Managing IT Change—A New Role for HR

This article presents some new and different approaches to workforce management during the times of dramatic change introduced by the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. It requires strong leadership from a combination of both HR and financial leadership to develop and sell these programs; and once the outlines are developed, tools to monitor and promote program progress should be developed by HR. We have found that often there is resistance to these programs by functional leaders if two things are missing: (a) HR fails to define and oversee the program; and (b) financial leaders fail to develop the cost benefit justification and do not manage the cash reserves necessary to fund it.