Hitachi Vantara automates HR service delivery with ServiceNow

Freeing HR business partners from transactional work

Hitachi Vantara’s HR partners are critical to business outcomes
At Hitachi Vantara, HR is expected to be deeply involved in business initiatives, adding value and supporting business success. That’s why the company transitioned to a global HR shared services model.

Mia Isnardi-Shook, Hitachi Vantara’s Senior Director of People Services & Enablement, explains, “We had HR business partners spending 80% of their time on routine transactional tasks. Instead of supporting the business, they spent most of their time shuffling forms and answering the same questions again and again. By creating a global shared services team, we could shift those activities and free our HR business partners’ time for strategic work.”

Efficient service delivery frees HR partners to tackle new challenges
The HR shared services team started with transactional employee support, but demand for its services quickly grew in other areas such as benefits, staffing, and even employee relations. This made efficient service delivery critical.

According to Mia, “Our goal is to identify all of the work we can take on and make it as efficient as possible. As we’re a self-funded organization, the two go hand in hand. By driving efficiencies, we can free up our people to take on additional challenges.”

Manual processes stood in the way of delivering efficient, responsive HR services
The HR shared services team was struggling with inefficient manual processes. Case management is a key example. Mia explains, “We wanted to give our employees a great support experience, but we were still relying on emails and manual case assignment. We did have a homegrown internal case management tool, but we didn’t offer employees any self-service. People don’t want to wait for a response when they have a routine question–they want instant answers. And, from my team’s perspective, dealing with these common requests wasted a huge amount of effort.”

With ServiceNow, Hitachi Vantara makes the most of its HR resources, and enhances the employee experience
To transform its HR services, Hitachi Vantara chose ServiceNow^® HR Service Delivery, built on the Now Platform^®. By offering employees an online portal for HR information and service requests, the HR shared services team reduced support costs while enhancing the employee experience. 

Mia says, “Just by putting knowledge articles online, we estimated that we could reduce our workload by 33%. When people can easily find the HR information and policies they need on their own, they don’t need–or want–to open a case. When they do ask for help, ServiceNow has allowed us to move to a tiered support model that makes the most of our resources.”

Mia also talks about the human benefits for her team. “We have a mix of early career and experienced people. We want to offer them job satisfaction and real career opportunities. By freeing up time, we’re able to take on more challenging and rewarding work. For example, we have people learning to become lifecycle specialists. Others are becoming benefits experts. By carving out these areas, we’re creating fulfilling career paths for our team members. This also reduces team turnover–which is incredibly important, since we operate in some highly competitive markets for HR shared services professionals.”

Hitachi Vantara plans a one-stop shop for all employee services using ServiceNow
What’s next? Hitachi Vantara is already working on employee onboarding using ServiceNow^® Enterprise Onboarding and Transitions. It also has the goal of creating a single portal for all employee services, not just HR.

“We already have ServiceNow portals for IT, facilities, and HR. By bringing these together, we can create a one-stop shop for employees. An employee shouldn’t have to think about where they need to go. They should just be able to ask their question. And, we’ve already started. For example, employees can access all company policies–not just HR policies–on the HR portal,” says Mia.

Other Hitachi Group companies now want to use Hitachi Vantara’s HR shared services team
Finally, Mia talks about broader opportunities across the Hitachi Group. “We are now being asked to provide shared HR services for other Hitachi companies. I’m proud of my team–we’ve accomplished a lot, and our reputation is spreading. That’s what happens when you streamline processes and make things better.”