HR Help Desk vs. IT Help Desk – It’s all about the Vendor’s Experience

HR Help Desk vs IT Help DeskMuch has been written (including by yours truly) about the benefits of an HR specific help desk solution for the HR department, versus repurposed IT or generic CRM systems. Features such as enhanced security and confidentiality, HR specific workflow processes, and HIPAA compliance are well documented and are core requirements of most HR organizations.

In the end, however, isn’t it really more about the vendor’s expertise working with HR than it is about the application features? HR personnel may inherently know what they need in a help desk / case management system, but they cannot necessarily correlate their business needs with the features of a pre-packaged help desk solution. That task is left to the system’s implementation team (aka the vendor).

For instance, HR needs the ability to tag particularly sensitive cases as confidential, viewable and accessible strictly to the case owner.  But most IT-modified systems don’t deal with the concept of confidentiality. What is confidential about a PC error or someone’s telephone not working – common tickets in an IT help desk system.  Can the vendor (and product) handle that requirement appropriately?

Another example is with unique HR workflow rules. Cases such as FMLA leave requests require actions by multiple HR resources, either via concurrent tasks or consecutive tasks, or a combination of both.  If your system implementer is primarily familiar with simpler IT related task processes, then configuring HR workflow processes may become a frustrating course of trial and error. The problem compounds if the system’s configuration engine cannot handle more complex HR rules.  Then expensive custom software or undesirable workarounds may be the only answer.

How about something as simple as searching for an employee record using a “sounds like” lookup feature?  In today’s global business world, names such as “John Smith” and “Mary Jones” are the rare exception.  Ask your IT vendor to set that up for you and gauge his/her reaction. In IT systems, the employee is generally just an ID#.

Now multiply those scenarios times all of the setup and configuration processes required to implement the new system. Would you rather work with HR experts deploying an HR centric system, or struggle with help desk generalists that are far more familiar with IT or sales force based applications?

HR’s role is to work with employees, while IT is tasked with fixing technical problems — the employee is just the messenger.  Therefore, the disposition of an IT-experienced implementation team may contrast greatly with that of an HR project team.

For over 30 years, LBi software has concentrated on the development and delivery of Human Capital solutions for the enterprise. LBi HR Help Desk was built from the ground up by HR experts strictly for the HR department. The professionals assigned to your help desk project know your business and will bring valuable insights and best practices to the table.

On May 13, 2015 at 2:00pm LBi will be hosting a webinar to demonstrate the advantages of HR Help Desk vs. IT Help Desk.  We will discuss the feature differences as well as the importance of working with LBi HR experts, necessary to ensure a smooth and successful deployment.  To register, click here.

We hope to see you there.

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