Centralized, Secure and Data-Driven: IU Health’s Employee Relations Transformation
The Challenge
Indiana University (IU) Health, Indiana’s largest healthcare system, had nine HR teams managing employee relations cases independently — making gaining a clear organizational view and ensuring consistency a challenge.
In 2023, Alicia Smith, Executive Director of Employee Relations and Investigations, and her team piloted Navex, a tool used by the compliance department, to explore ways to bring more structure to case management. However, it quickly became clear it wasn’t built for the unique needs of employee relations. “It was too clunky and very manual,” recalled Alicia.
When Alicia was tasked with building a centralized employee relations function, she saw the perfect opportunity to implement a purpose-built solution — one that could bring consistency across the organization and provide the insight IU Health needed to better support its people.
Discover How Indiana University Health Acts on Data-Driven Insights with HR Acuity
At-a-Glance
- IU Health now closes ER cases in 7.5 days on average — which is well-below the industry average time to close
- Expanded from 25 to 150 licenses as HRBPs, legal, risk, compliance, HIPAA and absence management teams joined employee relations on the platform
- HR Acuity data insights led to approval of two additional headcount requests for 2026
“HR Acuity is the best of the best. It was built for employee relations, by employee relations — and that’s what sold us on it.”
The Solution
After evaluating multiple platforms — including ServiceNow, which Alicia noted “couldn’t meet 40% of my team’s needs,” and Oracle — IU Health chose HR Acuity for its intuitive design and deep understanding of employee relations.
“HR Acuity is the best of the best,” shared Alicia. “HR Acuity was built for employee relations, by employee relations — and that’s what sold us on it,” shared Alicia. “It comes with best practices and industry standards already built in.”
Implementation was highly collaborative. From sales through onboarding, the HR Acuity team worked hand-in-hand with IU Health to design a scalable, secure solution.
“HR Acuity helped us dream big,” recalled Alicia. “What started as 25 licenses grew to 150. Now, our HR, legal, compliance and risk teams are all connected in one seamless platform.”
With HR Acuity, IU Health gains:
- Centralized, secure employee relations case management
- Real-time visibility and consistency across HR, legal and compliance teams
- Robust reporting and analytics on trends and hotspots
- Permission-based access to protect sensitive data
- Reduced risk and stronger documentation, resulting in greater defensibility
“HR Acuity has been a complete game-changer for IU Health.”
The Impact
Enhanced Data-Driven Decision Making
Now, IU Health has end-to-end visibility into employee relations. Metrics that were once guesswork are instant.
“Before, if you asked how many harassment cases we had, we’d have to dig through emails or spreadsheets. Now, I can answer in seconds,” said Alicia. HR Acuity dashboards also surface top issues, substantiation rates and regional trends, giving leaders actionable insights for the first time.
Improved Efficiency and Risk Mitigation
The IU Health team now closes ER cases in an average of 7.5 days, which is well below the industry average time to close. Investigations take an average of 16.9 days to close — demonstrating how tight, compliant processes embedded with best practices enable IU Health to reach timely, consistent outcomes. HR Acuity’s documentation also provides critical protection for the organization.
“With HR Acuity, all documentation is in one easily accessible place,” said Alicia. “If a leader goes against our recommendations, we note it in the platform, and that protects our team and the organization if issues arise later.”
Seamless Integration with Speak Up Hotline
IU Health uses HR Acuity’s employee reporting hotline as its “speak up” channel, allowing team members to confidentially raise concerns or report issues. Now, those reports flow directly into the case management system, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
“I can see anonymous complaints from employees in real time,” explained Alicia. “We can immediately identify the type of issue, the region and even track patterns.”
By centralizing anonymous complaints with employee relations issues in a single system, IU Health ensures that every concern — no matter where it originates — is documented, addressed and analyzed for trends, strengthening its culture of accountability.
Secure, Compliant Collaboration
Sensitive cases, often involving protected information, are tightly controlled with permission-based access.
“We’re able to lock down permissions with HR Acuity,” said Alicia. “If compliance gets a case, HR can’t see it and vice versa. That means our teams can work together seamlessly in the platform without worrying about unintended access.”
Scalable Growth and Organizational Confidence
IU Health’s ability to drill into its case data surfaced clear resource challenges driven by caseload and case complexity, enabling the organization to scale its team accordingly.
“We will be adding two additional full-time employees in 2026,” shared Alicia. “With HR Acuity data and best practices, we demonstrated that workload and case complexity required additional resources. This helped us justify the extra headcount and, for the first time, clearly show the need based on data.”
IU Health Drives Clarity, Connection and Confidence with HR Acuity
IU Health has thoughtfully evolved its employee relations practice with HR Acuity — bringing unprecedented visibility, consistency and confidence to the organization. Today, leaders have the insights they need at their fingertips, and teams collaborate securely across functions to support every employee’s experience. “HR Acuity has been a complete game-changer for IU Health,” said Alicia.
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