Global HR Process Standardization

Client Project

A global pharmaceutical organization engaged PPI to support process standardization associated with the world-wide implementation of a new HR system.

Project Goals and Areas of Focus

  • The organization operates globally, with employees in many different countries. HR practices are highly variable across the organization, reflecting legal, economic and cultural differences in the different locations.

  • The organization was committed to implementing a single new HR system on a global basis to handle the core HR processes around benefits, compensation and payroll for all employees, rather than continuing to support the large and aging base of regional/national legacy applications currently used.

  • To enable effective system design and implementation, the organization needed to:
    • Identify the business processes the new system must support
    • Document how the processes were currently performed in each relevant location
    • Compare the processes across locations to establish points of similarity and difference
    • Determine which differences were required by the different regulatory and cultural regimes, and which might be standardized across locations

  • PPI documented and compared specific HR processes around benefits and personnel as performed in key global locations with particular focus on HR operations in:
    • US
    • Puerto Rico
    • Canada
    • Argentina
    • Brazil
    • Chile
    • Hong Kong
    • India
    • Singapore

Outcome and Benefits
  • Variations in critical HR processes across different regions that needed to be supported by the new global HR system were identified and documented as business requirements of the system.

  • Comparison of actual local HR processes enabled:
    • Greater regional and global standardization of critical activities
    • Development of more effective controls and reporting based on consistent operational outputs and metrics

  • Additional benefits included:
    • Greater transparency of regional processes to corporate management and decision-making
    • Enhanced leveraging of existing technology investments
    • Improved training practices
    • Non-value added work shifted to value-added activities, yielding cost reductions
    • Improved hand-offs within and between departments
    • Elimination of duplication of effort
    • Identification of local and regional best practices for broader implementation