How PersoPoint Streamlined and Centralised HR with SD Worx SAP solutions

SD Worx SAP solutions has partnered with PersoPoint, the Belgian federal government's secretariat for personnel and payroll administration, to lead a significant HR digitisation initiative. With the goal of centralising and streamlining personnel and payroll administration processes, the project has increased efficiency and lowered costs.

The Belgian government is investing in new technologies to boost efficiency and improve services at all levels. PersoPoint is the Belgian federal government's personnel and payroll management secretariat. Founded in 2016, it was created to centralise and modernise the personnel administration of dozens of federal government departments. PersoPoint provides payroll, personnel administration, legal consulting and reporting services. It centralises personnel data and offers a quality and streamlined service with the latest technological applications.

Before this project, the payroll engine in place was outdated and difficult to maintain. Another major issue was that the only employees with technical knowledge of it were on the brink of retirement. If PersoPoint wanted to continue paying the salaries of all government workers, a solution was urgent.

• Integrate the personnel and payroll administration of 75,000 federal government workers from 59 agencies. Previously, these services were fragmented across 59 departments, which was inefficient and costly.  
• To provide a common and uniform range of services, increasing efficiency, quality and cost savings.

Challenges have arisen over the course of the project so far. For example, each government agency had its own personnel administration systems and pay standards, which were difficult to unify. Furthermore, the federal government's high internal mobility added to the complexity.  

"SD Worx SAP solution's technical expertise and strong payroll knowledge were indispensable for the standardisation. In addition, they worked out a smart SAP framework that handles a certain amount of diversity without any problems. The data from each new organization that switches to PersoPay fit in nicely each time." Liliane Verreyen, Director of PersoPoint.

SD Worx SAP solutions developed the payroll engine based on SAP HCM. Jan Ven, Project Manager at SD Worx SAP solutions, says, "We deliberately stayed away from customisation. With a scale of over 75,000 government workers who will be paid through the pay engine, manageability is a critical concern. Customisation involves risk with every SAP update - that's several times a year. That's why we built PersoPay entirely into the standard SAP payroll engine. We linked custom functionality just before the engine. This ensures stability and performance, and so technical maintenance runs extremely efficiently." 
 

But before the payroll engine can calculate wages, it needs information from personnel files. PersoPoint now collects that in their core HR system, PeopleSoft. SD Worx SAP solutions ensured a seamless integration and set up the PersoPay interface between PeopleSoft and SAP. Jan Ven: "SAP and PeopleSoft work in a different way. We worked intensively together with the PeopleSoft administrators to make the systems compatible and to keep it manageable. It was a difficult exercise, but we came out of it together. Constructive partnership between all parties was the key to success.” 

Since 2020, we have been onboarding new government agencies - and thus thousands of additional government workers on PersoPay every quarter. There's a lot involved in that. Jan Ven: "We first check the data quality. Then we run the old and new pay engines in parallel to spot and resolve differences. Only when everything is 100% correct do we finally transfer the payroll processing. This goes extremely smoothly: all links are robust, secure and stable. That has made the onboarding of Finance in July 2022 doubly proved. More than 21,800 additional government workers then silently went live on PersoPay. With 34 of the 59 organizations already successfully transitioned, we are perfectly on track. By the end of 2023, PersoPay will process the salaries of 76,324 government workers." 

Prior to this project, government agencies were submitting changes to personnel records, performance and expenses to PersoPoint on paper or via mail. This resulted in a lot of manual work, a high risk of errors and delays. Liliane Verreyen: "The number of recalculations decreased by more than 80% with PersoPay. And with PersoExpenses, managers only have to approve or reject expenses: no more calculating distances or reporting adjustments, for example." Paychecks were also still printed out and sent by mail to all 76,324 government workers. 

"By implementing a simple intervention like digital paychecks, we save just under a million Euros a year. Add to that all the IT systems, licenses and working hours eliminated from 59 government departments ... The total cost savings are huge." Liliane Verreyen, Director of PersoPoint 

The phased onboardings of both PersoPay and PersoExpenses are proceeding smoothly and on schedule. PersoPoint and SD Worx SAP solutions are perfectly capable of handling the huge scale, complex government environment and major changes in working methods. Focus on improvement and change will follow naturally: the following government departments are eager to get in on this story. 

The Belgian HR Excellence award for Best HR System Integrator was a particularly exciting outcome of this project!  This victory in March of 2023 was a tremendous accomplishment for both the SD Worx SAP solutions and PersoPoint teams. It is a testament to the complexity that we overcame and crucial collaboration on both sides. We are honoured to be their implementation partner and to collaborate with them in becoming better employers. 

Cooperation and collaboration have been crucial since day one. PersoPoint and SD Worx SAP solutions embarked on this project in tandem from the start in 2016. With the utmost respect for each other's expertise, full transparency and intense collaboration, we are working together toward the same goal: smart, robust and reliable tools and integrations for federal HR transformation. 

“Besides the wonderful results produced by the tools, the absolute strength of this project is the critical, transparent and, above all, respectful collaboration between our teams. We work in tandem toward a common goal and for all obstacles we find a solution together. Many other consulting companies may take an example from SD Worx SAP solutions." Liliane Verreyen, Director of PersoPoint

This government contract runs until June 2024. Until then, SD Worx SAP solutions will handle: 

• The phased onboarding of the remaining government services technical and content support for PersoPoint. 
• PersoPay legal maintenance: making adjustments to the payroll engine and ensuring flawless integrations in the event of e.g. changing regulations or indexation of wages. 
• The evolutionary maintenance PersoPay and PersoExpenses: new functionalities or additional reports as an extension of the original scope. 

We are excited to continue working with PersoPoint to further improve their HRIS implementation and help them become an even better employer.