Managing the Boundaries between the Different HR Service Delivery Channels

This is an area of difficulty often faced by HR functions. The underlying issue is primarily about which role is the tail and which is the head. Does it matter? Ultimately, the function needs to develop an HR agenda which will support and help the business succeed. So what matters is that the function works through issues around the client interface and how work is commissioned and then delivered.

In the Reilly et al. (2007) report, 56% of organisations identified 'boundary disputes' within HR shared services as the most prevalent problem affecting their operations. These can often relate to a lack of clarity about roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of the different parts of shared services and fragmented processes. Transferring HR activities to a shared service centre can have knock-on effects on existing career paths, creating tensions and conflicts between an apparent 'esteem' attached to business partners and specialists, compared with the 'institutionalised devaluation' often attached to HR staff involved in administrative and transactional support roles. This thinking can drive wedges among HR professionals and weaken the overall effectiveness of the HR function.

Indeed, Nick Worrall, HR Director at National Grid, identified similar issues associated with the development of its UK shared service centre. As he reflected:

When it became apparent that various people, including myself, were to be part of comprehensive shared service solution, we didn't exactly go home skipping that night. However, those initial thoughts were progressively dispelled as it became evident that the adopted structural approach allowed for end-to-end responsibility for many big ticket HR services, such as recruitment and learning and development, in addition to general transactional support.

Elaborating these insights, it is becoming recognised that one of the ways to mitigate these effects is to involve staff in the design of the centre and being explicit about career development and opportunities. Some organisations have opted to keep their HR service centre separate from the wider HR function. Others have encouraged those wishing to develop a career in HR to acquire wide-ranging HR knowledge in the centre through, for example, rotating around different business streams, and then moving to line or specialist roles in HR or elsewhere in the organisation.

There is also the potential for boundary issues between business partners and specialists. In our experience, if HR specialists are business-focused, boundary issues are less of a concern, as their work will be inexorably linked in with business priorities. Problems arise when HR specialists are semi-detached from the business, pursuing their own agendas and priorities rather than those of the business. For example, in one organisation some learning and development specialists had invested significant time in developing a whole range of training workshops which were not a priority. There are many other examples outside L&D, such as the development of inappropriate policy, investing in unnecessary external research, participating in external bodies of dubious value to the organisation and so on.

One of the ways HR functions are resolving these organisational boundary issues is through adopting aspects of the consultancy model. In particular, there are three aspects that help business partners and specialists to work together more effectively:

• The acceptance that HR professionals need to be addressing those issues that are most critical to their clients. This is an important way in which value is expressed and is based on the principle that there will be a commissioning of work by the client.
• This work will be packaged as a project, with clear terms of reference — including deliverables, timescales, resources, costs, etc.
• HR participates fully in these business-critical projects because they have valuable skills that will help their client to make progress.
  Whatever the structural solution, it is likely that boundary issues will arise and require resolution.