Apr 12, 2013 | Blog

The Lean HR Department

Optimize Your Talent Strategy

Todd Henneman recently wrote a great article detailing the pros and cons of the evolution of HR from a traditional role to options like breaking up the function across other departments or outsourcing the role altogether.   HR continues to need to align itself with the overall business strategy of the firm and that involves some transformative changes at times.   Henneman cites an example from Canadian firm G Adventures, who completely closed their HR department and created two new functions a “talent agency” responsible for talent acquisition and talent management and a “culture club” in charge of organizing fundraisers and award celebrations.  

 

Towers Watson & Co.’s 2012 HR Service Delivery Survey proclaims that almost 45% of organizations surveyed responded that they plan to change their HR structure by the end of 2013.  As HR learns to be more lean, future HR leaders will find themselves responding to a results driven C-suite, like the executives at Netflix who in their recent search for a HR director stated plainly they wanted someone who, “thinks business first, customer second, and team and talent third.”   The business will demand leaner HR departments with functions outsourced to professionals adept at analytics and consulting.  HR will not completely disappear but will need to adjust to the trending demands of the field.

 

Join HCI on April 24, 2013 for the webcast, How to Run HR Shared Services like a Thriving Business, as Jim Scully, president of the HR Shared Services Institute, Kane Frisby, Chief Strategy Officer of Dovetail Software, and Cary Schuler, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of cfactor works, inc., debate how to run HR shared services like a successful business.   They will be taking an in depth look into questions like:

  • What are the components of a true shared services delivery model?
  • How can day-to-day processes and existing systems blend with the latest in case management, self-service and social technologies to create new efficiencies while improving satisfaction levels?
  • How do you properly measure HR service delivery to chart actionable improvement – what key performance indicators are relevant, and how should you interpret them?
  • Where do you begin – where is HR service delivery heading, and what are appropriate goals to aim for in the near and long term?