If you want to switch from a process-oriented to a sustainable HR policy that puts your employees first, follow the example of Antwerp Police! In collaboration with Flexso, their HR team recently launched a transformation process to provide a better service and employee experience for the force’s 3,000 people. Their recipe for success? Awareness, engagement, co-creation, and smart technology.
Antwerp Police use the slogan ‘ANDERS’ (‘DIFFERENT’) for their recruitment campaign to reflect their uniqueness, including their passion for new technology and innovative HR policy. “We want our people to feel that HR is there for them at every stage of their career. To emphasise this even more, we needed an HR transformation,” explains HR Manager Corinne Scoyer.
Working more efficiently and providing a better service
Corinne Scoyer is a firm believer that technology – more digital processes, more self-service HR, and more data and analytics – will increase both efficiency and quality of service. To convince the entire police force of this, Corinne enlisted Flexso’s experts to slowly but surely convert all the HR employees into transformation ambassadors.
The power of engagement
“The transition required an essential mind shift and change management, which is where Flexso came in,” continues Corinne. Engagement is crucial for the acceptance of transformation. All HR employees were asked to share their visions, dreams, expectations, and frustrations. Antwerp Police and Flexso took these insights into design-thinking workshops. Because of the coronavirus, these workshops unexpectedly became virtual, but the project team kept in close contact with all HR employees so that everyone stayed engaged.
“New technology will only work well if everyone enjoys working with it. That's why it's so crucial to put people in charge of the change and make them take responsibility for it,” asserts Corinne. “The involvement of management is also key to the success of such a transformation process.”
New technology will only work well if everyone enjoys working with it. That's why it's so crucial to put people in charge of the change and make them take responsibility for it.
Step-by-step approach
Thanks to the intensive collaboration, Corinne and Flexso were able to make Antwerp Police’s HR policy truly ‘DIFFERENT’ in a positive sense, as employees are now ready to embrace the new tools that are being developed and implemented.
A step-by-step approach is vital to a successful project, believes Corinne: “If you want employees to be enthusiastic about things, don't rush them.” Through small and well-considered steps, Antwerp Police have now automated various processes. We will have an e-service counter for administrative enquiries, a portal to share HR information, and are digitising several standard processes. Later on, we will develop a digital HR platform.
The initial results of the digitisation are clear, and Corinne and her colleagues have high expectations for the future. Thanks to the self-service tools, all employees have easy access to their personnel files and can be helped quickly. The HR team expects to save much time through self-service HR, automation, mobile possibilities, and the seamless integration of the HR platform with other organisation-wide tools.
Above all, Corinne believes that the digitisation of Antwerp Police's HR approach will make it more personal once again. “That may sound strange, but we've already seen this since the first changes were implemented. We now have more time for intensive, personal contact at key moments, such as when someone is retiring after a long career with us,” she concludes.
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The experts behind all that HR experience? Flexso for People: the Flexso team with specialist knowledge of the HR world.
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