A new operating model for HR

To meet the growing challenges head on, we know that the new HR function must start to be more project based, agile and digitally enabled, all while reducing operating costs. But that can be tough to achieve on top of day-to-day tasks.

To remain of value to the business, and in order to maintain a strong leadership position, it’s vital that HR itself rises to the opportunity to drive people change.

With the right operating model for HR, this need not be as far out of reach as it may currently seem.

Stop relying on the cloud alone

Many HR teams look to the cloud as a panacea —but simply plugging into the cloud alone will not necessarily deliver the data-driven insights, smarter decision making, real value for the bottom line or anything near the cloud’s actual vast capabilities to redefine HR and engage more effectively with its workers. This requires proactively changing the culture and underlying operating model of HR itself.

Start developing an operating model for tomorrow

HR organizations looking to jump-start with the cloud need an operating model built for tomorrow and beyond—enabling them to envisage and deliver on drivers of change, such as:

1. timely and affordable deployment of Human Resources solutions
2. an intuitive user experience and greater engagement of those systems across the business
3. new levels of mobile accessibility between the business and its workers
4. smarter decision-making between teams and departments
5. workforce efficiencies that can pre-empt the demands of tomorrow.

Ensuring success

Our research has highlighted that 90% of failed HR transformation initiatives surveyed had not identified measures of success.¹

It’s clear that to help ensure success requires a well-defined sense of where you are going and what you expect to achieve.

This can be best envisaged with a ‘future-state operating model’.

This vision of the organization of tomorrow can enable improved clarity when changing roles and structures in line with your transformation, and help ensure you have the right change management capabilities in place. With a map of the ‘end-state’, streamlined processes and improvements in cost efficiency provided by new systems can often be brought forward.

A future-state vision not only speeds delivery; it helps stakeholder collaboration and extends the strategic conversations you are able to have—all without losing focus on your day job.

_{1 Source: HR Transformation: Which lens are you using? KPMG International, 2017}