SOM is a software solution for managers and decision-makers responsible for personnel and resources. It supports analyzing organizations, tasks, staffing levels, and calculating personnel requirements following specific guidelines. The software is based on more than 25 years of BearingPoint experience in organizational studies and workforce assessments.
SOM provides a fast and streamlined entry into organizational analysis and personnel requirements planning. Users can conduct Personnel Requirement Analysis (PRA) independently. The browser-based system allows multi-user access with secure data storage. Data can be transferred directly into forecasting, reducing manual effort compared to Excel-based methods. SOM can measure both case-driven, repetitive tasks and creative, project-related tasks.
Personnel requirements analysis (PRA) is the basis for long-term workforce planning and thus an essential instrument of personnel deployment management. The principles of economy and frugality are mandatory for any organization. Efficient organizational structures and appropriate task execution are ongoing requirements for economical action. To ensure this even in times of limited staffing resources, regular organizational studies focusing on personnel requirements are required, specifically in public administration. The obligation to determine personnel requirements for the public sector arises from No. 4.4.1 of the administrative regulation to Section 17 BHO, according to which positions may only be created if they are properly and comprehensibly justified using appropriate methods of personnel requirements determination. The task of personnel requirements determination is to review and establish the personnel required for a given task. The goal is timely task completion with an appropriate workload for task owners.
Staffing determination is a procedure within organizational and personnel measurement that determines how many positions (in FTE or fractions of FTE) are required to fulfill tasks in an organizational unit. It concretely derives personnel requirements in the form of positions, i.e., the link between analytical personnel requirement determination and the formal staffing plan.
Forecasting is a prospective resource planning process primarily performed by org unit leads. All relevant framework conditions (e.g., insights from political or high court decisions, coalition agreements, target agreements) should be included. 1) The unit lead makes a prognostic estimate of resources for the next planning period (e.g. one year) for unchanged (continuation), changed, or new tasks based on a task-critical review. Available resources are assigned to current or new tasks and/or goals. Personnel effort is shown in FTEs by function level. The estimate is not just an operational roll-forward of efforts but a resource implementation of strategic priorities; therefore, the top-level goal process should be reflected in the estimate.
The Federal Organizational Manual (OHB) is the central standard reference of the federal administration for: organizational studies; personnel requirements determinations (PRA); and methods & techniques of organizational management. It is jointly published by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Office of Administration. The methods used in SOM comply with the OHB requirements for PRAs.
A PRA (Personnel Requirement Analysis) typically proceeds as follows: 1) Clarify assignment; 2) Preliminary study; 3) Main study consisting of 3.1) As-is data collection, 3.2) As-is analysis, 3.3) To-be design; 4) Forecasting/Continuation.
Personnel requirements result from a multi-stage analytical process: (1) As-is data collection (time recording / self-reporting) to determine current time needed by task using processing times, case volumes, and process/task analyses; (2) Annualization and conversion to full-time equivalents (FTE): personal annual working minutes (e.g., 39h/week × 60 / 5 days × 204.33 workdays) and conversion to FTE (e.g., 97,859 minutes = 1 FTE) by determining task shares per employee and converting minutes per task to FTE; (3) Deriving the target personnel requirement via task critique, plausibilization with leadership and units, and accounting for over/under-demand (e.g., backlogs, new tasks, absences). Short formula: Personnel requirement (FTE) = Total annual work time needed (minutes) / Annual working time per FTE.
Four criteria were prioritized: • task descriptions are correct; • tasks are complete; • catalogs are understandable to all employees; • tasks are logically grouped and relatively homogeneous. The catalog should be detailed enough to be usable for personnel measurement and also for continuation, i.e., maintainable with reasonable effort. Task catalogs were developed and discussed together with responsible managers and, if necessary, additional employees.
Within the annual working time estimation, such activities are inherently considered. If the self-recording (since mostly quantifiable tasks are present) method is used, activities that do occur over the year but were not captured in the recording period are subsequently collected either via expert estimation with points of contact or via an individual annual working time estimation during plausibilization.
Both Annual Working Time Estimation (AWE/JAS) and Self-Recording (SAS) are possible and must be defined per organizational unit based on the nature of the tasks. It is planned to also integrate a capacity estimate in the sense of an expert estimation.
First, the organizational structure is set up in SOM. Task catalogs are then designed for each organizational unit together with representatives of the organization and uploaded to SOM—these form the basis for the subsequent time study. Both annual working time estimation (AWE/JAS) and self-recording (SAS) are possible and must be defined per organizational unit based on task characteristics. Next, the survey and reference period are set, the employee list is created and uploaded, and then the survey forms are sent to employees. After completion, results per organizational unit are plausibilized with unit leads via system-provided outputs. Once plausibilization is complete, the as-is personnel requirement is established. This is then reflected via task critique; changes for the as-is including justifications for over- and under-demand are entered in the target tables, thereby setting the target.
After employees complete the time study, results are plausibilized per organizational unit with unit leads by making the results available via the system. Unit heads can correct anomalies in the numbers (e.g., due to intra-year workload fluctuations) to an annual view and/or record reasons for values that are too high or too low. The tables allow only shifting efforts from one task to another; increasing or decreasing measured efforts is not allowed.
Task critique is typically carried out using task-critical questions answered in workshops. A distinction is made between purpose critique and execution critique. The results are recorded per task in the target tables as qualitative and quantitative justifications to determine the target. Work is underway to integrate a user-specific, form-based task critique in SOM.
Either the target results of the PBE are imported into the forecasting module or external PBE data is imported via a template. Then forecasting is performed either via case numbers and their updates, via average processing times and their changes, or via qualitative changes within tasks. All options can be populated individually or combined for the forecasting calculation.
All data—such as time study results—can be downloaded at any time per organizational unit and as a complete database as an Excel file. Work is underway to additionally provide graphical elements for data preparation.
SOM is suitable for public sector authorities as well as companies. With SOM, both recurring activities and discretionary, project-based tasks can be measured. These measurements are independent of the type of organization. It can be used to analyse workforce demand in order to optimize target operating models or processes. Results can be used to identify optimization in workflows and staff demands as well as to create ideas for a transformation approach. For public authorities, the methods are recognized according to the Federal Organizational Manual. SOM is sensibly used for organizations starting at around 50 employees. There is no upper limit. However, for very large organizations, the effort required for data maintenance and quality assurance within SOM increases.
SOM does not need to be installed, but can be launched directly in the browser. Short introductions, documentation, and training courses enable a quick start. Support is also provided to answer questions during use.
Specific support services are defined contractually. As a rule, you have permanent points of contact for functional support. In addition, onboarding trainings, FAQs, and manuals are provided.
SOM can be obtained as Software/Solution as a Service, for example with or without additional consulting services. SOM can also be used as a management instrument accompanying projects in consulting engagements. Details are defined in the specific customer contract.
SOM runs on a Microsoft Azure cloud environment with a server located in Germany West Central. Further information is available in our Technical and Organizational Measures (TOM).
The software is browser-based and runs on all common web browsers. SOM can continue to run on the Microsoft Azure Cloud for your use, or it can run on a sovereign cloud at your premises as a customer. This will be agreed in advance.
Yes, SOM is barrier free. For example, data can be entered and navigation performed in the application without using a mouse.
Currently, no AI is directly integrated into SOM. However, we plan to extend it, for example by integrating a tool to accelerate creation of the task catalog and data forecasting to determine the target state and/or for forecasting. It is already possible to analyze existing organizational tasks using the BearingPoint solution GenXplore for various developments and use these insights to derive personnel needs.
Communication between cloud provider and cloud user (transport encryption), including the presentation of data in the frontend, is encrypted by using HTTPS, SSL certificates, and the TLS 1.2 or higher protocol. Extensive privacy statements and terms of use for SOM are available in writing. You can also receive further information about our Technical and Organizational Measures (TOM).
BearingPoint has implemented a privacy management software to record assets, systems, and processing activities in order to demonstrate compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and to manage information assets in general. Further information is available in our Technical and Organizational Measures (TOM).