“Beneficial. Useful. Enlightening” those were the words that Cynthia Ferguson, the HR Research & Analysis Manger, used to describe the two Lawson training sessions on HR Structure and Personnel. These two sessions are a part of fivve total sessions that will help UNC HC staff gain the necessary knowledge and skills to not only be able to use the new system, but also help give them a more concrete idea of how it works so that they can mold it to better serve our needs. The sessions are broken down to allow for 12 active participants and 6-8 additional non-active observers. They will be attended by various members of the HRx Core Team, as well as some representatives from our sister organization, Chatham Hospital, who is also transitioning to the new Lawson Human Capital Management System.
We sat down with Cynthia and asked her some questions about the trainings and this is what she said:
What was the focus of the HR Structure portion of the training session?
It was an overview of different aspects of the system which showed us how everything is inter-connected. They showed us the system from a global perspective and then showed how it worked on the much smaller, departmental, level. We learned about the system’s different process levels and business rules. Pretty much it was an overview of the system, a very detailed overview.
What about the Personnel portion of the trainings?
In these sessions we learned about how the system can help us more easily manage our personnel. For example, we can create employee groups by clustering employees by various criteria, and then when we want to apply “rules” to them, the system will apply them to all people within that group.
What is one of your favorite things about the new system versus the current GEAC system?
I love the concept of Drill Around where you can see different aspects of the employee and even how they relate to others in your department. For example, say you were interested in looking at overtime for a specific employee and then you wanted to see how they compare to overtime for the entire department, you can and easily. The current GEAC system is a flat file system which has a non-relational database, so this type of analysis is very difficult to do without using outside means.
Do you see any areas where the new system might be more difficult than the current system?
The main issue is that HRx is more structured and for people that have been working with the GEAC system, this new way may be a bit challenging. Until now, they have been able to make their own rules to accommodate the shortcomings in the system, but with the new one, they won’t be able to, since there is no need to.
