VisitScotland

VisitScotland, Scotland's National Tourism Organisation, supports the development of the tourism industry in Scotland and markets the country as a quality destination.

The organisation employs approximately 1,000 staff through a diversified network with less than 25% of positions based at the main office in Edinburgh. The network of 15 local offices covers a large geographic area, as do the VisitScotland Information Centres, numbering over a hundred sites. In general, tourism supports around 9% of all employment within Scotland.

VisitScotland has recently restructured to five directorates: Visitor Engagement, Digital and Media, Corporate Services, Strategic Partnerships and Events. The HR team sits as a strategic support function for the organisation within the Chief Executive Office.

Managing and Developing the Organisation
The HR team recently invested in a new payroll system with an HR function module, but found that they did not have the necessary personnel information to be able to manage the major restructure effectively.

In parallel to the major change, the HR team was introducing an organisational development strategy, with new initiatives including psychological testing, 360 degree assessments and action learning programmes to develop staff and organisation growth.

According to David Anderson, Head of Human Resources at VisitScotland, "We wanted to build a leadership competency model that we could use for designing organisational structure. We also wanted to improve our workforce analytics, such as headcount, full time employment, and salary relativity. It quickly became apparent that we lacked the database and reporting capabilities necessary to reach our goals, staff information was not current and it was very difficult to access an up to date picture of the organisation."

"We wanted a database to generate information on over 1000 staff for workforce enquiry analysis. OrgPlus enables us to share certain aspects of HR data - both at manager and employee level in a secure way," stated Anderson.

Accurate Data for Informed Decision Making
Prior to using OrgPlus, creating organisational charts was according to Anderson, "a real headache". The Payroll system would be adjusted to reflect an employee's move to another department, or company, but this was the only way that the organisation charts could be updated.

"We wanted to give our managers the ability to own the data and to have the flexibility to carry out departmental modelling. The extensive reorganisation required multiple job comparisons, introducing new functions and moving people around. Without the data in OrgPlus, this would not have been possible."

With more ownership of their team's data, managers can make more informed decisions. They can use OrgPlus Enterprise to model potential workforce structures, with the ability to see the impact of moving staff to different departments and the budget implications of each move displayed graphically.

Automated Workflow Processes Enhance HR's Strategic Role
Using OrgPlus has changed the focus of the HR team from being administrative to more strategic and consultative. The key data is easy to manage in one place and the built in workflows ensure that processes are followed to record information in a consistent way.

Rather than asking the HR team for employee data such as start date, date of birth, or salary level, they can view it in OrgPlus Enterprise with just a few clicks of the mouse, saving time for both managers and HR business partners. Employees are also able to view organisational charts with names, titles and locations including summary of job role for all staff based in 100+ locations.

"OrgPlus gives us the functionality that we need. Now, with OrgPlus, we have the data and we know that it is current. It used to take us months to calculate the headcount through compilation of multiple spreadsheets - OrgPlus Enterprise saves us so much time."

The finance department has calculated that the solution has saved the team up to four man days per month. According to the Finance Director, "Implementing OrgPlus was the best thing that we've ever done".

With OrgPlus Enterprise, the HR team has also adopted OrgPlus Enterprise Succession and intends to roll it out to senior management to manage succession plans and individual development plans. "Talent Management has now moved higher on the agenda," said Anderson. "Initially, senior managers will be able to produce reports for our board to look at succession plans, gaps and potential replacements."

"OrgPlus is a very useful, robust system with more functionality and benefits than we expected. The solution is an excellent value for the money. Everyone in the organisation has benefitted from it," concluded Anderson.

HumanConcepts is based in Sausalito, California with offices in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Singapore. For more information visit www.humanconcepts.co.uk.