There’s a right way to silo HR? Well, perhaps silo is the wrong word. Certainly in many HR organizations, silo is procedurally correct as recruiting doesn’t talk to compensation who doesn’t talk to training, and they don’t agree about direction anyway. We’ve actually come a long way reducing the total HR practices sitting around – we now have total rewards, talent management, HR service delivery, etc. But we still may be thinking about this all wrong…
Instead of the functionally base approach we’ve always used, how about a 3 pronged approach using:
- The HR Business Partner
- The Corporate Strategy Center
- The Tiered Service Delivery Center ((Johnson, Bruce; White, David. Adapted from a presentation delivered at the 2006 Cognos conference: “Transforming Human Capital Management))
The HR business partners (generalists we call them today) are focused on the business units with a detailed understanding of the local strategies, HR expertise, and corporate strategies. They are able to negotiate not only the linkages between the above 3 competencies, but also broker deals between the organizations as necessary.
The corporate strategy center is focused on planning, policy and risk mitigation. With planning in the lead, they are accountable to the senior executives to provide direction based on trends presented by data.
The tiered service delivery center coordinates with both of the above centers, enabling technology and service at a cost effective premium.
Rather than the segregation of functionality, we should be distinguishing based on the different ways we impact the business, all the while acting in a coordinated fashion.
6 responses to “The Wrong HR Silos”
The Wrong HR Silos August 28, 2006 on 2:00 am | by Systematic HR There’s a right way to silo HR? Well, perhaps silo is the wrong word. Certainly in many HR organizations, silo is procedurally correct as recruiting doesn’t talk to compensation who doesn’t talk to
The Wrong HR Silos 3. HR Function Commoditization – The Future of HR 4. Hewitt’s Lessons Learned 5. PS vs SAP parts 1, 2 6. Independent Consulting: Perception or Reality? 7. Oracle versus SAP – 2008 8. The #1 and
This is the list of 2006 articles that was most read. Thanks for your readership and I look forward to another year. You can view current (daily) posts at systematicHR.com. Sleepless Nights in HR parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 The Wrong HR Silos HR Function Commoditization – The Future of HR Hewitt’s Lessons Learned PS vs SAP parts 1, 2 Independent Consulting: Perception or Reality? Oracle versus SAP – 2008 The #1 and 2 Factors for Successful HRMS Implementation
As always Dubs, a great post. But I can’t say that I agree with it. In a perfect world perhaps, where the generalists understand both the specialties (comp, recruiting, etc.), the business (business strategy, competitive advantage), the people (coaching, career development, learning) and the systems management to make all those things work and communicate. But I have yet to meet such a generalist. Quite the contrary, most generalists usually only understand the “people” piece of that equation. Putting them at the tip of the spear of service delivery means you have a knowledge transfer and customer service person who doesn’t really understand what the customer needs and can’t implement what they want.
Second, putting risk mitigation and strategic planning in the same group is not likely to work. People who think about ways to not get sued generally don’t have the ability to do “Blue Ocean” strategy, and vice versa. One requires superior analytical skills, another superior creative and communication skills.
I completely agree that we should be distinguishing ourselves based on how we impact the business, but this seems like a sub-optimal way to do it. Why not set up individual business units on a charge-back model, with the “profit” funding a strategy institute? Yes, the customer will have more service delivery points, but in absence of HR that’s what they deal with anyway. The “generalist is the core” strategies almost always fail because you can’t scale an operation where one person is supposed to be good at everything.
Thanks again Dubs. I continue to love what you are doing with your blog. It really is a treat.
Thanks Jeff:
I’m actually fairly unsure what a workable model would be as well. My general point is that in terms of most applications of technology, HR strategy, service delivery, etc. HR components should act in a more cooridnated and unified manner than most HR organizations do today. What the actual “structure” should be (if any) is elusive.
I’ll keep putting ideas out there – maybe something will stick one of these days.
-Dubs
Conceptually you are right on…and I think it would be mere implementation details to figure out which functions go together in each area. Very interesting model and very helpful to look at things this way. Thanks Dubs…