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PeopleSoft HRMS To Alleviate PNB’s HR Pains

PeopleSoft

How do you manage an active workforce of 55,000 bank employees? With disparate HR modules introducing massive inefficiencies and bottlenecks, PNB has chosen to go the PeopleSoft way.

If you are a Punjab National Bank (PNB) employee, viewing and managing personal HR-related information is going to be a lot easier, what with an online and integrated human capital management package – PeopleSoft HRMS – that is set to replace a wide range of disparate software that used to handle human resources earlier.

Speaking to CXOtoday on the necessity of the new purchase, K. S. Bajwa, DGM-IT, PNB, said, “All this while our employee records were handled by separate software; for example, one package handled payroll, one software handled provident fund (PF), another took care of pensions, and one package was used just to keep personal information records of officers and the like.”

Now, the integrated solution will handle all components of employee information and at the same time provide employees with an integrated view of their personal data. This was the need of the hour, more so since the organization has an active employee base of about 55,000, excluding 10,000 retirees. In fact, this implementation is dubbed as one of the largest human resource management system (HRMS) implementations in the Asia Pacific region. This initiative by PNB will also hasten its move towards a paperless office.

The PeopleSoft HRMS will cater to all functions of PNB’s personnel department, from recruitment to post-retirement. This includes payroll management, provident fund and terminal benefits management, management of leave, medical aid, scholarships, an executive information system and tools for planning and decision-making, among several others.

Throwing light on the process of vendor selection, Bajwa said, “Around six months ago we had floated a tender asking for proposals for a human resource solution, against which we received proposals from around 80 vendors. We selected PeopleSoft HRMS as it suited our requirements and also since most other products were SAP ERP platform-based.”

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will implement the application, which will be rolled over to 4,027 branches and 448 extension counters of PNB worldwide. Bajwa added, “We will be adopting a �’big bang’ approach in doing away with all related legacy systems and deploying the new package.”

The implementation process has started with the formation of necessary documentation and is expected to be over within 90 days. Said Bajwa, “We plan to go fully operational with the HRMS from October 1, 2004.” The HRMS will use the same network (a combination of VSAT, ISDN, VPN, and leased lines) being used by the bank’s Finacle core banking solution.

Bajwa added, “We have still not decided on the necessary hardware to support the present initiative and we are still to decide on the use of increased bandwidth. But these issues will be dealt with very soon.”

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