SELF-SERVICE HR SYSTEM SET FOR TEST AT HANNAFORD

KIM ANN ZIMMERMANN

SCARBOROUGH, Maine -- Hannaford Bros. here will begin testing a self-service human-resources system this fall that could ultimately allow the retailer's 25,000 employees to perform some routine functions on their own, such as finding out how many vacation days they have left or entering a change of address.

"Our human-resources department is no different than any other in that they spend a great deal of time answering routine questions from employees," said Barbara Metivier, manager of human-resource and payroll systems for the retailer.

Metivier said the company will begin what she terms a "conference-room" pilot with a small number of employees at corporate headquarters. "We're really in the design phase, and we want to see how well the system will meet the needs of our employees and get a sense for the kinds of thing we want to do with the system and how well it performs the various functions," she said.

Employees in all the company's stores, as well as corporate headquarters, will eventually be able to use the system to check and change their address and payroll deductions. Employees will also be able to check their vacation days.

Metivier anticipates the system could begin a rollout to the stores sometime next year. While the system is still in the design stage, she noted, there will most likely be at least one standard personal computer in each store for employees to access the information. Headquarters employees will also have access to the human-resources applications over the corporate intranet, the Internet-based internal network that will be the platform for the human-resources application, she noted.

Many retailers, particularly in areas where there is a high rate of employee turnover, have been seeking more automated methods of providing employees access to data and allowing them to perform routine tasks.

She noted that the company had considered self-service human-resources systems in the past, but found that they were not easy to use. "It is important that this system, which we will ultimately make available to 25,000 or more employees, be understandable and accurate," she noted. If the system is unclear or difficult, she noted, employees would not use the self-service system.

"That will defeat the purpose of the system, which is to reduce the number of routine calls and tasks in the human-resources department to allow them to focus on other issues," she said.

The intranet-based human-resources application is from Lawson Software, Minneapolis. The intranet-based application would access information from the corporate-wide human-resources system, which is also from Lawson. "It is important that everyone is accessing the same updated information, no matter who is accessing it, or where they are accessing it from," she said.