Post Office – Case study
Background
After being established as a separate business, independent of Royal Mail Group, Post Office Ltd needed to ensure they were compliant with their automatic enrolment workplace pension duties, under the Pensions Act 2008. Petaurum Solutions was engaged to support the implementation of their Pensions Auto Enrolment requirements.
The Project
Leading the project and acting as the ‘Subject Matter Expert’, Mark Dyer from Petaurum Solutions carried out a full range of stakeholder communications, project plans and produced all the necessary formal documentation. This was completed over a six-month period and deployed on time and within budget. This resulted in a smooth and well received implementation from both the Post Office executive, Unions and c. 5,000 employees.
The Next Phases and Outcomes
Following the Automatic Enrolment implementation, Petaurum Solutions was then asked to further support Post Office Ltd’s drive to modernise its systems and workforce. This phase of the project required the transition of weekly paid employees to monthly contracts and the conversion of their casual workforce to full time contracts, along with moving from their legacy payroll system to SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll.
As the Transition Lead and again acting as the ‘Subject Matter Expert’, Mark Dyer from Petaurum Solutions developed a full consultation approach in collaboration with senior executives and employment specialists, to facilitate the transition of employees to new contracts and pay periods.
Further communications and decisions were continuously developed during consultation to ensure that not only did the transition meet Post Office Ltd’s operational and business needs, but also it didn’t place any employees into hardship. This was important to us at Petaurum as we are passionate that success is dependent on maintaining high engagement with staff and the approach aligned with our core values and the way we do things.
Indeed, impact and success can be measured truly, only if looked at holistically. On completion, over 450 employees had successfully made the transition allowing Post Office Ltd to move to the next phase of its modernisation; the transfer of its payroll system.
Taking the role of Project Manager and working as the ‘Implementation Expert’ in the HR Service Centre (HRSC) Lead Team, Mark Dyer from Petaurum Solutions led the payroll transition. This included the review and modernisation of the vast number of variable payments paid each month, simplification of the payroll processes and the restructure of the HRSC teams. The transition required a full specification/blueprint to be developed, comprehensive testing of the new system to ensure on go live every employee would be paid correctly and the production of all documentation, to ensure post go live continual development of the system would be maintained.
Alongside the system changes a review and restructure of the HRSC was undertaken to ensure the right people were in the right roles to reflect the new payroll processing requirements. The transition was managed over a fifteen-month period and was delivered on time and budget. The ultimate measure of success was that at go-live, not only did Post Office pay its people on time, but also every employee was paid correctly.