Your HCM transformation: The hidden pitfalls and how to be successful

Think about this: Your best friend has tasked you to organize a brunch for 50 guests for her wedding anniversary
You’ve booked a charming café terrace, arranged the perfect menu with pastries, fresh juices, and gourmet dishes, even arranged the decoration. 
Everything looks stunning so far...

Except… you never checked whether anyone was gluten-free, lactose-intolerant, or allergic to nuts. Some of the guests received the invitation and some did not.
The result: 35 guests showed up, half the table can’t eat, one guest leaves early with a stomach ache, and another quietly pushes their plate aside.

Everyone will remember the brunch — but not as a success story.

Whether you choose Workday or SAP SuccessFactors, here are the 5 questions to ask yourself and avoid the hidden pitfalls.

1) What do you want to achieve and what is your HCM roadmap?

❌Many HCM projects fail due to great strategy on paper (vendor costs reduction, HR efficiency, digitalization) but lacks clear, measurable goals.

When there is no defined vision, strategy or goals, the project becomes a list of features instead of a real and measurable transformation.

Instead, ask yourself the following:

• Which issue(s) are we solving?

• What would success look like 6, 12+ months?

• How are we going to measure success with a dashboard or employee experience KPI? 

✅Focus on defining what success would look like with a clear problem statement for example reduce manual entries, implement employee self-service, leveraging technology (for automated documentation creation for example), ensuring data integrity etc.

2) Are all key business functions aligned?

❌One of the biggest reasons HCM projects fail is the lack of cross-functional alignment.

Organizations often build a project team made almost entirely of IT and HR, forgetting that HCM is not a “system installation”—it’s a business transformation that impacts every department.

When Finance, Operations, Compliance, and business leaders aren’t aligned from the start, the project loses relevance, adoption drops, and processes remain fragmented.

Ensure strategic alignment by:

• Involving all impacted business units early (Ops, Finance, Legal, Payroll, Talent, GBS, etc.)

• Establishing shared goals and KPIs across departments

• Making HCM a business initiative, not an IT-owned deployment

• Creating a steering committee that includes HR, IT, and business leaders

✅ Alignment with all departments ensures your HCM system will reflect how the organization will operate.

3) Are you well equipped to deliver the project?

❌ No matter the size of the company, most organizations underestimate the breadth of the project and fail to assign the appropriate resources or set aside the right budget.

To truly understand what your HCM project will require, it is critical to hire an implementation partner who recognizes the success factors that vendors often overlook—especially change management. With the right experts supporting you, you can anticipate resource needs, risks, and requirements well before the project even begins. 

✅ Bring in experienced HCM consultants or implementation partners with relevant vendor and industry experience which will help you define a proper resources planning for your project.

4) Is your HCM implementation timeline realistic?

❌ "We should go live in 6 months. We need an immediate transformation!" Unfortunately, that is one of the major pitfall as many companies begin the HCM implementation journey thinking that an immediate transformation is the solution to major issues mentioned above. Those unrealistic  expectations often lead to disappointment, delays, and a loss of commitment. 

In reality, only 11% of companies achieve the employee-experience improvements they expected, and just 19% stay on schedule. 

A full-suite HCM implementations incorporating all HR Processes and HCM modules will take around 18 months up to 2 years while a simple system implementation will take 6 months and that does not include the 1-3 months needed for user training and adoption.

• Small, single-module rollouts: 3–6 months

• Full-suite implementations in large organizations: 18 months+

• User training and adoption: 1–3 additional months

✅ Building in buffer time to ensure smoother delivery, stronger adoption with a proper user training and change management program.

5) What are the important factors your technology should support? 

Beyond clear goals and data security, many organizations overlook several key elements when selecting or implementing an HCM system.

❌One of the most common pitfalls is assuming that integrations will "naturally work". Many companies expect their new HCM to connect perfectly with their payroll engine, ERP, time system, or benefits platform. In reality, not all HCM systems offer the same integration capabilities, and failing to assess this early leads to data silos, manual processing, and unreliable reporting.

 
✅ The best way to avoid this is to carefully review the vendor’s API capabilities, confirm compatibility with existing systems, and test integrations throughout the project rather than at the end. 

❌Another frequent issue is the tendency to hold onto legacy and outdated systems. Some organizations try to run old tools in parallel “just in case,” hoping they will blend seamlessly with the new HCM. More often, the opposite happens: the coexistence of both systems causes breakdowns, inconsistent data, and unnecessary complexity. 

✅ A successful HCM implementation requires a clean transition plan—one that ensures data is backed up and the new system fully replaces and improves what came before it. 

Conclusion:
HCM implementation should not only focus on bringing in efficiencies and reducing costs fast: it is about setting your people, operations and business for long-term success.

And while above mistakes are common, they are not inevitable, they are preventable. With the right planning, resources and tools NextGen HR Consulting will help you avoid those pitfalls and set your HCM implementation project for success.

Ready to start your success story? Reach out to us! We are here to help support you every step of your project.