If you’re a little nervous about implementing SuccessFactors Compensation, remember that many lessons you’ve already learned from implementing other systems or SuccessFactors modules will help you. And so will this short blog. Here are some tips and lessons learned to help you on your way to a successful implementation of compensation planning:
Improve Your Design
- Your compensation systems should support your compensation philosophy/practice and make it easier for managers to carry out the practice. The tail should not wag the dog—the system should not dictate your philosophy or practice. Design a worksheet that helps your managers make better decisions each year.
- Plan now to simplify plan designs and approval workflows. If not for this go-round, for the future. Keep your forms as simple as possible by removing extraneous data and focusing on the major decision support capabilities.
Implementation Considerations
- For global implementations, focus first on common elements, guided by your comp philosophy. Then move to differences.
- Think of the end state of your Compensation planning process: How will you communicate to employees? How will you deliver this to payroll? Begin working on these two items before the final iteration of your configuration phase.
- Take advantage of SuccessFactors’ module integrations. Determine how you want Performance Management to integrate with Compensation early on in your project to take advantage of the linkage between the two.
Go-Live Considerations
- Don’t skimp on testing. (Repeat three times.)
- Troubleshooting. Even though you’ve tested, there are always corner cases and unexpected issues. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that it’s a product defect. It almost always isn’t—it’s most often a data issue, so start your analysis with the data. If you’ve tested your system and it’s working for all or almost all cases but doesn’t work for one, it’s likely to be a data issue. It could also be a problem with a custom formula. Here are some good practices and ways to troubleshoot:
- Don’t assume your import file tells you what’s been imported. Always export the comp data and then begin your analysis. Just because you intended to import changes doesn’t mean they made it into the tables. Or maybe a subsequent import changed the data unbeknownst to you.
- Always check your email notifications and use the Monitor Jobs utility. You can find good error messages in both—just take the time to read them and ask for help interpreting them if needed.
- Use standard and ad hoc compensation reports to help you analyze the tougher data issues.
- Provide some level of training or guidance for your new users—the level that’s appropriate for your work culture. Quick reference guides or a brief intro training go over much better than having planners click randomly to figure out the system for themselves. Even if it’s “intuitive.”
- Lower your go-live stress level by building a step in your workflow that allows Comp or HR to review the forms before they are pushed to managers. If you find an error, you’ll be able to delete the forms, fix the error and release new forms without disruption to your planners.
- Go-lives are better mid-week. Plan your go-live date to avoid Mondays, the first few days of January, and the week of a new software release.
A Thought about Migrating to the Cloud
The electric car industry is currently helping a prospective customer base get over “range anxiety,” the fear of being stranded when the batteries run out. Some of us also have “cloud anxiety”, which might be fearing loss of functionality and possibly loss of control. Even if you stand to lose some functionality compared to your highly customized present system, the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Cloud-based systems cost less to implement and maintain which is better for your organization’s bottom line. But beyond that, they’re nimble, take advantage of new ideas, and enable innovation. In the end, you’ll be able to modify your compensation plan designs more easily as practices change, helping you to stay current and competitive. And work from the beach. We’ve learned that!