Cegid: Helping a Large Government Organization grow its talent.

“With several thousand employees, we work to serve Quebecers. The institution took on its current face a few years ago. After several reorganizations, we realized that we needed to standardize and evolve the way we manage talent: something requiring specific expertise. Processes and systems had become too fragmented and personnel data was inconsistent and not always up to date. It was difficult to assess the qualitative aspects of positions and the people in them. There were no tools available to facilitate the development and monitoring of skills development plans according to current standards. People did not always know exactly what was expected of them.

Our hundred or so managers needed an effective way to accurately evaluate each employee and help them grow professionally. Offering better career opportunities was an important motivator that we weren’t leveraging enough.

So, we outlined our needs and specific criteria to the independent selection committee in charge of putting together the RFP to multiple service providers. We wanted a cloud-based SaaS solution to facilitate the integration, use, analysis and distribution of HR information like job management (key positions, succession strategies), skills and performance. We chose Cegid Talent’s proposal.

Their consultants’ guidance proved decisive in simplifying a complex situation and establishing a clear roadmap. We had daily contact with people who were familiar with not just the platform but government processes. They listened and helped us understand the impact of each decision, allowing us to adjust certain preferences when we realized that a process could be optimized during installation. Presenting a draft of the scope gave us an overall idea of the final result and made the entire process run smoothly.

In the public service, installing such a platform is not very common. In fact, this was the first cloud project, so we were really proud of ourselves! We presented the platform to our Human Resources peers from other branches and there was a lot of enthusiasm. We received a lot of questions because, even today, with all solutions being more or less perfected, things are still not as standardized nationally.

Everything has officially been deployed. More than a thousand individual files have already been created and we are about to start the implementation phase with our managers, who are showing great interest and will be the first users. The training workshops have given rise to some great exchanges and even ideas for future enhancements! The evaluation tools, which encourage employees to reflect on their strengths, objectives or career paths, are the most anticipated tools, as they will make interviews much more productive. As a result, this will also help us create “talent pools” and optimize our succession plans.

The platform’s functionalities will be gradually rolled out. To facilitate the implantation phase, managers will benefit from personalized coaching, and filmed training sessions, available online. There has been very little resistance to this change. In particular, our newest recruits are happy to find the talent tracking functionalities that they previously knew and loved. As soon as the pandemic is over, things will accelerate: within a year, everyone will have started their annual assessment processes directly in the platform.”