The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is routinely ranked among the best universities in the UK, forming part of the elite ‘G5’ group renowned for top-tier research and academic prestige.

Maintaining that esteemed position required LSE to modernize its HR technology to ensure it was both able to meet user needs now and to build the foundations for further AI implementations at the school going forward.

A crucial part of this was replacing its legacy HR and payroll systems with an automated, AI-led platform – one of the largest digital transformation projects undertaken at the university in the last decade.

Neelam Talewar, Director of LSE’s People Management Transformation Programme, tells UNLEASH that the project was driven by increased user expectations of people support technologies, specifically in the context of post-pandemic workplace shifts. 

“We did a lot of legwork, talking to other universities about what worked for them and what didn’t,” Talewar says.

“We spent a lot of time doing our business case and the recruitment of the team and choosing our supplier. We’re the LSE: We want the right system and to meet the expectations of the users.”

Building user-centric HR foundations at LSE

Neelam Talewar, Director, People Management Transformation Programme at The London School of Economics and Political Science

In 2023, LSE began working with HR, payroll and finance provider MHR to replace its legacy systems with a single platform to support the employee lifecycle through automation and AI-enabled functionality.

The result was a digital transformation strategy that facilitates LSE’s HR, payroll and people systems to work seamlessly together through MHR’s iTrent platform.

Similar to other legacy technology overhauls, the starting point was “understanding what the business wants from HR, in terms of AI-enabled technology and what it can do,” Talewar explains.

LSE staff were “heavily involved” in the procurement process, including a user panel from across the school combining “academics, manual workers and our professional services staff.” 

Talewar notes that MHR’s experience working with other global higher education institutions was a critical factor in the selection process.  

The vendor was already “aware of the nuances and complexities of matrix organizations,” helping to ensure the system aligned with how universities operate.

One of the key improvements AI brought to LSE was to cut through the complex, multi-layered processes that exist in higher education. 

Previously, a single process had multiple actors involved and “by the time you’re looking at the whole process, you’ve already caused a problem with the employee lifecycle experience,” Talewar adds.

“Before iTrent, we implemented self-service on another system, but this is proper self-service. They’ve got more access to their data, their dashboards and employee data.”

Cutting through the red tape with automation

The results of the implementation have been significant. Since go-live in January last year, 95% of LSE staff – around 4,600 out of 5,000 employees – have adopted the self-service model, with a 90% satisfaction rate.

Requests for data and manual document processing have been significantly reduced, with more than 2,500 documents and letters both generated and completed since go-live.

Multi-layer approval bottlenecks have been removed, data completeness has improved, and the risk of errors has been reduced. During onboarding, new hires now enter their own information directly into the system, relieving HR teams of manual data re-entry. 

The introduction of workflows has made a huge difference to us in the organization. There’s less handoffs, there’s less manual intervention,” Talewar highlights.

“It gets staff used to viewing data and analyzing it for the business. The queries have significantly reduced as result, unless it’s a really complicated piece of analysis where they need to contact the team.”

“They’ve got information on costing, leave, when contracts end, starters, leavers and movers; it’s just all there, where before we had a wealth of reports going out every month and the inbox was pinging all the time.”

Fulfilling the vision for employees and culture

While AI-enabled technology can deliver efficiencies, it can also disrupt organizational culture, particularly when replacing entrenched, legacy systems and working methods. 

Early education on the project was crucial to avoid this scenario, Talewar explains, adopting an approach that “forewarned is forearmed.” 

“It’s a big digital program: people, process and technology, this impacts everyone at the school,” she explains.

“So, we did a big engagement piece, working with our communications division and MHR to get people on board quickly, for them to see the product as quickly as they could.”

Focus groups, HR away days and ‘Evolve Roadshows’ were open to users beyond HR to acclimate them to the changes and new system, and to engage with MHR at the same time.

Furthermore, 22 ‘software champions’ have been appointed across 22 departments at LSE to ensure best practices and adoption.

Talewar highlights the collaboration with MHR as a lynchpin of the project’s success, going beyond the traditional supplier-customer dynamic and embracing a partner that “understood the needs of our business and was able to deliver what we wanted.”

“Our vision was to better the employee lifecycle experience and we achieved that, above and beyond what we expected,” she says.

An AI bedrock for the future of work

The implementation of iTrent at LSE is a clear example of successful digital, user-centric transformation. But the work isn’t finished yet.

The ongoing partnership with MHR incorporates a roadmap for the next 12 months to further embed a data-driven culture, enabling HR to support key decision-making in the future of work at LSE.

The project itself has also established the foundation for future AI implementations both within the people function and elsewhere at the school, serving as a blueprint for how to identify the right partner, carry out a phased implementation, and engage the desired user groups in the process.

A lot of universities run transformation programs. This wasn’t successful because it was our program; this was extremely successful because we met our user expectations.”