Once you plan to implement the ServiceNow Human Resources Service Delivery, Case and Knowledge Management tool, you may have one question.
“Where do I start?”
Take heart! You don’t have to go it alone. At Cask, we find that many customers have the same question. The short answer is, “It depends.”
If you’d like a little more detail, along with some guidance about which staff members should get trained, when they need it, and why it matters for smooth, successful implementation, read on.
Pre-Implementation Training for Limited Staff
When preparing to implement a new program, the natural inclination is to get people trained early. But be careful. It can be difficult to time your team’s training close enough to when they’ll have the opportunity to put their knowledge to use.
Train people too early and you risk losing the value of the training if they can’t work with the tool soon afterward.
For a good implementation, you need a few weeks to work through the stages of the ServiceNow Adaptive Implementation Framework (SAIF)—Initiate, Examine and Plan, and Design.
When you reach the Create stage, that’s where the system is configured and your HRIS staff really gets down to work with your implementation partner. (More on that topic in the next section.)
For now, just focus on those staff who will assist with the planning and design of the case management system.
For HR staff who help with pre-implementation work and attend working sessions to set requirements or stories for your implementation, we recommend they start with the FREE ServiceNow Fundamentals course.
We also recommend staff watch CURRENT ServiceNow product demonstrations on YouTube.
Take care to watch only the most current videos, since partner videos or videos of earlier versions may not reflect current ServiceNow capabil
ities. Work with your partner to curate a list of current, relevant videos for your team so they come prepared for working sessions.
Knowledge Management Training
Make sure to train your team in knowledge management. To get the benefits of “shift-left” or “employee self-service,” you’ll need an outstanding knowledge base so people can help themselves. That means having good knowledge-management processes and, most importantly, great knowledge articles.
One Cask client, in particular, has seen amazing results in this area, with 68 percent of all cases created through employee self-service by the second week of implementation! All because the roughly 24,000 employees in the organization were reviewing 145+ knowledge articles each day to learn how to start the case process through self-service.
Get People Excited About Learning
Consider reaching into your IT organization to ask the knowledge-management process owner for help in educating co-workers. If that’s not an option, reach out to your implementation partner for help, or tap into knowledge management resources on the Internet.
The gold standard is an initiative called KCS®, which provides some great resources. Keep in mind, however, that KCS focuses on the process of knowledge management and setting up an infrastructure to help manage knowledge—not creating HR-specific articles.
Much of the “how to” around knowledge management can be found here at The KCS Academy website.
To create meaningful content, work with your implementer and your staff. The goal is to facilitate interaction between your employees and HR, while lowering the cost of HR service delivery—not to simply provide a collection of knowledge articles (that remain unread).
HRIS Staff Training: Two Paths
When training your HRIS staff, we suggest one of two possible paths. The right choice will depend on the size and capabilities of your agency.
Before proceeding down either path, decide who will support and maintain case and knowledge management for HR.
If you plan to use your own IT department team and they already manage your ServiceNow IT-related functions, your job as an HR leader is nearly finished. Just run your HRIS team through the free course and videos to help them have intelligent conversations with IT, and move forward.
Strongly recommended: train your HRIS people to administer the ServiceNow Human Resources-related scoped applications so you can shift that task to them and away from IT (as most of our clients have done).
Timing Matters
The timing of your HRIS training is as important as how you train them. Schedule training right before the Create stage of SAIF, so your team can participate and learn from the implementation process. Avoid holding training any earlier because your staff may lose their valuable new skills without the opportunity to use them.
Path #1: Training Only One Person?
Begin with the free ServiceNow fundamentals course. Then put that person through the ServiceNow two-day HR-specific Admin class. (Note: It’s helpful if your employee has some JavaScript skills. There are organizations like CodeAcademy that offer free JavaScript courses.)
Path #2: Training for Two or More?
If the ServiceNow HR specific course is not available or if you can train two or more people, send the more technically adept person down the following (slightly different) training path:
Start with the free ServiceNow Fundamentals course, as always. Then enroll your techie in the three-day ServiceNow Fundamentals class that matches to the ServiceNow System Admin Certification and conclude with the two-day System Administration Advanced course. (Some JavaScript skills are recommended.)
Avoid On-the-Job Training
Your HRIS team needs to know how to help manage and control the tool. On-the-job-training is not recommended, but fortunately you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot on good training. If you have an IT team that’s already using the tool, form a partnership with the ServiceNow Platform owner or administrators who can help your HRIS team get up to speed through mentoring and support.
HR Staff Training
Once you enter the Create stage of SAIF, it’s time to think about training your HR staff. The more transformative your implementation, the steeper the hill you have to climb.
Important Considerations in Scaling Training:
- Less training can lead to lower-quality data, therefore less useful or actionable metrics and reporting
- Better knowledge articles can decrease the need for training
When More Training is Needed:
• For more case types
• For large or global organizations
• For more complex workflows
You don’t have to spend days in a classroom to train your HR staff. If you have a basic implementation and a small number of case forms, you can achieve great results with a simple lunch-and-learn session to familiarize both generalists and specialists with the basics.
Larger or more complex environments will benefit from a 90-minute class that includes a short lab session to provide a hands-on experience and the chance to ask questions.
Test Your Training Approach with a Pilot
Because of the importance of timing, we suggest starting your pilot program with the team that helps test the system. (They’ll need to understand it to test it.)
Use the pilot as an opportunity to try out your training approach. Train the remaining team members no sooner than two weeks before going live, then continue for at least a week afterward.
Not all employees of large organizations can attend training. So make sure a recorded session with live Q& A or SME support is available.
Training Pays Off
By training your team at the right time, enabling them to help with the design and support of your implementation, you’ll improve your project and get a better (and cheaper to maintain) HR Case Management solution.
Minimal investment, low risk, huge pay-off… What’s not to like?
This part can’t be emphasized enough: if you build your business case for implementation around gaining the knowledge necessary to make better decisions, it becomes critical to train your entire HR staff to help realize ROI.
We’ve all heard the expression, “Garbage in, garbage out.” (IT folks hear it so much we just say GIGO.) The point is that training of your HR team members will improve the quality of data in their cases.
A modest training investment can yield significant returns by improving your ability to make sound, data-driven decisions.
Choose an experienced partner like Cask who understands both ServiceNow and HR to help you derive the value you expect from your system.
