OBJECTIVE:

Re-position HR Department to
Support Evolving Business Strategy

Situation
A large academic medical center initiated an aggressive strategy to distinguish itself from its market competition. Several key objectives were central to this undertaking. These included; a focus on improved customer service; visible improvements to the campus; enhanced academic offerings; and distinction as an “employer of choice”.

With more than 11,000 employees, the organization has a very high profile in the community. They were recognized for excellence in academic quality and patient care. However, their reputation as a preferred employer was far more tenuous. The Human Resources function had suffered from a chronic lack of resources and was poorly positioned within the management hierarchy. Additionally, minimal HR support was available to managers and application of talent management policies and practices varied widely.

Strategy
HResults was engaged to study the effectiveness of HR services throughout the enterprise; recommend improvements to the infrastructure and design a model for HR service delivery.

Client engagement and HR staff involvement is essential to the success of this type of undertaking. Balancing the needs of the university, hospitals and physician practices presented an additional challenge on this project. Critical steps were to:

• Obtain senior leadership sponsorship and buy-in through development of a clear set of guiding principles and defined outcomes;
• Establish a senior level advisory team comprised of representatives from all major constituencies to provide input, hear feedback and endorse recommendations;
• Gather feedback through interviews, focus groups and process audits;
• Apply HR Effectiveness measures and competitive practice data to design recommendations;
• Engage joint HR and operating management teams in targeted re-design activities;
• Pilot process changes and service delivery model in key client areas and evaluate outcomes

Outcome
The evaluation and re-design of the HR function resulted in significant change for this organization. Most significantly:

• The functional departmental structure was abandoned and replaced with a service delivery model with three major components:
• A client facing “Business Partner Team” with experience and competencies matched to the diverse customer base;
• An “HR Service Center” which is responsible for all processing and automation
• “Centers of Excellence” for talent acquisition, reward programs and development
• Senior HR staff were appointed to steering committees for major organizational initiatives
• HR function moved to new, modern facilities to improve service and access for employees
• Key processes were automated and employee self service was introduced for routine tasks such as open enrollment
• Short term savings of nearly $200,000 were realized and longer term recurring annual savings opportunities of over $1mm were identified enterprise-wide