•Written by The Editors• ••Sunday•, 12 •October• 2008 21:59•
Last Friday, the Essential Edge ran a story on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) problems with the new ERP (General Management) System. (See WHO: An Account’s Disaster ). This was based on numerous complaints by both staffers and consultants who claimed that their contracts were being delayed by months or that various forms of payment, such as consultancy fees or school tuition support, were not coming through. We also published an open letter by the WHO Staff Association (See Staff Association Letter ), which had complained last month about this ongoing situation. The Office of the Assistant to the Director General of WHO sent us these comments, which were received today:
The Essential Edge questions:
1. Why are so many consultants and new staffers forced to wait for months for their contracts and then weeks even months to be paid?
WHO went live with a new ERP system (GSM) just some 14 weeks ago, The project was initiated in 2003 and was in an advanced stage of development by 2007, when Director General Margaret Chan began her term. Along with the launch of GSM on 1 July 2008, WHO has also set up a service centre in Kuala Lumpur.
The purpose of GSM is to provide all WHO Offices with a globally integrated management system, enabling better collaboration, transparency and accountability. The consolidation of administrative processing into a shared global service centre will allow WHO Offices to increasingly focus on delivering health programs.
As to the contracting process, initially a backlog of legacy cases and some system problems (requiring manual workarounds) slowed down the issuance of contracts. A total of 725 outstanding human resources related actions (including appointments, separations, changes in personal information, etc.) for WHO staff needed to be cleared by the global service centre, in addition to the new HR requests that started to be processed through GSM as of 1 July 2008.
The team in the global service centre, while very dedicated and hard working, was new to WHO and needed therefore to go through a very steep learning curve. Overall, while the situation is still not perfect, the contracting process is now moving forward much smoother than before.
Additional support has been organized by the global service centre to process contracts and most of the backlogs have been cleared. Turnaround times for contract administration are decreasing, and as of the month of September, the service centre has been processing contract cases received during that month.
Furthermore, progress has been made in resolving the system problems in the contract administration process. We are confident that further progress in contract administration will be made during the coming weeks. At the same time, support has been enhanced to manage the new ways of working by WHO staff to ensure that they understand the new processes and learn how to better use the system.
A group of "super users" has been established in the Organization and this group is quickly acquiring expertise in using the system and sharing best practices. Guidance notes and "tips" are being shared through the WHO intranet covering different processes in GSM. We are also encouraging the Staff Association to initiate a "Community of Practice" to help us improve the system.
Consultants working for WHO get contracted and paid through a different process than staff members. They hold "service contracts" and are not part of the regular payroll of WHO but get paid by the Accounts Payable Unit in Kuala Lumpur. Some technical difficulties were experienced in the payment process during the first weeks of GSM operations, and these are now being resolved.
The functioning of the Accounts Payable Unit has been reviewed and as a result of this review, staffing of the Unit has been enhanced and new procedures established, including for a more effective prioritization of payments. Additionally, end users of the system are being offered additional training and information to ensure smooth processing of contracts and payments from their end.
With regard to staff payments, overall the payroll process has been working well. However, some individual cases in which payments have been delayed have been identified and emergency payments processes have been established. For new staff who are not yet part of the regular payroll, a specific salary advance process has been established to ensure that no staff member is left without compensation.
However there are still issues with regard to payment of some entitlements and claims which are being resolved progressively. We understand the impact any payment delays can cause on staff and therefore, have made this area our top priority.
Overall, the global service centre has processed during July - September 2008 a total of 28,154 transactions out of the 33,597 it has received. The remainder of cases are either "under processing" or "pending", requiring further work and follow-up. These figures cover procurement, finance / accounts payable, human resources and payroll areas in the global service centre.
2. One accounts source says it is the technical side that is responsible. But one technical source says they completed their job over two months ago and now the responsibility lies with Kuala Lumpur.
WHO is committed to further improving the accountability and transparency of its administration, management and operations by using a results based framework. GSM provides a powerful tool for the Organization to achieve this goal. Issues emerging during the first months of an ERP roll-out are inevitably both technical and procedural of nature – not one or the other.
Success with a system like WHO's global management system, which is highly integrated and involves processes that cut across traditional organizational structures, requires a close cooperation with all parties involved. It is only thorough close coordination that problems will be resolved and progress made.
As the Director General of WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, has emphasized, GSM is our future and we need to work together to resolve problems linked to the system. To ensure that WHO can meet the challenges posed by this new environment, cooperation mechanisms between business units have been enhanced and ad hoc structures, such as cross-cutting working groups, created. Staff members with specific expertise have been deployed from WHO headquarters to the global service centre to assist staff there.
3. The International Labour Organization (ILO), which has adopted the same system did it over three years ago and claims not to have delayed a single payment or contract. WHO tried to do it over a far shorter period. No lessons learned for WHO?
WHO has been in close touch throughout the planning, development and implementation process of GSM with other UN agencies that have undergone similar ERP implementation processes. Information, best practices and lessons learned have been shared on a regular basis at various levels of the organizations.
What has been common to all of these ERP implementation processes is that while the exact nature of challenges faced may have varied, all UN agencies implementing ERPs have experienced significant difficulties during the first months after "go-live".
Geneva, 10.10.2008 Office of the Assistant Director-General General Management Cluster
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written by edgirardet, October 15, 2008
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