Case Study: The OGTC

Using SharePoint Online/FLowForma HR To Improve Productivity Across the Business

Summary

The Processes

  • Contamination meter recalibration
  • Time in Lieu/Flexi Time
  • Annual leave request

The Pain Points

  • Paper-based processes that were error-prone
  • Demonstrating compliance
  • Fast growing team, difficult to manage

The Benefits

  • Across from anywhere
  • Ticks boxes on compliance for and secure system
  • Audit trail for multiple processes
  • Simple to use self-service tool
  • Workflow processes are at least twice as efficient

The next steps

More processes are planned for migration to FlowForma BPM.

The Challenge

The OGTC (Oil and Gas Technology Centre) provide an industry-led, focused and flexible approach to enable and facilitate innovation between industry, academia and government to help maximise economic recovery from the UK sector of the North Sea. They encourage, lead and co-fund industry-initiated technology projects to develop and deploy commercial-ready solutions and are focused on delivering innovation in five key areas: well construction, small pools, asset integrity, decommissioning and digital.

With rapid growth, a visible and robust system rather than spreadsheets was required.  The OGTC required a self-serve HR application to support their team however, hadn’t found one that that contained the functionality they were looking for, was straight forward and and which was cost effective.  The applications they had considered whilst very functional, would cost in the region of £15,000 to £20,000 per year which, for a lean company and only 30 employees, was not viable.

Utilizing the Microsoft Cloud Office 365 technology that The OGTC already possessed alongside business process software allowed Appetite to rapidly implement a powerful automated lightweight HR solution configured to meet the OGTC’s requirements that allowed employees to self-serve with a quick view to relevant information no matter where they were located or what device they used and improved compliance and efficiency.

This approach not only meant the OGTC could develop a straightforward solution based on their specific requirements, but would considerably reduce ongoing costs in comparison to other HR databases they had previously considered.

The Solution

A database was created that would allow The OGTC to capture employee information, specifically; personal details, emergency contacts, spouse/dependants, bank, remuneration, benefits, awards and much more.  Replacing Excel spreadsheets with a cloud based database meant several things; security permissions could be applied to the HR database and the information contained within it, version control would allow The OGTC to restore back to previous versions should they need to, and one version of the truth rather than multiple versions of the same spreadsheet containing different information and therefore adding confusion as to what was the latest version is was another added benefit.  Furthermore, with the database being built within Office 365, it meant that the HR Department could access this information when working remotely.

In addition to employees having the ability to edit their personal details, the introduction of FlowForma allowed The OGTC to create processes for; requesting leave, recording sickness, nominating colleagues for going above and beyond awards, and more recently recording TOIL and/or Flexitime.

The Outcome

Reduced Administration Overhead

A system which integrates and centralizes  people data. Automated processes have reduced the administration burden on the HR function  and enhanced operational efficiency, effectiveness and data quality whilst reducing both time and cost and increased reporting.

Employee Self Serve

Employee self-service feature allows employees full visibility of  their personal information and can, edit their personal details through a fully automated approval process in a user friendly and robust system.  A leave calendar alllows all employees to have access to see when one another are out of the office or on leave.

Futureproof

Offers flexibility and power for further development.

 

To find out more about The OGTC please visit http://www.theogtc.com

Customer Feedback

David Wilson, Knowledge & Communication Manager

“At the Oil & Gas Technology Centre, we required a bespoke HR system to reduce the administrative burden of certain processes. Appetite’s approach using FlowForma BPM, delivered within a tight timescale and budget, integrated well with our Business Management System giving us a self-service system that both employees and HR personnel find easy to use. Appetite provided a knowledgeable and quality service with ongoing support that gives real comfort that we can grow the system to help manage other parts of our business.”

[js-disqus]