{"id":3603,"date":"2023-08-09T01:01:13","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T08:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/?p=3603"},"modified":"2023-10-10T13:39:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T20:39:16","slug":"microsoft-moves-its-human-resources-employee-portal-to-sharepoint-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/microsoft-moves-its-human-resources-employee-portal-to-sharepoint-online\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft moves its Human Resources employee portal to SharePoint Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Microsoft[Editor\u2019s note: This content was written to highlight a particular event or moment in time. Although that moment has passed, we\u2019re republishing it here so you can see what our thinking and experience was like at the time.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Microsoft has migrated its internal Human Resources portal to the cloud, a key step in its ongoing companywide digital transformation. Called HRweb, the portal is the second busiest at Microsoft, and represents the last major internal employee portal to move to the cloud. The migration has transformed the experience the company\u2019s employees have when they engage with HR.<\/p>\n

The move from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint Online created many improvements, including serving up smarter personalized information to employees and delivering better search results, says Jay Clem, general manager of Industry Solutions in Microsoft Digital.<\/p>\n

\u201cShortly before I joined the group, plans were in place to move from SharePoint on-premises to SharePoint Online,\u201d Clem says. \u201cIt was largely a technology transition, but we knew that, for employees to have the best experience possible, we also needed to change core business processes in HR.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shift wasn\u2019t without challenges.<\/p>\n

The first attempt to move to the cloud was two and a half years ago. The team had scoped the move but was closely watching two HR services that had just launched that were not performing as well as expected. In addition, the team\u2019s plan to copy the existing HRweb portal to SharePoint Online using a \u201clift and shift\u201d model wasn\u2019t robust as it needed be across multiple devices, and it didn\u2019t do enough to take advantage of the benefits of moving to SharePoint Online. For those reasons, a decision was made to call off the migration and go back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday the story is different,\u201d says Rajamma Krishnamurthy, a principal group program manager on the Microsoft Digital Human Resources team. \u201cThis time we were fully prepared, and the technology was ready and capable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Human Resources IT function is more robust, and procedures for moving internal portals to SharePoint Online have matured, she says, pointing to several other internal portals successfully making the move to SharePoint Online. Additionally, the connection between Microsoft Digital, the company\u2019s IT group, and the Human Resources function is tighter.<\/p>\n

There were several technical reasons why the just-finished migration went so well, but there is also a more simple, human reason. \u201cThe difference was Joseph,\u201d Krishnamurthy says.<\/p>\n

Joseph is Joseph Jassey, Director Industry Digital Strategy \u2013 Industry Solutions in Microsoft Digital who not only led the HRweb migration, along with Cameron Thompson and the Human Resources team, but built it from the ground up, gaining key support from everyone involved well before the actual migration started.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph, Cameron, and the team have worked long and hard to leverage our SharePoint Online platform for HRweb,\u201d says Andrew Winnemore, a general manager of human services for Human Resources.
\n