What is keeping HR shared services leaders awake at night?
Welcome to the latest of our bi-annual surveys dedicated specifically to the HR shared services marketplace, focusing on strategic priorities, service offerings, culture, structure, capabilities, digital enablers, and future outlook.
We asked HR shared services leaders across 34 different global businesses about their struggles, and also, where organisations are focusing their efforts to optimise service delivery.
71% of HR shared services leaders said further automation and fixing brilliant basics (59%) would be critical to ongoing future success.
Amongst the top challenges, leaders include outdated technology, lack of investment, and the need to articulate the value of HR shared services.
Only one in four have a strategic learning intervention in place to develop their teams.
However, whilst operational efficiency has always been the premise of HR shared services, driving experience is now equally part of its DNA.
The shift from an internally focused operational process mindset to a customer-centric, easy-to-deal-with, and outcome-focused mindset requires ongoing effort and time.
Ben Debnath, Head of HR Operations, De Lage Landen Leasing Limited
What’s in this report?
This report explores areas in which organisations are focusing their efforts to optimise service delivery and experience, along with the priorities for 2024 across service offering, ways of working, talent and digital enablers. It highlights challenge questions that HRSS leaders should consider as they seek to continuously improve ways of working and enable their teams to be the best they can be. For example:
- What is your value proposition for HR shared services and how well are you explaining this to your business and wider HR stakeholders?
- If you have many countries with small employee populations (or a ‘long tail’), are there opportunities to leverage scale and enhancements through a wider Global Business Services model?
- Have you put experience in the ‘too difficult to measure’ bucket and if not, do you have a clear and tangible way of measuring experience to enable action?
- Do you have a clear workforce plan that maps out the skills you need in two to three years’ time? How will AI change your approach to the talent and skills you might need?
- Have you truly fixed the basics of your HRSS operating model (process, data, governance, tools, etc)? If not, what’s stopping you?
Download a copy of the report through the form below:
This report is part of our new series ‘Demystifying the HR operating model‘, which aims to navigate the complex world of the HR operating model with ease.
Meet the authors
Emma Leonis-Hughes
Client Executive Director
Emma specialises in global, large-scale and complex end-to-end HR change programmes. She spent over 10 years at Deloitte before joining LACE Partners in early 2018 as Client Executive Director. Emma works with Chief People Officers and their leadership teams to develop their people strategies and help them drive business value – be that designing the HR operating model around the employee experience, optimising HR service delivery through improved use of digital tools or through building HR’s capability.
She is passionate about HR and challenging, inspiring and motivating HR leaders to achieve more. As part of this, Emma leads LACE’s thought leadership into the future of HR service delivery and operating models. For example, LACE’s bi-annual HR shared services trends reports which began in 2020, the ‘HR on the Offensive’ white paper and currently LACE’s ‘demystifying the HR operating model’ campaign.
Director
Dawn is Transformative and Programme Management leader with extensive experience in HR Transformation and Transition and change programmes for a variety of industries and clients globally. Dawn spent 22 years at Accenture and was the Lead in Accenture’s Global Operations practice with full responsibility of the European Transition and Transformation team to drive successful programmes across Europe with accountability to deliver client success.
Dawn is no stranger in leading large scale global HR programmes across entire deal lifecycle from sales, solution and design, transition, transformation to full operational stability. She has extensive experience interacting with clients and a variety of stakeholders, handling client challenges, providing client solutions and managing large organisational change.
She is a strong people advocate & communicator, highly skilled in building and leading exceptional teams to achieve results. Dawn is passionate about people development and supporting team members to achieve their highest potential.
Explore our HR Shared Services Trends Reports archive:
HR Shared Services Trends report 2022
HR Shared Services Trends report 2020
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