10 Characteristics of the Top Performing HR Services Organizations

What performance characteristics will you leverage to excel your business?

The role of HR services has made a huge transition from recruiting and managing talent to providing valuable analytical capabilities for framework development, value creation, and operational excellence. This significant transformation has developed the HR role into a critical service provider for a successful business.

HR departments provide services to the employees of their companies the same way a business provides services to their customers. Similar to customer services, HR services do not want to only satisfy their employees but make sure they’re consistently happy with their services. As an end result, companies experience a decrease in turnover, development of company culture, and an upgrade of the company as a whole.

An ideal practice to upgrade your HR services delivery is a model that leverages the process capabilities of a Center of Excellence, Shared Services Center, and different fields of HR distributed across multiple position levels. These different levels of support should provide strategic advice for executive leaders, advisory support for middle management, and administrative support where needed. The top performers who have implemented this tiered practice have not only developed their HR team, but also began to leverage technology in the process. This optimized framework and technology implementation allows you to improve your transactions, provide expertise where needed, and problem solve with ease allowing your company to focus on the more important things.

In a report produced by the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network, they analyze the top twenty-percent of HR services organizations to identify the characteristics they have in common. These insights come from six HR executives interviewed about their operations, implementation strategies, and the results of their HR model developments. Some of these include utilizing an HR framework that leverages strengths and knowledge where needed, enabling technology and analytic capabilities for optimized processes, and developing a multi-functional leadership.

The paralleled characteristics these top performing HR services possess have elevated their competitive advantage. This upgrade in HR services has presented the opportunity to transform an organization for seamless end-to-end problem solving. This kind of transformation can optimize an entire company’s operations and push a business to be a part of the top performers.

So, now we turn it to you, are you one of these stand out organizations? Or, like most of us, are you working hard on implementing a new HR program into your organization? Either way, make sure to take a tip for the top organizations to improve your overall strategy. 

Upskilling Your Workforce For The New Shared Services

The digital age is putting a lot of pressure on organizations to react, adapt, and evolve along with new technology. With the more forward thinking leaders already looking at how they can transform, it’s time to evaluate your own strategy and ask yourself, are you looking ahead or will you be stuck in the past?

The first place to look in this journey is at your workforce. Are they empowered to learn new skills or are they settling with what they know? The key to success here is motivating your employees to add new skills to their tool belt and allow them to keep up with today’s changing world. Easier said then done, right? It is important to start out this upskilling process by identifying the problems that need to be solved and finding the right resource to solve them.

In a report put together by the Shared Services and Outsourcing Network’s research team, they found that the two largest skill gaps were in data analytics and automation. This comes to almost no surprise as automation has been transforming today’s world for the past few years. Moving from RPA to AI, automation is proving itself to be a key function of any organization looking to separate itself from the competition.

To gain further knowledge on the topic the SSON team looked to Silicon Valley to benchmark how organization should measure their journey. Why Silicon Valley? The answer is simple, they have stood at the forefront of embracing new skills and technology since the early 2000s, so why not go to them to see how a successful strategy should be built. [Benchmarking information can be found here]

While this cultural shift and call for change may not be welcomed with open arms by all your employees, it is more important now than ever to try and motivate the unmotivated to add to their skillset.  The world is changing, have you prepared your organization to change with it?

Implementing RPA in Shared Services

Implementing RPA into your organization can be a daunting task. With so many organizations already in the implementation process, why not take a page from their book and learn from their success, but even more from their failures.

The first case study we took a look at was from PNC, who dived into the subject on everyone’s mind; how intelligent automation can turn you shared services into a revenue builder for your business. They started on their journey by defining what problems needed to be solved and which automation technologies would most effectively solve those problems. During their journey, they came across the usual challenges associated with change – keeping prices down but efficiency up and what they found was that a combination of RPA, IA, and cognitive technologies, is what worked best to achieve success. For the details on PNC’s automation strategy and journey, access the full case study.

The next case study we sought to learn from was HP, who helped answer the question of what valued will this add to our shared service. To begin answering this question, they looked at the top pros of robotic process automation including scalability, cost reduction, productivity, and more. They then decided where the best place to start their journey would be and began their process. For the details on HP’s automation strategy and journey, access the full case study.

We then took a look at Quad Graphics and how they sought to create a better way through RPA. They started off by identifying that their challenges were coordinating the strengths of different marketing channels into one efficient and effective campaign. Their case study flows through their journey from production floor automation all the way to their current destination of enhanced digitalization, but who’s to say that’s where their journey ends! Quad Graphics provided a great example of how one organization can scale up and increase their bot count successfully, going from 35 to 100 bots. For the details on Quad Graphic’s automation strategy and journey, accessthe full case study.

Ascension was the final case study who explored how to bring the power of RPA to life. They started by evaluating how a combination of automation technologies can create new possibilities for their organization. Looking first at how they could use automation technologies to focus on a sequence of task so that they can ease customer frustration and make processes as seamless as possible. By coming across these problems and reach solutions, they were able to better identify where they wanted to go and how they wanted to build their interface for success.  For the details on Ascension’s automation strategy and journey, accessthe full case study.

Transforming Your HR Strategy

Transformation is a trending term in the HR world today. From employees calling for a better work experience, to millennials redefining the workplace, to the digital age changing how organizations must be run, this day and age is proving HR to be a key function within any company. Taking on all this change can be difficult, but, thankfully, the Shared Services and Outsourcing Week event has put together a helpful bundle of case studies that dive into how to transform you HR strategy and elevate the employee experience.

The first case study comes from Evoqua Water Technologies. Their study dives into global HR transformation and the top insights they took from going through this process. The process for Evoqua started with a brand new VP of Human Resources coming into the company tasked to develop a Global strategy to transform their HR strategy in just twelve months. With no design or idea restrictions off the table, Evoqua managed to transform their strategy and gained key insights on how to success at major change in a short time period. Some of their findings include, creating a leaner, more efficient HR structure, using a shared services model to achieve HR success, increasing your focus on your current talent, and much more. 

The next case study in the bundle comes from Microsoft’s HR Service Center Lead Americas, and focuses on creating a seamless employee experience. The study walks through the current HR breakdown at Microsoft, and their transformation journey from 2012 to 2020. The case study takes you through their journey thus far, with an in depth look at their employee support model and what they learned during this transformation period. 

The final case study in the piece provides insight on leveraging your size for recruitment and pre boarding from HCA. With new HR  expectations put in place, the HR team  was able to be held to a higher standard and in return, were driven to do more and more for their organization. A main focus on their transformation was to advance their recruitment process by redesigning the full recruiting life-cycle to be much more efficient. HCA provides the entire plan within their case study as well as their lessons learned after the implementation process.