The Stakeholder Topography

This is the means by which you can construct a view of the stakeholder population which allows individuals/groups/business units affected by HR transformation to be characterised in terms of their importance to the change process and how they are impacted by it. This is assisted by using the stakeholder mapping framework shown in Figure 1. A sample is shown in the following table:

Stakeholder group	Example impacts
Employees	Maintaining their own data rather than relying on HR administration to do it for them
Line managers	Increased people management responsibilities supported by Web-based HR rather than HR consultants
HR consultants	Move to added value business partner roles rather than administration comfort zone
HR administration	Expert support rather than re-keying administration
HR specialists	Demand driven by business partners rather than line managers
Payroll	Data from Web-based HR system rather than separate re-keying
External recruitment	Reduced number due to e-recruitment functionality

 Figure 1: Stakeholder mapping.

Those individuals or groups that are seen to display high impact and high importance are the most significant in terms of securing acceptance of the change process. Those positioned elsewhere in the matrix present different levels of significance. In these cases, it may be acceptable simply to achieve modest support or even neutrality.

To expand on these points, let us look in more detail at some of the stakeholder groups illustrated in the earlier sample:

• It is evident that line managers are both highly important to the transformation process and highly impacted by it. As such they warrant careful and considered attention. A failure to engage properly with this group and secure a good degree of acceptance to the transformation process will create significant issues, such as poor utilisation of Web-based HR and a failure to adopt more people-centred practices within their role profile. These will at best stifle the transformation process or at worst sabotage it completely.
• The HR administration team are important and may be highly impacted if the intention is to reduce headcount based on the assumption that more HR administration is performed by managers and employees using Web-based HR. This could raise morale/retention issues at a critical time when the new services are being introduced, requiring higher levels of support to users. In this situation, it may not be possible to persuade this group to warmly embrace the transformation process, but it will be necessary to move sentiment into the mildly resistive/neutral zone of the continuum in order to maintain decent service levels.
• The reductions in the number of external recruitment suppliers may antagonise those suppliers eliminated from the new list, but conversely may also provide an injection of encouragement to the group chosen to continue (and possibly enhance) their contribution. These different impacts need to be managed. Those suppliers who are expected to maintain their contracts post HR transformation must be clear and accepting about what is expected of them. The rejected suppliers need to understand the rationale for their exclusion, but may never be accepting of them. This will not impact the HR transformation process in the short term, but may be an issue in the longer term if you seek to re-engage their services.

These examples show the value of stakeholder mapping as a way of categorising the different groups, and informing you about the level of effort and priority that needs to be invested in ongoing activities to bring about desirable outcomes necessary to support the HR transformation programme objectives.