Outsourced HR helps NBN Co grow by a factor of 20

To start building Australias National Broadband Network, executives at NBN Co needed to build a skilled workforce. Shortly after the formation of the company in August 2009, there were approximately 50 employees and the company was ready to put a structured Human Resources (HR) organisation in place. In only 12 weeks, Accenture created an outsourced HR service that helped NBN Co to recruit at a rate of 80 staff per month and manage payroll for all NBN Co personnel. By October 2010, Accenture had created an integrated outsourced HR capability to support all NBN Co staff and provide managers with performance assessment and reporting tools. By delivering virtually all HR functions as a service, Accenture is helping NBN Co focus on the core of the business building the new network. By staffing finance, procurement and project management requirements on time, NBN Co is operationally on target as the competitive landscape is causing delays.

Business situation
In January 2010, the company tasked with building Australias National Broadband Network, NBN Co, employed fewer than 50 staff. Before construction pilots could start in October, the company needed the ability to manage complex finance, procurement and project management activities. To do this, executives initially estimated they would need a core workforce of 1,000 to 3,000 employees. However, expanding the company by a factor of 20 presented NBN Co with two complex HR challenges: The company would have to recruit at a rate of 60 to 80 staff per month to meet the targets. NBN Co however did not have an organisation in place to handle such a significant hiring initiative; and it would take several months to create a traditional HR organisation. Time was of the essence, and the first finance and procurement employees needed to be hired within a few weeks.

As soon as new recruits were hired, the company needed the principal components of an HR organisation in place, including: a payroll system, a records management system, HR policies and governance framework, and employee performance tracking and reporting.

NBN Co needed to build an HR function, but also wanted to retain an exceptional level of flexibility within the function. This meant executives wanted the ability to expand rapidly in the future, pending business conditions, without over-investing in HR capabilities at the start. NBN Co turned to Accenture for help. As a recognised leader in outsourced HR services, Accenture was in a position to provide NBN Co with the critical capabilities quickly.

How Accenture helped

Working together, NBN Co and Accenture developed a strategy for the HR organisation and support systems: NBN Co would outsource recruitment and payroll for new hires and existing employees to Accenture. This in turn would give NBN Co the ability to start recruiting immediately and the outsource model would provide the organisational flexibility required by NBN Co in the early stages of operations. In only 12 weeks, an Accenture Business Process Outsourcing team designed, built and tested a hosted web-based recruitment platform solution to manage an end-to-end recruitment service for NBN Co. This service included creating job portals, receiving job applications, scheduling interviews, screening applicants and managing contracts. During the same twelve-week period, Accenture developed an outsourced payroll service which facilitated the payment of salaries to NBN Co employees. The entire HR system was integrated with the companys finance and procurement applications a few months later, helping to improve company administration and minimising data- entry duplication. At the same time, Accenture worked closely with NBN Co to define the optimum balance between retaining select HR capabilities in-house and outsourcing the rest. Outsourcing HR capabilities meant they could be established quicker and in some cases more efficiently, since the company did not have to invest in permanent HR resources. Yet NBN Co wanted to make sure they retained close control over some HR activities, such as strategy, policy and governance.

In the end, NBN Co decided to outsource to Accenture all HR activities that involved high-volume transactions, such as administration, records keeping and enquiries management, and only retain strategic policy-setting HR activities. Between May and October 2010, Accenture implemented 12 HR systems leveraging the Accenture Global Delivery Network strategically located around the world. These included: an HR portal that provides employees with access to policies a recruitment and onboarding system a performance and rewards system a records management system a learning management system a reporting system for NBN Co senior level executives a payroll system with integrated employee/manager self service an employee contact centre with help-desk tool

Speed to deployment By introducing an outsourced recruiting service managed by Accenture in only three months, NBN Co could quickly ramp up its core finance, procurement and project management functions. This allowed the company to focus on building the network, rather than building internal capabilities, and begin network construction activities on schedule at the beginning of October 2010. Business efficiency Because HR services are supplied on a pay-per-user model, the costs for these services are predictable and transparent. Executives at NBN Co understand their monthly HR costs because they have the information at their fingertips, and can easily determine the proportion of costs related to technology, processing and staffing.

Contact
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These systems provide NBN Co with an integrated HR support service, combining reward, performance and talent management procedures with a dedicated, knowledgeable contact centre. NBN Cos investment is based on a fixed rate for each service, along with an additional incremental charge based on the number of employees recruited and supported.

High performance delivered

With Accentures help, NBN Co grew their workforce from less than 50 employees in January 2010 to nearly 1,000 employees in spring 2011 and growing.

This case study is one of a series of seven that tell how Accenture helped build key capabilities for NBN Co. Copyright 2012 Accenture All Rights Reserved. Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture.