RBT (Rotherham Brought Together), the seven year old joint venture local government services partnership between Rotherham Borough Council and BT that delivers council services in the South Yorkshire town, has turned to HR software to help support better workforce management and organisational planning. 

 

“Managers will be able to use this to pull off key management information data like profiles of sick leave for individuals and perform what-if scenarios around possible reorganisations, while staff can use it to better understand things like reporting structures and generally improve the transparency of the organisation,” said Alan Rodgers, HR and payroll manager at Rotherham Council. 

 

The software, the OrgPlus system from workforce decision support solution supplier HumanConcepts, will be eventually rolled out to all 15,000 RBT employees for use via a Web self-service front end to HR information.  

 

A staffer can now navigate the Council HR system based on their specific role within the organisation and will be able to view organisation charts and reporting lines as well as visual employee directories. Managers, meanwhile will have advanced views of more sensitive employee HR data related to their own management teams, such as access to attendance records and policy issues. An automated system that will enable users to model organisational changes, gain approvals and then action the request to HR and Payroll is also being planned. 

 

“The system provides relevant and timely metrics to assist our senior managers with their strategic planning, and delivers information that supports managers and employees on a daily basis,” added Rodgers.  

 

Rodgers and his team believe OrgPlus will enable the Council’s directors and HR team to shape the organisation as it address budget reductions and tighter performance measurement as well as the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA), a new way of assessing local public services in England.