BT Human Resources Reaches New Service And Efficiency Levels With Open Text Livelink ECM

With responsibility for all of the companyís employees, both past and present, BT human resources faces a massive challenge when it comes to the storage, retrieval and ultimate disposal of employee files and records.

Prior to BTís deployment of Open Text Livelink ECM, employee records stretching back over the companyís 90-year history had been stored initially by the company, but subsequently these stores were centralised. Eventually, the physical storage of records was passed to a professional storage company. More recently, prior to the scanning activity, all records were returned to BT for a massive sift exercise. Following the destruction of all expired data, BT was left with more than 10 million sheets of paper contained in personnel files, boxed, and stored in 22 rooms on a BT site in the north of England.

The cost and time required to record, warehouse, retrieve and re-file these employee records was a major burden for BT. This approach to record retention did not reflect BTís image as an IT solutions provider and clearly a fresh approach was required.

An Avalanche of Paper
BT approached Open Text to help them develop a solution to manage employee records that would ensure compliance with UKís Data Protection Act (DPA). Clear and legislatively compliant retention schedules had to be corporately reviewed and documented. BT took this opportunity to rationalise and simplify its retention policy to produce a small number of straightforward retention rules that could be applied to both current and former employees. With the retention rules defined, it was important that documents were accurately classified to ensure that they could be easily found and automatically destroyed once their expiry date was reached.

Under the old system, BTís data management team had to physically locate and retrieve individual records from the warehouse facility, and then return them to BT human resources when requested. This was an expensive and time-consuming process that required significant annual expenditure. To alleviate these issues and enable quicker retrieval of requested records, BT wanted its HR records to be captured electronically.

Achieving this goal meant, quite literally, sifting through millions of pages in hardcopy storage, scanning them, and loading them into the Open Text system. Old documents would then have to be destroyed, and to comply with confidentiality requirements associated with Data Access requests. BT also needed the capability to ìwhite outî sensitive data from retrieved files (as revealing names, telephone numbers, etc., would contravene data privacy rules). Adding to the challenge, additional employee documents were also stored in Oracleís PeopleSoft application. The solution needed to take this into account and offer the ability to service requests through the Oracle PeopleSoft interface.

The result? A lower cost of deployment through reduced training, a familiar interface to users that aided user adoption and acceptance.

Sift, Scan, Load. Repeat
The complex project involved forming a number of virtual teams made up of members with diverse domain expertise from across BT, including HR policy and process leads, data protection managers, legal, data retention managers, data management team, supply chain partners, transport, system integrators, an external scanning bureau, and, of course, Open Text. All had to work together to make the new system work in harmony with existing systems, processes, legal policies and regulatory mandates.

But first, all of the paper records had to be scanned and captured electronically. Open Text worked with BT and their chosen specialist bureau to develop a semi-automated process. A minimal amount of human intervention was required to ensure that all relevant records were accurately categorised and meta-tagged. With that completed, the records could then be digitised and mapped to Open Text standards. Optical character recognition software would then recognise the data type and tag the scanned image with its relevant classification.

After documents were scanned they were uploaded into Livelink ECM, which enables easy search and retrieval using a range of criteria, including employee identification number, National Insurance Number, name, date of birth, etc. This approach has helped keep human error to a minimum, which is essential given there are up to five million images to be stored. At the end of the project, BT will have access to a small universe of employee information at the touch of a button and will have the ability to send files to employees or other departments electronically, with sensitive data fields deleted for privacy purposes.

The Results
Given the scale and complexity of the project, implementation began in September 2006 and full deployment is projected for completion by June 2007. ìOpen Text engaged with us as both a consultant and vendor on the project,î said Gill Roberts, BT, Group HR Policy Manager, ìWe tested and developed the system as we went along, continually checking that it delivered the performance standards and functionality we required. It has been a huge undertaking but Open Text has been extremely helpful and flexible in the advice and support they have provided. Their expertise and professionalism have made this project a reality and a great success.î

The Open Text solution also had to work with the BT People System, Oracle PeopleSoft and a range of other HR databases to ensure data is managed and purged.

As the project comes to its conclusion, positive results can already be seen. Throughout this project the support and level of consultation from Open text has been excellentÖ.and the technology works! Itís straightforward and easy to use. BT are already seeing improved retrieval times and reduced costs.

Other early results:

3.5 million sheets of paper have been scanned
280,000 KG of paper have been shredded
22 rooms required for paper record storage have been released and re-allocated for training purposes, offering considerable savings

And most importantly, BTís HR department is now fully compliant with DPA regulations within the UK, alleviating the threat of prosecution or personal liability for failure to comply with regulations related to employee record keeping.

BT is also seeing additional benefits, including the ability to monitor access to archive materials and understand retrieval volumes.

ìWe are very pleased with Open Textî, Gill Roberts concludes. ìThe feedback from our users has been incredibly positive and we expect other functions within BT to use this software for their storage and archiving requirements going forward.î