Constellation Energy Uses IT To Get Employees Working Together And More ProductivelyConstellation Energy Uses IT To Get Employees Working Together And More Productively

Portal-Centric

In 2005 the company also redesigned its myConstellation intranet portal using Vignette Portal. Now, all applications are displayed via a company intranet and can be accessed from thin clients, such as mobile devices. "It's cheaper to deploy; you don't have to get the applications on your desktops," Perlman says.

The new portal also lets employees maintain and update the content of their sites, such as Constellation's business transformation site, without IT staffers being involved. This helps free up the company's 720-person IT group to address other work, making them more productive as well, Perlman says.

Workers also get access to HR announcements and streaming video, including video clip messages from the company's CEO. The myConstellation portal also features a workflow engine called myQ that has simplified the approval process for expense reports, time sheets, and other time-consuming and sometimes paper-intensive or multistep procedures, she says.

MyQ aggregates task assignments and notifications from various applications in real time in a central location. It lets people manage processes from one place rather than go to separate applications to approve expense reports, time sheets, and other work, Perlman says.

Constellation Energy also is rolling out Workbrain's eTime, replacing older electronic time sheet software and thousands of paper time sheets, some of which required employees to manually fill in complicated codes. Constellation Energy field personnel are paid hourly wages but work under some very complex rules. For instance, if a storm is forecast, a large crew might be on call, expected to jump into action whenever needed. "That means you can't go out and drink," venture too far away, or be out of reach during that time, Perlman says. Because of those restrictions and sacrifices, workers are paid a percentage of their wages for that time, she says. Workers need to provide the correct codes to reflect those hours when they submit their time sheets, a confusing, time-consuming, and error-prone process.

The eTime software lists those codes, so employees can more easily apply them to time sheets. Every employee will use the software once a week, even salaried workers who need to document sick and vacation time.

Big Adjustments

One of the best improvements also has been one of the IT staff's biggest headaches: standardizing the use of printers throughout the company. Many people had their own printers--the company average was one printer to four employees. Now there's one color networked printer for about every 20. "People bellyached at first," Perlman says, but with more users per printer, there's a smaller assortment of printers that need to be regularly supported and fixed, Perlman says.

As part of this consolidation, Constellation also outsourced its printer processes to Hewlett-Packard, including ordering toner and maintenance.

The various deployments have improved Constellation Energy workers' productivity, but they've also meant adjustments in the way employees work. "People have adapted well, but there's been so much change," Perlman admits. The company's IT staffers are often the guinea pigs before new technology is rolled out elsewhere at Constellation Energy, she says. IT looks for users likely to latch on to the technology best, and then it's rolled out business unit by business unit, Perlman says.

But overall, before deploying any new system that changes work processes, "we do a lot of study to understand how people work," she says. When SharePoint was deployed, the teams that provide the financial data for presentations explained to IT staff the problems faced in preparing for analyst meetings, investor relations director Hadlock says.

The collaboration effort that has helped Constellation Energy get its four divisions interacting electronically could come in handy in the future. The company is waiting for approval of a proposed merger with Florida Power and Light. Still, Perlman doesn't want to jump the gun. "It's too early," she says, "to say when and if this will happen."