– Ian Reeson Vice President

The new SAP HR Payroll & Leave system is being implemented over four releases. Release 4 schools have gone live bringing all employees into the one payroll and leave system. Release 4 has been the most successful to date.

Your representatives from the NSWPPA Reference Groups and State Executive have consistently expressed our strongest belief that the SAP HR Payroll and Leave system, despite having clear potential to improve upon existing system and in many respects has, is not always a workable nor practical solution. Representations to this effect has been made to senior Departmental officers and to Minister Stokes and we were able to successfully delay the timeline and were instrumental in redesigning the face training and resource material.

Put simply, the defect is that HR SAP Finance does not automatically and seamlessly integrate with HR Payroll and Leave. We continue to work alongside SPC, SASSPA and PSA representatives to pressure for WSBIO to be remedied regardless of the time or cost involved.

The experiences of both teaching and non-teaching staff have been unacceptable both emotionally and industrially. The system that was promised to bring about reduced workload has in fact created the opposite result. The continuing list of frustrations and is testament to the failure to learn from the experiences of 229 and later LMBR initiatives. School personal selected with NSWPPA input from the full breadth of our membership can and must be incorporated from beginning to end for all initiatives. Especially where the program is so fundamental to the daily administration of our schools.

Feedback from Release 1 schools and corporate officers clearly indicated amongst other serious concerns, the inability to attach staffing costs to WBS/IO codes when in-putting casual staff was clearly a retrograde step on previous (eCPC) systems. Significant concerns abound in other areas including staff pay not being made accurately, higher duties and temporary engagements.

This was compounded with poorly constructed training materials and 100’s of pages of “Quick Reference Guides”! As you could imagine, the reported reduced staffing at EDConnect, who in many instances were unfamiliar with the new processes, meant support systems went into meltdown and resulted in complaints of poor if not inappropriate service to schools.

• Where to from here…

Our advice to schools is to continue to log every issue to EDConnect using the email / online option and retain your incident number as feedback from schools indicates many logged calls are remaining unresolved. Further members are requested to communicate concerns with Directors and Primary Principal Council Presidents and Delegates for collation and reporting to Admin & Finance Reference Group and State Executive.

The NSWPPA has agreed to continue working closely with the HR SAP team to address system flaws and improve the end user experience for our dedicated and stretched SAM’s and Principal colleagues. We acknowledge that DoE have taken Deputy Secretary Peter Riordan, Executive Director Geoff Pellizzer and Director Glen Patterson off line to work with the implementation of the tool. We have agreed to utilise our communication channels to enhance contact with Principals. We will continue to work with SASS, SASPPA, PSA, SPC and DoE officers to improve this initiative.