Medibank targets central system to handle people queries

Medibank has gone live with SuccessFactors-powered enterprise service management, with the ambition to set it up as a single system to handle "people queries" and case management.

Speaking at an SAP HR Connect conference in Melbourne, head of people services Joshua Reader said that ESM is currently live for his own team, “which looks after payroll and people services”.

“We're handling all those types of [queries like], ‘How do I make a transaction in SuccessFactors?’ ‘I didn't get paid correctly’ and ‘What's my leave balance?’” Reader said.

Reader said he hoped to expand access to ESM to “people partners” as well, with it used to “handle more grievance-type cases” as well.

He suggested that the health insurer had also looked at ServiceNow for an ESM solution before going with the SuccessFactors tool.

The insurer first deployed SuccessFactors several years ago under a large-scale SAP transformation called ‘Project Springboard’.

Reader said that Medibank wanted a system that was easy to administer, describing SuccessFactors ESM as low code.

The overarching aim is twofold.

First, it is to “cut out a lot of unnecessary" email-based interactions, allowing cases to be raised and centrally managed, and employees to be able to easily see the case status at any time.

Second, the insurer wants to establish a single, centralised system that is capable of capturing people services-related queries, and directing them internally to the person or team that can best respond.

“So, if you've got a problem, you can just put a ticket in and it will go straight to that team,” Reader said.

“If you’ve got a SuccessFactors question, it’ll federate to a different team, if you’ve got a leave question, it’ll go to a different team, and if you injured yourself at work, eventually it’ll go into the same tool. 

“[The idea is to keep] expanding it, so eventually we're not emailing each other anymore about an issue. We're in one system just navigating ‘people’ queries, essentially.”

Reader said that Medibank’s embrace of “intelligent HR” capabilities aligned with a 2030 vision “to be the healthiest workplace in Australia for all our employees.”

“We pillar all our HR strategies essentially to that [vision],” he said.

“We always look at the human side of how we design our processes and our systems, making sure that they support our managers and employees to be the healthiest they could be at their work, during their work, but also making things really simple for them to actually get their work done.

“We don't want them bogged down by unnecessary processes.

“That's how we see intelligent HR: [as] Medibank enabling our people to do what they need to do.”