nbn co: outsourced human resources
TRANSCRIPT
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Outsourced HR helps
NBN Co grow by a
factor of 20To start building Australias
National Broadband Network,
executives at NBN Co needed to
build a skilled workforce. Shortly
after the formation of the company
in August 2009, there were
approximately 50 employees and
the company was ready to put a
structured Human Resources (HR)
organisation in place. In only 12
weeks, Accenture created an
outsourced HR service that helped
NBN Co to recruit at a rate of 80
staff per month and manage payroll
for all NBN Co personnel. By
October 2010, Accenture had
created an integrated outsourced
HR capability to support all NBN Co
staff and provide managers with
performance assessment and
reporting tools. By deliveringvirtually all HR functions as a
service, Accenture is helping
NBN Co focus on the core of the
business building the new
network. By staffing finance,
procurement and project
management requirements on time,
NBN Co is operationally on target
as the competitive landscape is
causing delays.
Business situation
In January 2010, the company tasked
with building Australias National
Broadband Network, NBN Co,
employed fewer than 50 staff. Before
construction pilots could start in
October, the company needed the
ability to manage complex finance,
procurement and project management
activities. To do this, executives
initially estimated they would need a
core workforce of 1,000 to 3,000
employees. However, expanding the
company by a factor of 20 presented
NBN Co with two complex HR
challenges:
The company would have to recruit
at a rate of 60 to 80 staff per month
to meet the targets. NBN Co
however did not have anorganisation in place to handle
such a significant hiring initiative;
and it would take several months to
create a traditional HR
organisation. Time was of the
essence, and the first finance and
procurement employees needed to
be hired within a few weeks.
As soon as new recruits were
hired, the company needed the
principal components of an HR
organisation in place, including: a
payroll system, a records
management system, HR policies
and governance framework, and
employee performance tracking
and reporting.
NBN Co needed to build an HR
function, but also wanted to retain an
exceptional level of flexibility within the
function. This meant executives
wanted the ability to expand rapidly in
the future, pending business
conditions, without over-investing in
HR capabilities at the start.
NBN Co turned to Accenture for help.
As a recognised leader in outsourced
HR services, Accenture was in aposition to provide NBN Co with the
critical capabilities quickly.
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Copyright 2012 Accenture All Rights Reserved. Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture.
This case study is one of a series of seven that tell how Accenture helped build key capabilities for NBN Co.
How Accenture helped
Working together, NBN Co and
Accenture developed a strategy for the
HR organisation and support systems:
NBN Co would outsource recruitment
and payroll for new hires and existing
employees to Accenture. This in turn
would give NBN Co the ability to start
recruiting immediately and the
outsource model would provide the
organisational flexibility required
by NBN Co in the early stages of
operations.
In only 12 weeks, an Accenture
Business Process Outsourcing team
designed, built and tested a hosted
web-based recruitment platform
solution to manage an end-to-end
recruitment service for NBN Co. This
service included creating job portals,
receiving job applications, scheduling
interviews, screening applicants and
managing contracts. During the same
twelve-week period, Accenture
developed an outsourced payroll
service which facilitated the payment
of salaries to NBN Co employees. The
entire HR system was integrated with
the companys finance and
procurement applications a few
months later, helping to improve
company administration and
minimising data- entry duplication.
At the same time, Accenture worked
closely with NBN Co to define the
optimum balance between retaining
select HR capabilities in-house and
outsourcing the rest. Outsourcing HR
capabilities meant they could be
established quicker and in some cases
more efficiently, since the company did
not have to invest in permanent HR
resources. Yet NBN Co wanted to
make sure they retained close control
over some HR activities, such asstrategy, policy and governance.
In the end, NBN Co decided to
outsource to Accenture all HR
activities that involved high-volume
transactions, such as administration,
records keeping and enquiries
management, and only retain strategic
policy-setting HR activities.
Between May and October 2010,
Accenture implemented 12 HR
systems leveraging the Accenture
Global Delivery Network strategically
located around the world.
These included:
an HR portal that provides
employees with access to policies
a recruitment and onboarding
system
a performance and rewards
system
a records management system a learning management system
a reporting system for NBN Co
senior level executives
a payroll system with integrated
employee/manager self service
an employee contact centre with
help-desk tool
These systems provide NBN Co with
an integrated HR support service,
combining reward, performance and
talent management procedures with a
dedicated, knowledgeable contactcentre. NBN Cos investment is based
on a fixed rate for each service, along
with an additional incremental charge
based on the number of employees
recruited and supported.
High performance delivered
With Accentures help, NBN Co grew
their workforce from less than 50
employees in January 2010 to nearly
1,000 employees in spring 2011 and
growing.
Speed to deployment
By introducing an outsourced
recruiting service managed by
Accenture in only three months,
NBN Co could quickly ramp up its core
finance, procurement and project
management functions. This allowed
the company to focus on building thenetwork, rather than building internal
capabilities, and begin network
construction activities on schedule at
the beginning of October 2010.
Business efficiency
Because HR services are supplied on
a pay-per-user model, the costs for
these services are predictable and
transparent. Executives at NBN Co
understand their monthly HR costs
because they have the information at
their fingertips, and can easily
determine the proportion of costs
related to technology, processing
and staffing.
Contact
To find out more about
Accenture capabilities, contact:
or speak with your Accenture
representative.