Herculean HR Efforts

Like so many corporations, Hercules, a specialty chemical producer with offices and employees located in 30 countries, found itself using widely distributed, largely unconnected mainframes to keep its HR records. Each department had its own mainframe, which was running different software than the others and was connected with phone lines for minimal coherence. "Previously, if we wanted to do something as simple as a head count, it would have taken a month using pencil and paper, and it wouldn't be valid by the time we got it," says Tom Wertz , HR manager for Hercules.

Working with SAP, Hercules managed to cull the information from all its disparate offices into a central database in its Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters. The company's offices are now connected by LANs or WANs, and by 1998 employee information will be available on-line.

Beyond simply organizing Hercules' HR management, Wertz believes the reengineering gives the firm competitive advantages. "The key deliverable in our system is information," he explains. "People who need to know something can find it out. It was impossible to get your arms around our old system. Now finance is on the same system, we can run a head count automatically, and when another country adds data to our system, it all goes right to our Wilmington system," he adds.

Hercules built its system around two databases: one master electronic file for personnel information and another that holds HR planning information. This makes it possible to manipulate information strategical ly and separately without compromising the personnel files. Hercules also now has at its disposal the ability to do profile matching of personnel, tax-benefit performance, and career information.

Does this raise security concerns for Wertz? "I've offered a reward to see if our engineers can get at restricted HR data. No one has collected the reward yet. I don't know if that means they can't or if they're too busy with other things," he says.

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Tom Wertz

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According to Tom Wertz, "The key deliverable in our system is information."