When organisations start talking about HR technology, one question invariably pops up: “Is this an HR project or an IT project?”

At Pinpoint, our answer is always the same: It’s an HR-led business transformation, enabled by IT.

And it’s the client IT Representative who plays a crucial role in HR Tech projects.

They bridge HR’s vision with the technical realities that underpin it. Ensuring the solution delivers a seamless user experience free of technical blockers that can delay projects and derail adoption.

As the conduit between HR and IT, they maintain clear communication throughout the project lifecycle. Translating technical detail into business language and business requirements into technical terms, so both sides stay aligned and moving forward together.

Why this role matters in HR tech projects

The IT Representative plays a key role in enabling a smooth implementation and transition of new HR technology. They represent IT throughout the project — from advising during vendor evaluation through to participating in SteerCo meetings and other project governance forums.

They understand the organisation’s compliance and security requirements and assess whether a new platform will genuinely meet them. They advise on solution architecture, integration requirements, user access and ongoing maintenance, surfacing risks and technical constraints early to avoid disruption later in the project.

HR technology impacts far more than HR alone. Single Sign-On, multi-factor authentication, APIs, firewall rules, data storage and mobile accessibility are the invisible threads that make a system usable. When IT is engaged early, these elements are designed into the solution rather than addressed as last-minute fixes.

The IT Rep remains important later in the journey, supporting testing, preparing for launch and helping to embed effective business-as-usual support.

“IT should see the project as an opportunity to streamline systems, secure data, and enhance the technology ecosystem”  – Michael Mills, IT Operations Manager, Pinpoint HRM

Key IT Responsibilities Across the Project Lifecycle

1. Vendor Evaluation and Due Diligence

IT are instrumental in the evaluation process and can help streamline HR tech solution selection by vetting vendor solutions that (a) don’t align with IT strategy and (b) cannot meet critical IT or non-functional requirements.

With early visibility, IT can provide information vital for building a robust business case. Armed with knowledge of the existing technical landscape, they can assess the impacts and provide cost, timeline and resource estimates to deliver technical solutions required to support the system.

Key contributions at this stage include:

• Defining non-functional requirements
  They help capture all the IT, cybersecurity, data and integration requirements that need to be built into the RFP or selection process – things like data sovereignty, encryption, access management and resilience.
• Documenting the current technical landscape
  They map the existing systems and integrations: where data comes from, where it goes, and what might be impacted by a new HR platform.
• Assessing integration and middleware needs
  They review vendor integration capabilities, API support and any middleware requirements, so the project doesn’t discover these complexities halfway through.
• Ensuring security and compliance alignment
  They check the solution aligns with organisational policies and any relevant regulatory frameworks
• Checking real-world accessibility
  They think about the workforce: devices, network access, email identities, clocking devices, mobile usage. Will the intended user base actually be able to use the system as designed?

As Justin Walker explains: “They must be part of vendor selection and due diligence to ensure the solution meets company policies, security requirements, and integration capabilities.”

2. Project Planning and Set-Up

Once a vendor is selected, the IT Rep helps ground the project in technical reality. Their input into the initial deployment timeline and their ongoing involvement in project planning are critical to success.

The IT Rep ensures that key technical considerations are factored into the plan. Bringing these constraints into view early helps shape realistic timelines, confirm resource availability, and ensure compliance with requirements.

Their responsibilities at this stage typically include:

• Mapping upstream and downstream impacts
  Identifying systems that feed into or rely on HR data, and understanding how they will be affected by the new platform
• Highlighting other IT projects or constraints
  Surfacing competing initiatives (such as non-HR system implementations or internal infrastructure upgrades), resource demands, change freeze windows or IT governance processes such as Change Advisory Board (CAB) approvals that may influence the project timeline
• Provisioning environments and access
  Assisting with environment set-up, SSO configuration, VPN and firewall rules, DNS entries and any other behind-the-scenes work required to make the new system accessible to the project team
• Enabling secure data transfer
  Setting up safe mechanisms (e.g. SharePoint, secure file transfer) so sensitive information can be shared and handled in line with organisational standards
• Clarifying cut-over and go-live requirements
  Working with HR, the vendor and the project team to understand what IT needs to do at go-live and building those requirements into the plan early.

This behind-the-scenes preparation allows project teams to hit the ground running once implementation begins.

3. Discovery and Design

During discovery, the IT Representative’s role is to be both a voice of caution and a voice of opportunity. They help design integrations that are practical, call out compliance or regulatory obligations, and flag technical constraints that may affect particular user groups. They identify and engage other business system owners to consider upstream and downstream impacts, ensuring the new solution doesn’t inadvertently disrupt existing systems. It’s also in this phase that device and access issues are surfaced.

Specifically, the IT Rep can support by:

• Participating in key discovery and design workshops
  Particularly those involving integrations, data structures, identity and access, clocking decisions or user cohorts with unique technical needs
• Helping define and map integration requirements
  Working with the vendor and project team to agree on how systems will talk to one another and where source-of-truth data will live
• Supporting change management and personas
  Adding perspective on how different user groups might experience the system, especially where devices, networks or access methods vary. Will employees need new login credentials? Will clocking devices still function? How will mobile access work in secure environments?

By raising these questions early, IT helps ensure they are built into the design rather than patched over later.

4. Build and Test

This is the phase where IT’s involvement becomes deeply hands-on. Data has to be transformed, legacy data needs a new home, testing should be robust and integrations must work!

The IT Rep works closely with vendors and project teams to anticipate issues related to data extraction, help set up test environments, and ensure the system is stable before employees log in.

Their involvement often includes:

• Data extraction and migration support
  Helping to extract data from legacy systems, ensuring it’s treated appropriately (including masking or de-identifying sensitive fields) and assisting with decisions about what is migrated versus archived
• Supporting data storage decisions
  For example, if only four years of learning history is brought into the new system, where does the rest live? Data warehouse? Data lake? Secure archive? The IT Rep helps answer that.
• Integration build and testing
  Working closely with vendors and internal teams to configure and test integrations. They’re instrumental in System Integration Testing (SIT) and making sure upstream and downstream systems continue to work as expected.
• Preparing for UAT
  Assisting with the process for extracting or generating data for User Acceptance Testing and ensuring organisational standards for data security are followed.

Their foresight at this stage can mean the difference between a launch that inspires confidence and one that undermines trust.

5. Deployment and Support

Go-live is the culmination of months of work, and it’s where IT’s quiet diligence pays off.

If everything is seamless, employees may not even notice the effort that has gone into making their access smooth and secure. Behind the scenes, the IT Rep is managing cut-over activities, ensuring integrations are live, decommissioning legacy systems, and liaising with vendors for safe data extraction and storage.

They’ll also support the project team through critical Go/No-Go decisions in the lead-up to go-live and typically represent the project at the Change Approval Board (CAB).

Key activities at this stage involve:

• Cut-over activities
  Implementing SSO in production, enabling final integrations, switching DNS, and managing any required change control processes
• Offboarding from legacy systems
  Helping with read-only access, decommissioning old platforms and liaising with incumbent vendors to extract data safely
• Ensuring access works across all user cohorts
  Confirming that employees can log in, devices behave properly and there are no hidden network or identity issues

When this role is done well, go-live goes smoothly. As Justin Walker notes: “If IT have done their job well, you don’t notice them at go-live, it’s crickets because everything just works.”

6. Optimisation and Ongoing Support

The IT Rep’s role doesn’t end once the system is live. They remain an important partner for managing integrations, supporting change control, monitoring compliance and participating in vendor renewal conversations.

They are often among the first to spot opportunities for optimisation or innovation, helping to ensure the HR tech ecosystem evolves in step with the business rather than falling behind.

After go-live, the IT Representative remains a key partner:

• Managing integrations and addressing any technical issues
• Supporting change control and instance management
• Contributing to HR’s technology roadmap from an IT perspective
• Participating in vendor contract reviews and renewal decisions
• Staying across innovation and opportunities for optimisation
• Surfacing insights through analytics, data automation and AI tools

They collaborate with HR on the organisation’s technology roadmap, and their insights help HR make informed decisions about future functionality, analytics, and AI enablement.

Common Challenges: Strategic and Tactical

As with any role on an HR tech project, the IT Representative may face challenges at any stage of the project lifecycle. These tend to fall into two broad categories: strategic misalignment and tactical execution issues. Understanding both helps project teams set the role up for success from the outset.

At a strategic level, issues often arise when the boundaries of the IT Rep’s role are unclear. A few commons pitfalls we’ve observed include:

• Over-indexing on risk. While security and compliance are essential, an overly risk-averse mindset can slow decision-making, limit progress and drain momentum from the broader project. The most effective IT Reps are risk-aware and able to identify genuine issues and work collaboratively to resolve them.
• Ownership rather than enablement. HR tech projects are business-led transformations, and when IT unintentionally begins to steer decisions, shape scope or dictate timelines, the project can lose alignment with HR’s objectives.
• Lack of experience with SaaS delivery models. There can also be challenges when the IT Rep lacks a strong understanding of modern cloud-based software implementations. Applying traditional, on-premise thinking to cloud-based HR platforms can introduce unnecessary controls, delays or complexity that simply aren’t required in a shared-responsibility environment.

At a more practical level, pitfalls can arise in how the role is executed day-to-day. Some examples include:

• Insufficient depth during evaluation and discovery. When technical impacts on all user cohorts, devices or downstream systems aren’t fully explored early, problems tend to surface later, often during testing or go-live, when they are harder and more costly to resolve.
• Unclear ownership of technical deliverables. If responsibilities for integrations, environment access, data management or security aren’t clearly assigned, gaps can emerge that stall progress or create last-minute pressure on project teams.

Most of these are not the result of poor intent or capability. They typically arise when the IT Representative’s role isn’t clearly defined, or when the partnership between HR and IT isn’t actively maintained.

When expectations are aligned early with HR leading the transformation and IT enabling it, the IT Rep is well placed to contribute strategically, execute effectively and help the project progress with confidence.

As Michael Mills, IT Operations Manager at Pinpoint HRM warns: “IT need to be risk aware, not risk averse. Blocking everything or over-questioning can derail the project and drain enthusiasm.”

Skills of a Great IT Rep

The best IT Representatives balance technical expertise with strategic influence. They are comfortable with cloud and SaaS technologies and can communicate effectively with non-technical stakeholders. They are problem solvers, negotiators and connectors who can influence decision-making and secure resources when needed. They understand that HR tech projects are not just about systems but about enabling change across the business.

Key characteristics of the “ideal” IT Rep on an HR tech project include:

• Comfortable with cloud and SaaS: They understand modern architectures, integrations and shared responsibility models.
• Business-aware, not just tech-aware: They understand how HR works, what the project is trying to achieve, and how technology supports business outcomes.
• Risk aware, not risk averse: They take security and compliance seriously but look for solutions rather than stopping points.
• Change positive: They see the project as an opportunity to reduce shadow systems, simplify access, improve data security and cut unnecessary cost.
• Strong communicator and mediator: They can translate between technical language and business language and help align stakeholders.
• Resourceful and well-connected internally: They know who to involve, how to escalate, and how to secure support from other IT teams.
• Decisive and empowered: They have enough authority to make or recommend decisions, rather than simply relaying messages without influence.
• Strategic in outlook: They understand the “big picture”, including organisational drivers and dependencies.

This is a strategic, enabling role that sits at the intersection of HR, IT and the broader business. As Hayley Parker, Head of Strategy, Pinpoint HRM, notes: “The IT rep must have a transformation mindset. Embracing change, not resisting it.”

Wrapping it Up

The IT Representative is a key contributor and collaborator in HR tech projects. When engaged early and working in step with HR and the broader project team, they help turn potential roadblocks into smooth pathways, allowing everyone else to focus on project outcomes rather than technical obstacles.

They are the quiet achievers whose work may go largely unnoticed, yet whose impact is felt in every seamless login, every calm cutover, every magical data flow between systems and every ‘uneventful’ go-live.