The Company:

Internationally recognized for providing one of the most efficient and inexpensive postal services in the world, the New Zealand Post is among the country's five largest employers. The Post employs around 9,000 full and part-time workers to handle the company's core business activities including message communication through letters, distributing courier and parcel items, retail, banking and financial transactions. In addition, the Post also manages distribution logistics, stamp services, advertising, electoral services, software development, international postal services advice and data processing.

The Challenge:

Logistically, the New Zealand Post Human Resources (HR) unit faced a number of organizational challenges. The company needed to manage a workforce that: 1) has numerous remote locations, 2) is highly mobile and, 3) operates with a large employee-base that has limited access to an office computer.

John Bongiovanni, human resources policy and information specialist, was charged with identifying and implementing a new corporate reporting infrastructure. "Our employees are Post's greatest asset," he explained. "The New Zealand Post is well respected for its efficiency and cost-cutting efforts and that is a direct reflection on how we manage this resource.

Initially, John set out to identify a solution for showing the relationships of close to 1,000 New Zealand Post managers and specialists. "We had introduced a new module of our HR system called Position Management which showed who reported to whom. Then we needed a facility to visually show these reporting lines and all the attendant information that was required in understanding these relationships."

"The very nature of our mobile workforce demands that the solution to our workflow system be flexible and accessible," said John. "We needed a software solution that effectively managed our internal reporting structure in a user-friendly fashion."

The Solution:

John began with a careful review of the human resource charting software now on the market. His journey led him to Entraspan's OrgTraks, a comprehensive program that generates organizational charts and provides a user-friendly, searchable corporate directory. Specifically, John was looking for a product to provide role-based security, cross-platform portability, and infinite scalability. "Our immediate use for an org chart program would involve only a portion of our total employee base," he explained. "We also wanted the option to expand to other Post employee levels as needed."

John also found that OrgTraks provided the New Zealand Post with other key benefits such as database integration and the ability to run on the corporate Intranet. "OrgTraks easily integrated with our existing HR database and works well within our corporate Intranet," he said. "Now our corporate directory software is one of our key organizational tools that our managers and specialists can quickly use to establish direct, up-to-the-minute employee communication and information."

Prior to OrgTraks, the Post's manual organizational flow charts did not allow users to drill up or down for information, nor were they always up to date. "With OrgTraks, we can print a visually appealing departmental organizational chart for employees who don't access a computer," explains John. The company is now starting to introduce headshots of its senior managers into the database. He believes the photos, bright colors and well-organized personnel charts make it easy for employees to see who reports to whom, how many employees report to each manager, and access timely information about their subordinates or managers. "OrgTraks allows us to maintain and communicate a real-time corporate structure through our Intranet portal," says John. "And, because these charts are attractive and easy to use, our employees use them often."

The company's HR database updates the OrgTraks system every 24 hours to insure maximum efficiency. The Post has also introduced a new HR module that allows all corporate employees to access to their individual pay records and apply for a range of leave options from sick through to annual leave. According to John, this module sits nicely alongside the Org Traks chart on the corporate Intranet because both systems use the Position Management infrastructure in the HR database.

"We are very impressed with our OrgTraks software," John said. "For us, the ability to print an organizational chart, from any computer in the company, has given us much greater flexibility and helps each employee understand, at a glance, their reporting structure."