Aller’s digitalisation of HR processes creates more time for the business

What does a CFO do when the entire HR department terminate at a few months’ interval? Martin Tørnes, CFO of Aller Media A/S, knows because that happened to him in the spring. That’s why we have met him for a talk about how to make a temporary HR strategy without any HR employees and how Aller used digitalisation and automation of HR processes to create a sense of presence in the business and transparency vis-à-vis the employees.

In the spring of 2023, Martin Tørnes was a CFO under much pressure. In a few months, Aller had lost its entire HR department – first, the then VP & Head of HR resigned, and within the next couple of months, more and more employees terminated until only two HR business partners were left, who also resigned shortly after.

“You can’t just place your HR department on standby. There’ll always be staff challenges to handle in a company – from illness to behaviour. So, we hired an interim HR manager and an HR consultant to help us keep up,” he says.

Before the many resignations, HR had been an independent part of the executive management, but when the former Head of HR terminated, Martin included HR under his area of responsibility. And he and the executive management took a strategic decision to change the name of the department into People & Culture. The change of name was intended to show the employees that the department was heading in a new direction.

“I realise that it’s popular to change from HR to People, but this change is actually very strategic. We want to show that focus should be on our employees and the culture – and we wanted to move away from considering our employees as resources,” says Martin. “After all, we are not talking about manufacturing machines that are to produce nuts with lightning speed. We earn a living from having skilled employees, and they should know that we are striving for them to have a good place of work.”

Since the days when Aller’s HR department consisted of two interim employees, the new People & Culture department has grown – among other things, due to the employment of a Head of People. Martin has, however, kept the responsibility of this function, since it is important that the new Head of People can focus on creating a People & Culture department that is available to the business.

“When you are part of the executive management, plenty of issues take your time and prevent you from doing what is by far the most important, which is the establishment of a department, processes, and structures from which the employees and the managers can benefit. Therefore, it was our assessment that, for the time being, it is best that I handle the People track vis-à-vis the executive board,” Martin explains.

In general, Martin prioritises reductions of administrative burdens, allowing the employees time to be present. This is also evident when we talk about processes and structures, which he considers strategic main focal points for Aller.

“The more we can make systems support our processes, the better. Because the more we standardise, automate, and digitalise our processes, the more time we get for doing what we really want. And that is being present to our business partners,” says Martin.

“If we can release time from the employees, we can succeed in making their tasks more efficient as well as increase the service level vis-à-vis the business,” he explains and elaborates: “Most employees have an area that motivates them, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s finance, HR, or IT. They aren’t motivated by understanding and supporting the business, its challenges, and its strategy. And that’s the vision that we in the executive management must make relevant to the employees since that’s the purpose of digitalisation.”

Martin stresses particularly Aller’s requisition process as having benefitted from digitalisation. It has, actually, both saved time and reduced the risk of errors.

“Our former requisition process was in pdf format, and it was unnecessarily cumbersome since – if I were too busy and forgot to forward or attach the right file – the process would fail. And because requisitions were sent by email, it was impossible to find them if I didn’t put them in the right mailbox,” he says.

“Now, I receive requisitions electronically and only have to press ‘approve’ or ‘reject’ to send them in the right direction. That’s a good example of processes that we need to standardise and automate so that we can spend our time on something else than carrying papers and PDFs by hand.”

Digitalisation of the requisition process has been accompanied by an extra advantage in that Martin has gained a better overview of the requisitions he has received over time and of those that he has either approved or rejected.

Martin’s next major digitalisation hope is that People & Culture gets a system-supported process for performance management that the entire business can benefit from.

But for Martin it is not about setting rigid goals and monitoring the employees. Rather the process is intended to make it easier for employees and managers to align expectations.

“Performance measurements may help create overview and dialogue so that the employees can air their wishes for the direction of their work life and agree with their leaders about the expectations of their work. Since it is also a stress factor for the employees if they don’t know what is expected from them. But what we measure must make sense, and it must be transparent why and how we measure,” Martin says.

And systems play a significant role in this process. For example, in the form of a People system capable of handling the processual parts of performance management – also when it comes to sending reminders about when to book the next meeting and which documents to fill in before the talk.

In addition, the People system can handle Aller’s HR master data on the employees and, thus, help create an overview of further training and education, skill development, and wellbeing.

“If, for example, there is much absence in a department, we can identify this and start examining whether there’s something wrong or whether it’s merely accidental,” Martin explains. “If there are stress situations in a department, we have to solve them before we begin to receive sickness notes or resignations.”

Aller also plans to use the People system for another process that they have been working on:

“GDPR is also an area where we have established some processes and rules on what to save and where to save it,” Martin says. “We’ve streamlined and been through all our data, and we are currently moving all the necessary sensitive personal data to the relevant employee profiles in the People system so that they are available from a GDPR compliant place,” he says.

Asked about his best advice to other companies in the same situation, Martin answers promptly:

“Avoid depending on individuals. And make sure to have processes that work so that all knowledge will not disappear when an employee resigns or falls ill. Mere basic things such as where we post new vacancies or how we manage agreements and contracts,” Martin says. “Of course, efficiency will decline when an employee resigns, but you can minimise this by having distributed the tasks so that all those working with a specific area know a little about the colleagues’ tasks.”

This piece of advice applies not only to the People area, but to all other areas as well. And looking back, there is one other thing that Martin would have done:

“Perhaps we should have used more interim consultants as staff, thereby having time to establish standard processes rather than merely focusing on operations – and, thereby, also having spent some time developing things. Then we would, of course, have had to pay what it costs.”

But what is the next step for Aller’s People & Culture department? Firstly, the new department needs to be fully established – there are still open headcounts, just as the new Head of People is faced with an interesting task:

“She must decide which role People & Culture is to assume and what are their priorities. Apart from getting to know Aller, of course, because we are a house with different professional groups, and each brand has its own culture. So, it is an important task to find out how People & Culture is to connect everything.”

• Requisition process
  If it hasn’t been done already, it would be obvious to digitalise the requisition process. Firstly, this process is used by the entire organisation and, secondly, it reduces the risk of the type of errors that will inevitably occur when you are busy.
• Performance management process
  Consider implementing an HR system that can, i.a., help with the processual part of performance management, allowing you to concentrate on the talk with your employees.
• GDPR process
  What to save, what to delete, and where to store information? HR handles everything from employment contracts to sickness notes, and this means that the department has access to many sensitive personal data. A process for handling these data will enable you to always find what you need without being in non-compliance with the requirements of the Danish Business Authority.

Read this and more articles in our magazine Content here (in Danish).