In 2015, Human Resources continued its journey to support the most significant financial, operational and cultural transformation program in the history of Alcatel-Lucent called “The Shift Plan”. This plan was a key driver for the transformation in Human Resources.
“The HR Shift” continued as a key vision and priority in 2015. Faced with an aggressive cost reduction target (having already reduced significantly in prior years due to Alcatel Lucent financial and business challenges), our challenge was to turn a cost reduction plan into an opportunity to modernize the HR function, continuing to be highly relevant while shifting our focus and our investment into more added value HR work to support the business.
Š HR Modernization Program
The HR Modernization program was launched to support the delivery of an efficient, relevant and effective HR service offering at the right cost for the business. Started in 2013 and continuing as a key objective in 2015, the challenge of The Shift Plan required HR to execute 4 major transformations in parallel, which created a team spirit of focus, speed, professionalism and alignment to collectively achieve these objectives:
– execute & support the company’s 1B EUR fixed or 10,000 net HC reductions
– execute the HR part of the Shift Plan with reduction of 400 HC during this same period
– transform and modernize the HR Operating Model including service delivery model, HR roles & responsibilities and self service tools for employees and managers
– replace a 60+ different legacy applications, 15 year old HRIS system, into one single platform
To allow HR to focus on core, value-add HR activities (talent, leadership, performance, coaching, culture) while allowing economies of scale optimization with an industry leader in business process outsourcing (also done in Finance and IT), an outsourcing option of transactional activities was positioned as a means to help our HR modernization ambition and to shift/increase our HR value.
Building on our partnership with Accenture outsourcing all administrative and transactional activities we introduced a state of the art HRIS cloub based system and global HR portal, we standardized our HR processes to adapt to the global geographical spread of Alcatel-Lucent; while reinforcing the role of our people managers,
The main outsourcing advantages were (i) benefit from state of the art process (core business of outsourcer) (ii) benefit from scalability (capability to increase/decrease teams depending upon activities and HR processes cycle) (iii) continuously drive efficiency (IV) transform fixed costs into variable costs.
Before starting our HR Shift, internal Alcatel Lucent Shared Service Centers delivered roughly 25% of our HR activities. At year end 2015, roughly 50% of our activities are managed by Accenture for a value of 35% of our total HR costs. A single, global cloud based HRIS platform, SAP Success Factors, has been deployed in 62 countries. Today, HR now has 15 standard global processes defined as well as 19 standard HR roles. Service delivery performance levels (SLAs) based on accuracy, timeliness and customer satisfaction averaged 94% which exceeded the 90% target for 2015. In 2015, we continued deployment of a new Recruitment Model with Accenture to deliver the required talent to support Alcatel-Lucent’s growth – and it is still a work in progress – which will require time to mature and evolve in Europe and in Asia Pacific (APAC).
Our HR modernization, together with an outstanding partnership with Accenture, was achieved at an unprecedented pace (2 years vs 3 years) for a program of its complexity, size and scale.
Š Culture Transformation
In addition to The Shift Plan and the HR modernization journey described above, ALU embarked on a significant cultural shift, anchored around four values: accountability, speed, simplicity, & trust.
This cultural transformation was a “leader led” and accountable leadership was a key cornerstone of this cultural shift which focused on 3 key areas:
– reconnecting Top 200 leaders to leading – and to learning Mandatory attendance to a 1-day LeaderSHIFT workshop with the CEO attending each session, setting the tone, setting his leadership expectations and sharing his leadership learnings. The theme of the LeaderSHIFT
workshop was self awareness as a leader and effectively leading change to drive business performance.
In addition, “reconnecting with the art of leadership” continued with the mandatory attendance of all People Managers to a 2-day workshop on the role of a People Manager:Direction Setter, Change Leader, Motivator, Performance Manager and Coach. (to date, approximately 2000 People Managers around the globe have attended).
– measuring Top 200 leadership effectiveness vs ‘employee engagement
A simple, 12 question survey (The Leadership Index) to measure each Top 200 leader’s effectiveness based on feedback from their directs and one level below. Each Top 200 leader received their Index and they were debriefed/coached by their Business HR. Overall results indicated a need to focus on performance – specifically consequent management and on communicating vision/ direction in a compelling way to inspire and engage employees about the future.
– creating a ‘community of Top 200 leaders’
Top 200 annual event, monthly Top 200 ‘check in’ with the CEO, monthly HR updates from the CHRO, direct connections from the Leadership & Organization Effectiveness leader to involve Top 200 in leadership development initiatives including mentors for Top 10 women, kicking off People Manager workshops and attending high potential development workshops as guest speakers. These ‘connections’ organically created a community where leaders felt better connected and silos & boundaries began to disappear.
While continuing to focus on traditional HR deliverables, HR supported and accompanied this cultural shift through its very own transformation: focused and selective HR programs to support The Shift Plan; an integrated talent strategy; a shift to a global mindset, enhanced partnering with business clients breaking up HR silos, and creating an integrated and accountable HR network for greater collaboration; innovative communication.
Š Alcatel-Lucent University Transformation
In 2015, Alcatel-University introduced a number of innovative initiatives to enhance and simplify customer and employee learning experiences. An updated Learning Management System was introduced. A flexible workforce strategy to develop and deliver customer training resulting in 20% savings. A Learning Store (modeled after similar applications) for employees was launched to provide a single point of entry to learning, easier navigation and learning highlights with featured offerings. Since the Learning Store launch in midyear, more than 20,000 sessions have been accessed. To support the continued transformation of Alcatel-Lucent, people management skills were reinforced through a “People Manager Effectiveness” workshop introduced in 2014 - with over 76 workshops offered in 11 different countries and
than 40 Top 200 executives who kicked off workshops. Š Diversity
Renewed as strategic priority in 2013, diversity continues to be a key driver for ensuring a rich talent mix in Alcatel- Lucent. Specific attention has been given to gender diversity since 2014, including career development initiatives (Top 10 Women) driven by leaders and HR to better leverage diversity into our organization’s leadership. In 2015, results of these efforts have been reflected in 40% of our Top 10 women being promoted into larger, more senior level roles and 25% of ourTop 10 women taking new and broader roles in the new Nokia Group. Focus continues on increasing the 23% of overall female talent and diversity will continue to be a priority in the new Nokia.
Š Innovation in Internal Communications
While the Alcatel-Lucent/Nokia combination dominated 2015, employees continued to be informed of the progress of the Alcatel-Lucent Shift Plan with quarterly updates sent to each employee by push-mail and also published on the corporate intranet homepage. To maintain momentum, this topic was also regularly addressed by the CEO and CFO in their employee conference calls following each quarterly results announcement.
Building on innovative communication approaches,“Text-Me” SMS service was used to push timely information to subscribing employees on their mobile phones. In 2015, roughly 25 SMS messages to 2,200 subscribers were sent. 2015 also saw the continuation of the On the Air radio program. Now in its 40th episode – averaging roughly 1,700 listeners per episode - the program highlights the latest
Engage, our social networking platform, and as a downloadable MP3 format for mobile listening. A new innovation-focused webTV program,“InnoZap” was launched in 2015 with episodes covering topics like real-time analytics, powering sensors with motion, and other Bell Labs inventions.