiting, since it can offer more opportunities for advancement than typical back-office jobs. And it's important to have good people when moving to the shared services model and to pay them well, according to Mark Hopton, director of shared services at Ohio University. "Ultimately shared services can become a destination for people in the organization," he said.

There can be negative impacts for some employees. Reducing the headcount is part of the process in many cases, as technology is used to do more of the work. Sometimes, people are laid off, shifted to jobs they're not interested in, or they're offered a retirement package they don't want. Workers can be transferred to jobs they don't like. As with many other events in professional life, not everyone's going to be happy with their new job.

"In most of the transitions that we have seen and been a part of, you end up with far fewer of those situations than most people initially expect," said Howard. "I've seen figures like less than 5 percent of a given work force ends up in a situation that wasn't really to their liking. I've actually seen numbers lower than that. I'm being conservative."

Include Employees
Often a skills assessment is done, and employees are retrained for new positions. Sometimes, employees rotate through various positions in the shared services environment, which expands their skills. Standardized processes can mean customers are better at doing their part, which results in less stress for the employees in the shared services center.

When setting up shared services, it's helpful to include the workers who will be affected in the planning process. That's what Varn is doing in San Antonio. "They've been participating in some of our requirements gathering," he said. "They'll be an integral part of the implementation team for the shared services."

Sometimes, employees' unions are a factor. "What we advise clients, and the best way that I've seen them managed, is to bring the unions in from the very beginning," said Howard. He suggests being open with unions and enlisting their input to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Whether it's the unions or the employees themselves, talking is a good thing. "Communicate, communicate, communicate," said Ohio University's Hopton. "You need to be in front of the communication effort. You need to communicate openly and honestly on all subjects. That's what people are looking for. They're looking for leadership and guidance through the process."