Alcatel Shanghai Bell is a foreign-invested company limited by shares. It was set up in 1984 with Sino-Swiss capital, which is one of the fist joint-ventures and one of the key enterprises directly controlled by Central Work Committee for enterprises. As the first foreign-invested company limited by shares in China's telecommunications industry, Alcatel Shanghai Bell is was formally established in 28th, May, 2005, with 50%+1 shares held in Alcatel and 50%-1 shares in Chinese shareholders. The Total Amount of Registered Capital is 12 billion and there are about 8000 employees in it.

In 2001, Shanghai Bell and Shanghai Alcatel successively installed Kayang Power HR2000.During the four years, Shanghai Alcatel has experienced several big organizational reformation and Kayang Power HR2000 also witnessed every reformation of HR management. The powerful customerization ability and learning ability of Kayang Power HR2000 has continually absorbed the HR wisdom in Alcatel, which further improves the EHR way of Alcatel Shanghai Bell.

Since the establishment of HR management team, EHR has been bearing the important task about developing HR management effectiveness and efficiency. “The responsibility of HR is Electronic and Culture. We should heading for Electronic and striving for culture!” appealed the HR management team director, Aci Ye in the monthly regular management meeting of HR department in late 2003.

As all know, EHR is a new word recent years. As a new business, it is considered a key breakthrough of HR management but there is not a proper way to realize EHR. Without the pioneering experience, the HR began to explore the EHR way. “We should listen to employees.” In the constructive suggestion about the development of HRIS in Survey on Employee Satisfactory Degree of late 2003, lots of employees suggested that paperless office should be realized. The notion of employees is our mission and top power. A dynamic innovation of EHR was on the way.

“Before the application of Electronic Contract Renewal system, we often received complaints from employees”, the HR manager Yongsong Qian always talked this when remembering the past. Surely, it would seriously influence the enthusiasm of employee when having not been informed to renew the labor contract before the contract becomes due. The renewal of the labor contract has direct relation to poll budge and performance improvement plan so it requires the team leader, HR manager, department leader and other relevant personnel join together. This is especially complicated for employees of the branches because their contract renewal should approve by both branch’s general manager and key account department. The form of a contract renewal might be faxed several times. The confidential information maybe let out .The approving form was easy to be lost in the transferring process and the flow needed quite a long time, which affected prompt renewal of the labor contract.

“The labor contract renewal system is really useful for us,” acclaimed Min Zhang, the HR director of sales platform” Our Expatriate HR manager don’t need to stand by the fax all day to deal with fax.” To meet the different requirements on the labor contract renewal in different departments, the labor contract renewal system adheres to the unceasing improvement so as to adapt to the diversification caused by the structure change and actual demand.

When employees receive the email about labor contract renewal from the HR department or the initiative inform of branch executive before the labor contract due, they always applaud the convenience of EHR and the hard work done by collegians of HR management platform.

No.1 Employee Satisfactory Degree

“it is surprise that ESD is the No.1 this year after years of same work” said Qing Zhang, the compensation manager,“ due to the innovation of working way, employees got better service on attendance management, compensation and benefits, and ”

As far as early establishment of HRIS, the HR department had provided online self query of employees’ C&B, which made the paper slip perish. Gradually employees accept the electronic mode and benefit from EHR.

Overtime work application and approval system only make it easy for employee to fill in the application and compute the overtime pay. “it was hard to check precisely on the manual computation of employees’ overtime work cost. The E-overtime work system makes all simple and precise.” praised the E-overtime work system.

Leave application and approval system makes the application and management of over 10 different leave types simple while the link between leave system and overtime wok system enables the convenient conversion between weekend overtime-work and compensatory leave, which can be used in the leave system.

Recently, employee’s financial condition has obviously improved as the company develops. Moreover, as shanghai real estate market becomes hotter and hotter, more and more employees buy houses and cars, thus the Income Certification was in great need. The former manual certification couldn’t meet the great need and also can not avoid mistaken caused by manual computation. After the application of employee self-prove income system, employees can apply the income certification by tapping the mouse, and then get an email from the HR department to take. Employees would not come to the HR department in vain any more due to the absence of the person in charge of the matter.

Lots of the new-comers are not clear about compensation and benefits procedure and payment state. There were a large number of consulting calls and emails, so it was unavoidable that some employees might be ignored and thus caused bad influence. Why not change the working way? With the advantage of EHR, the online query and track of C&B state of new employees is available on the HR website and the detailed step of the whole procedure can be clearly demonstrated on the website. Employees will be informed what to submit under the current state and can directly submit online information. As a result, the calls decreased as well as the complaints from employees. The advantage of EHR has been best demonstrated.

Communication platform, linking all together

The HR department pays much attention to the communication between HR department and employees as well as the transverse communication between employees. In the past, there was not such a platform to share and communicate, but the communication team of HR department has been trying to build such an environment by applying the public files of Outlook to share information. However there was a fatal disadvantage that it was not available for employees using Notes.

There is not a communicating bridge between employees until the build-up of HR communicating platform. You can hear what employees think, explain HR policies, exchange the newest product and technology, release purchase, rent or transference information. To regulate the management of the communicating platform, we made the regulation of HR communication platform and every module has one or two administrator responsible for the management of the intramural articles. Further more, employee awards and punishment bullet board and employee communication mailbox are set up. It not only shows what company is for and against but also draw employees and HR department closer. “There are many useful suggestions and ideas on company development as well as the mutual help and resource share between employees. This is an ideal environment that we are seeking to build up for the company and employees.” the employee communicating manager, Lin Feng remarked on the effect of communicating platform.
“EHR built a information releasing platform---visa center subject web, providing one-stop overseas affair service.” Binyi He, Overseas Affairs Service Center manager, told us that the step of oversea development was so fast that the need of visa increased year by year. The requirements of every country continually changed. As a result, there might be some difference in the information between employees and visa center. As to downright change the state, with the help of communication department, the HR management visa center set up a subject web. From that time, employees can easily find the latest information about the overseas affairs on the website. Moreover, as for Belgium, the most popular visa destination, it needs extra three-party protocol. The information in the protocol covers all the information of employees and it is very complicated to fill. Now, when meeting this kind of problem, all of us will resort to EHR immediately. It has been proved that the self service tool set on the HR web and the application of the three-party protocol can make use of the available information in the HRIS to organize the information necessary in the protocol. The three-party protocol can not be the obstacle of applying the Belgium visa.

The development and promotion of EHR has close relationship with the high regard of the upper-class. Jie Ma, the vice executive president, when having informal discussion with HR collegians and joining the HR managers’ meeting, stressed,” The HRIS should keep the leading status in Alcatel group and make use of the advantage of EHR to electronicalize the flow of low efficiency and low ESD. The vice HR president, Wuping Kang, when talking with HR management collegians, always encourages,“ EHR changes the work mode for employees and HR collegians.” The understanding and support given by the department directors greatly encourages the HR team. Since 2004, EHR HAS always been one of the top ten important matters listed in the HR annual work.

Since the establishment of HR management team, EHR has grown up with the young and dynamic team. The HR team got quite a good record in the late 2004 survey of ESD which was also recognized by employees. There is not any award better than this.

Achievement considers the EHR development in Alcatel Shanghai Bell in this way” Although EHR has its own stage and it brings us many stories and pleasant surprise, the EHR Development has not reach an end. Our next aim is to set up one-stop service portal HR website thus enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of HR management.”

We have clear aim, united team, enterprising resolution and courage. The EHR way has prospering prospect and hope.

Users’ Aspiration
C&B HR manager—Qing Zhang

The promotion and perfection of EHR provide imponderable help for advancing the C&B management. From the annual survey of ESD, we can see that a great number of employees think highly of the electronic C&B system. It is not to say that the C&B management has been greatly improved. There are just some flows and operations developed, such as self service of income proof, query of C&B information, etc. All of these are just what employees are expecting. As for C&B personnel, the promotion of EHR has greatly reduced the repeating work intensity and also boosts up employees’ working skills. The promotion of EHR is a screw process and must keep pace with time and continually improved according to the business. The character of C&B decides that the E-system must get prompt support from specialists. Under the circumstance, we hope to be supported as before.

Visa Center Manager of HR department

EHR not only uplift our working efficiency and working precision but also boost up the ESD. For example, we put the visa requirements on line and update them on time so employees can get self query on line. Some materials could be automatically generated when working permit is needed if employees go to Belgium. Presently, CTO is developing electronic loan and settlement system (application of overseas business trip) with the help of EHR system. This system would be better applied in overseas affairs and it can realize online approval which is helpful for communication between employees, departments and financial departments. If the system begins to run, the application for going abroad, information of passport and visa, drawing foreign exchange and approval would be very convenient. So EHR not only brings convenience for HR team but also benefits all the employees of the company. I hope that EHR can give us more support in the future.

Personnel Manager of HR department---Yongsong Qian

Efficiency and Satisfactory Degree are just what we are seeking. The EHR innovation provides a better tool for realizing our goal. We often heard such complaints on such problems, such as “there is not space for files”,“the fax has not been received yet?!” and so on. We spent much time on the repeating regular paper work and simple correspondence which was not the most important work. Why not make use of the better, more systematic and more efficient working way instead of the outdated and labor-intensive way to solve the problem. Now whenever we think of any flow or any problem we will first try to resort to EHR which can make our flow faster and more convenient. Although the data of EHR system should still be manually input and maintained carefully, the data utilization rate can be greatly improved so that the working efficiency can be advanced. 20% of the time can accomplish 80% of the work! I really hope that the EHR way will become wider and wider, better and better as well.