Tech Writing

Client

One of Australia's largest telecommunications and technology companies, offering a full range of communications services and competing in all telecommunications markets.

Challenge

The client cloud-based HR Digital Transformation is being carried out to:

Improve HR and Payroll compliance,
Provide better data for decision making,
Provide a more standardised approach to HR management
Increase operating efficiencies, and
Enable decommissioning of on-premise based legacy HR systems

The client is implementing Workday* Human Capital Management (HCM). The explicit aim is for the implementation to be as ‘vanilla’ as possible, maximising the use of standard Workday functionality. As a result, HR business processes are being adapted where needed to match Workday function and flow. The implication of this decision places additional pressure on the Technical Writing team as the more significant changes to e2e HR business processes will require clear, comprehensive and concise communication.

FinXL Solution

FinXL's Technical Writing Team used a style guide and associated templates that set appropriate standards for the writing, formatting and design of documents. The Style Guide ensures that:

Language and punctuation are consistent
Look and feel is the same
The communication reflects a conversational tone

This was supplemented by access to Workday SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), Process Specialists and a Test Environment to ensure that communication was consistent with the client's Workday user experience.

Furthermore, written communication needed to take into account the potential audience. That is:

Familiarity with the client,
Expected role to be performed e.g. HR Professional, Manager, Single Contributor,
Seniority, and
Education level.

Overall the key challenge in completing this material was developing an understanding of which of the existing systems and processes would change/stay/go and hence be reflected in the material developed and deployed into production.

Two examples illustrate the complexity in delivering effective written communications:

Example 1: Workday Recruitment Functionality
The potential audience that will use Workday Recruitment functionality is approximately 350 HR Professionals covering up to 20 locations across the globe. The scope of activity needed to cover the following:

Recruitment
Employment conditions covering areas such as:

Compensation
Transfers / secondments
Payroll
Annual Leave and Long Service LSL
Performance / Dispute resolution
Benefits

Communication also needed to allow for local changes to be made based on local conditions e.g. Employment law

Given the client's Recruitment Teams are mostly offshore the expectation is that they will operate ‘by the book’, meaning that the overall approach needed to be very detailed and easy to follow.

Example 2: Compensation and Benefits Functionality
The potential audience that will use Workday Compensation and Benefits functionality is much larger than ‘Recruitment’. Approximately 65,000 Employees are expected to manage and use Compensation and Benefits functions in Workday as either an Employee or a Manager. The scope of activity needed to cover the following (as an example):

Salary packaging options
Retirement savings
All leave types
Superannuation contributions and beneficiaries
Higher duties, shiftwork, overtime, temporary allowances
Annual Remuneration Review
Purchase of leave

Business Benefits

Expected benefits are as follows:

Improved HR and Payroll compliance,
Better, more accessible data for decision making,
A more standardised approach to HR management
Increased operating efficiencies (predominantly through increased self-management), and
Decommissioning on-premise based legacy HR systems

*NOTES:

1. Workday (https://www.workday.com/)
Workday is an on‑demand (cloud-based) financial management and human capital management software. Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) is a configurable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution designed to help Companies organise, staff, pay and develop their workforce.

HCM manages the full worker lifecycle—from staffing to compensation to career growth—using a single human capital management system. This includes:

Creating and modifying organisational structures using flexible organisation management.
Creating, modelling and executing reorganisations in a single interface.
Allowing teams to define and manage their own business processes.
Providing a consistent, engaging, and social experience across all devices.
Ensuring global consistency and allowing for local variation.

2. Zendesk (https://www.zendesk.com/)
The client is using Zendesk Relate to enter content.