The Melded Network HR Model

My Different Slant article on the Melded Network HR Model in HR Magazine is now online.
 
The article suggests modern HR organisations will increasingly involve a mix of traditional functions, horizontal (process, project, product, agile) teams, communities and networks, as well as melds of these.

For me, it's the first model that truly takes HR beyond the Ulrich model:

-   The platform management group is qualitatively different to most existing service centres -   Centres of excellence become communities supported by an even deeper focus on projects

-   Business partners morph into network brokers - this is the most significant change and the one which makes me think the whole model has now, for the first time, been completely transformed. 

Importantly, it's not a change in the model for the sake of changing it, but a change to align with changes in organisation models - see part 1 of the two part series in HR Magazine too: http://strategic-hcm.blogspot.com/2019/11/role-people-centric-groups-communities-networks.html.

 
I've started outlining the model in a bit more depth in Linkedin, and you may like to check out those posts there as well:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beyond-ulrich-model-transformation-hr-new-people-centric-jon-ingham
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/updating-ulrich-conceptual-outcomes-model-part-1-jon-ingham
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/updating-ulrich-conceptual-outcomes-model-part-2-jon-ingham
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/updating-ulrich-physical-activities-model-jon-ingham
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/melded-network-hr-model-magazine-different-slant-jon-ingham
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/functions-new-melded-network-hr-model-jon-ingham

...

Jon Ingham

@joningham, http://linkedin.com/in/joningham
info@joningham.com, +44 7904 185134

Top 100 HR Tech Influencer - Human Resources Executive
Mover and Shaker - HR magazine

HR Magazine Different Slant: Modern Melded Network HR Model

My second Different Slant article on modern organisation design is in HR Magazine this month.

The first article was on modern, people-centric organisation models and summarised some of my insights from chapters 6 and 7 of 'The Social Organization', as well as providing a few slight updates on platform and blockchain based organisations too.

The new second article applies this same logic to the HR organisation and provides a new HR model, the Melded Network HR Model that is the first substantial update beyond Ulrich's three legged stool.

The full magazine is available to view or download here (you'll find my Different Slant article on pages 38-40).

And if you read it (and you should), do let me know what you think.

I'll also be publishing some more thoughts (somewhere between the high level review in the HR Magazine article and the detailed treatment in my book) on Linkedin - do check and follow / connect with me there too.


Jon Ingham, @joningham, http://linkedin.com/in/joningham 
info@joningham.com, +44 7904 185134

Top 100 HR Tech Influencer - Human Resources Executive
Mover and Shaker - HR magazine

Co-authored with Dave Ulrich: Building Better HR Departments

One of the benefits of speaking at conferences around the world is that I frequently bump into Dave Ulrich speaking too, eg in Australia last year, at the Art of HR conference in Croatia before and on our tour of South America the year before that etc.

In one of our chats Dave suggested we do some writing together and this is the result - an article on building better HR functions published in the new issue of Strategic HR review:

Author(s):

Jon Ingham (Strategic Dynamics Consultancy Services Ltd, Bracknell, UK)

Dave Ulrich (RBL Group, Provo, Utah, USA and Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA)


Citation: 
Jon Ingham, Dave Ulrich, (2016) "Building better HR departments", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 15 Issue: 3, pp.129 - 136



Abstract:


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide answers to four questions on building a better human resources (HR) department: why?, who?, what? and how?



Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on the accumulated experience of the co-authors.



Findings

The paper finds that better HR departments create better organizations and will often do this by enabling better relationships between the people working in them. Developing the right relationships is also an increasingly important part of creating an effective HR organization.



Research limitations/implications

Much attention has been spent on developing HR professionals. The authors also want to make HR departments better. This paper steers future research on HR effectiveness in this direction.



Practical implications

Senior HR leaders charged with improving their HR department may do so with the roadmap offered by the authors.



Originality/value

For businesses to receive full value from HR, it is very important to upgrade the quality of HR professionals. It is even more important to upgrade HR departments. This paper suggests how this can be done.


Keywords:
Performance, Culture, Organization development, Strategy, Collective leadership


Type:
Conceptual PaperPublisher:Emerald Group Publishing Limited



URL:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/SHR-03-2016-0025 

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CIPD HR Operating Models

I read through the CIPD's recent report, Changing Operating Models, whilst at IQPC/SSON's HR Transformation Summit last week.

The report summarises a number of different peoples' contributions and shows that HR is still having  problems transforming to a more strategic future - see the graphs summarising research from Alan Boroughs (rather confusingly labeled the wrong way around in the report.)

Why is it such a problem? Well, the central point about HR transformation is that it is part of broader organisational transformation, but confined to HR.  So if the whole organisation model is wrong somehow then an aligned HR model won't work well either.  I think Barry Fry and Anton Fishman makes this point well, explaining that there is little benefit aligning with anachronistic enterprise models.  I try to get round this by always ensuring that HR transformations align with the broader context of the organisation, not just the business and HR strategy.

I also like the way that Jill Miller and Paul Sparrow discuss this best fit approach looking at SMEs (Jill) and cross-organisational collaboration (Paul).  See this post on the need for organisation principles to support HR transformation too.

Once you've got this best fit position you can then build an integrated talent management architecture around it, a point Alan Boroughs explains well.

I also like how Dave Ulrich describes it:

"In recent years, some have tried to figure out ‘what’s next’ in how HR departments will be organised. The challenge again starts with the business and the most basic question is, ‘how will the business be organised?’  The basic business structure challenge remains grounded in the centralisation–decentralisation grid and debate, and so does the HR department challenge. Some have misinterpreted our work as advocating that HR should be organised through shared services in all business settings. One well-intended study interviewed HR leaders in government agencies and SMEs and they critiqued the shared services logic. Duh! These organisations were functionally driven and should not create an HR organisation that is different from the business organisation."

(Actually I think Dave has misunderstood what's been happening across UK government agencies but the basic point still stands.)

This best fit approach means that Josh Bersin’s suggestion that there is a standard roadmap all HR functions need to go trough to transform is complete nonsense (as most roadmaps are.)

For one thing, business focus may be one future strategy for HR, but there are others - see my recent posts on people centricity (1,2,3), and also on the need to consider and select from multiple futures, not just the one that someone tells you to follow.

Secondly, whatever future you want to create, you should never copy the slow crawl progression that other organisations have been through but leapfrog over all this and work out how you go straight to the thing that you want.

One of the key aspects of OD is the use of an operating model (like an organisation model, but with more detail) and most of the CIPD’s report deals with the typical Ulrich model design of HR, and considers the relative weightings of the different parts of the model:


Centres / Networks of Excellence

Some of the writers suggest the centres of excellence (or as Josh Bersin suggests, networks of excellence) form the most important part of the HR model.

John Boudreau and Ed Lawler (who makes one of the best arguments for people centricity in his book Talent) use their HR survey data to argue this point.  But their data also shows that lower amounts of tailoring HR approaches for business units is correlated with an increased role in strategy.  I think they understand this to mean that HR shouldn’t fiddle and therefore doesn’t need HRBPs.  I read it the other way around - if HR doesn’t have a strategic role it won’t be successful in tailoring its approaches.  So we need more, not less, focus on business partners.

Anyway, so much of HR effectiveness depends on how things are done, not just whether they are done or not.  For example rotation in and out of HR can be positive or negative - it depends on why, in what way, and how it is done eg if it’s well planned and managed and for the right reasons.

But actually I don't think rotation is a key area.  Josh Bersin notes that companies are bringing in business people because HR needs to focus on outcomes and effectiveness.  Well actually that's why I think we need more deep people related specialism and specialists retained within HR (since I recommend a future which is people centric, rather than solely focused on the business.)

It’s a shame that Lawler doesn’t talk about the Organisational Effectiveness role (I suspect the article was written mainly by Boudreau.)  This is a newish and critical part of the HR model, but perhaps this is what the professors were getting at when they were suggesting more focus on the COEs. 
 

However, I’d disagree on this - for me OE is something all HRBPs should take on - one of the things we discuss in the HRBP training I run for Symposium.


Business Partners

Several of the contributors suggest the HRBP is the key role.  Gareth Williams suggests that HRBPs are becoming thought leaders in their own right so we won’t need so much focus on COEs.  I’m not sure about that as it sounds a bit too much like a return to HR generalists.

Nick Holley notes that organisations are becoming leaner and more matrixed so the partner role becoming more central - like a knot in a bowtie.  This shift means that HRBPs often lack intellectual capability and prove unable to step up.  I don’t agree with Nick on this.  For me business partner failure is more often about lack of development support and organisational guidance for new HRBPs to move upwards.  Plus Elliott Jaques (also called Elliott Franks in the report) had some interesting ideas and I do sometimes use his insights around requisite organisation for organisational layers and grading, but I wouldn’t use career path appreciation as it doesn’t fit with what we now know about the plasticity of the brain.

I also don’t agree with Nick about the most important capability needs for business partners.  For example Nick reviews some SHRM research which asked HR professionals about the “worth of various academic courses toward a successful career in HR.  83% said that classes in interpersonal communications skills had extremely high value.  Where was change management?  At 35%.  Strategic management?  32%.  Finance?  Um, that was just 2%.'

Nick finds this disturbing.  I don’t.  For one thing, SHRM were asking about what HR finds useful not just what they do.  And I don’t think he has any justification for ignoring our views.  We find interpersonal skills useful, OK?

Secondly, I think it's completely appropriate that we find interpersonal skills important, and for exactly the same reason that Nick suggests the HRBP is the key knot in the bowtie.  Increasing ambiguity, complexity and matrixed organisations means that it’s people to people relationships which make the biggest differences to our effectiveness.  This is why the Symposium HRBP training focuses on relationship management skills.

HR does need to understand Finance.  But once we’ve understood the basics and established our credibility as business people, further financial savvy doesn’t help that much.  The difference that makes the difference is understanding and influencing people.  Interpersonal skills.


Service Centre and Outsourcing

Andy Spence writes about the positive impact of cloud and outsourcing on service centre operations.  I’d agree with this, though I’d suggest the impact of new technology is a little less about cloud and a lot more about generally better functionality and especially usability.

Andy also suggests that cloud is enabling outsourcing because cloud requires standardisation which makes HR easier to outsource.  Yes, but it also makes it easier for organisations to do HR themselves.

Standardisation can be a problem too.  I think an important piece of the HR jigsaw which is missing in many organisations is greater clarity over what parts of an individual organisation’s HR architecture is strategic, and which is transactional.  The transactional piece just needs to be delivered well by an efficient system, and potentially outsourcing.  The strategic piece is more difficult and more critical and may need a different, specialist best of breed system / module on top of the integrated platform.   If you just standardise everything you’re not going to be able to differentiate your HR architecture and you’re not going to be able to compete based upon your people.

Summary - the need for HR Capability and One HR!

So what's my view on the relative importance of the legs of the Ulrich 3 legged stool?  That it's a dumb question.  Their relative importance depends on your own business strategy, organisational context, HR organisational principles, etc, etc.  Plus they're all likely to be important.

Jill makes the point that structure doesn't count as much as skills.  It's a good point and I think all the commentators have focused far too much on structure and nowhere near enough on the other elements of the organisation model, particularly skills.

So I do like Josh Bersin's suggestion that more than the current 8% of organisations need to have a professional development programme for HR.

The other thing which is really important and is completely missing from the report is the need for a 'one HR' focus and culture.  Because actually the relativities between the three groups in the model is a lot less important than that the three groups get on and work together to produce great people and organisational outcomes for the business.

Focus on skills and culture, and build a model based on a sound OD approach, and my bet is that you'll get a much better impact on talent management as well as operations.

And let me know if you'd like any support in doing this - eg in developing your own HR development programme, or you just need some more general guidance on effective, people centred HR transformation.

Other posts on HR Business Partnering:

• The Ulrich model and why HR's not a support function
• HR Business Partnering with Symposium Events (about their recent conference)
• Don't blame the Ulrich model
• How do you know if you're a business partner?

Symposium ‘Breakthrough Business Partnering’ course

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IQPC HR Transformation

I've spent the last couple of days at IQPC / Shared Service & Outsourcing Network's HR Transformation in Brussels where I've been speaking.

It turned out to be quite a unique if rather select event for a number of reasons:

• I've not been back to this hotel since Teneo's Talent Management Summit in 2013 and realised once I'd sat down that I'd brought with me one of their red pens - impressive durability!

• It was great to see one of my models presented in a session from Anand Silvashankar from InMobi - about the 5th time this has happened to me but the 1st time someone has included my name on the slide (thank you!)

• We had a big focus on financial services (including Dexia, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, Barclays, ABN AMRCO etc) which meant lots of sessions looking at the aftermath of the recession - most powerfully in connection with Dexia's downsizing from 30,000 to 1,300 employees.

• There were quite a lot of good inputs about change processes, and I particularly liked the visuals which accompanied them (see below for DHL, Barclays, ABN AMRO)

I'll be blogging more about HR transformation early next week and will follow-up with some notes from my own session too.

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So how do you know if you’re a Business Partner?

I’m once again looking forward to chairing Symposium’s Successful Business Partnering Conference on 18th November this year.

We’ve got a good mix of speakers with some presenting on the role of the HR function partnering with and having impact in a business, and others focusing more on the job of the embedded HR profession – also often called a business partner – as it’s the person in this job who is mainly concerned with making a success of the broader role.

I cover both aspects of business partnering in the training sessions I deliver for Symposium Training as well and one of the things I often pick up from these courses is how much confusion still exists over the approach, the role and the job, what they are, and the differences and commonalities between them.

So how do you know if you’re working as a Business Partner?

1.   Business partnering as an approach

To me there are two critical things which make up business partnering as an approach. These are firstly, that HR focuses on the business (or other employing organisation) and secondly, that it focuses on partnering.  This makes business partnering, despite some challenges, a perfect name for what we're talking about.

 

The business piece is about focusing on the business/organisation – understanding the business and making a significant supporting and possibly leading contribution to the business.  A lot of people would suggest the approach is about a commercial focus too and it certainly does need to include a financial and commercial understanding and clarity about and alignment with HR’s contribution to the business’ financial results.

However, I prefer to talk about a business focus as I think we do need to see our organisations in holistic, rounded terms – paying attention to the business operations and financials but without forgetting the people who are behind these things.  And despite the need to be more business focussed, most business partners still deliver most value by identifying opportunities to add and create value through the people within a business and the way that these people are managed, developed and enabled.

The partnering piece is about aligning the people and the rest of the business – understanding what the business needs and ideally contributing to these objectives based upon what people can do for the business, and then aligning HR activities with these needs so that everything HR does contributes to the success of the business.  Partnering is mainly about relationships and it’s therefore relationship management which forms a major focus for my training sessions with Symposium Training.  By the way, the major challenge to the term business parter is that partnering is not enough and that something like business player would be a more suitable term.

I certainly agree with the need for more ambition in what partnering can provide and that a partner needs to be on the field not just supporting from the sidelines but I still think partnering is a more accurate description of what the approach involves (come to one of the training sessions for more explanation of that.)

All HR professionals and the whole HR function can and should act as business partners in terms of this approach.


2.   Business partnering as a role

I think this second question is a more difficult one to answer, mainly because there are so many types and varieties of business partner (a good thing! – see my post written for last year’s conference.)  However, in addition to demonstrating that you are working in a business partnering approach (as defined above) I think there are three key criteria, or enablers, which make it more likely that you are a true business partner and not just a HR generalist with a business focus and a partnering approach.  These are:

i.   You’re focusing on a business division rather than a location within a business.

This to me is the key distinguishing feature between an HR generalist and a business partner.  A generalist will typically be focused on all of the divisions of a business at a particular location.  This doesn’t stop them from understanding the overall business, or indeed the different business needs of each division, but it does mean it’s harder to understand all of that.  It also means that it’s more difficult to act strategically to contribute to the overall business or a particular division because they’ll need to act together with other HR generalists in other locations to do this.  The easier and potentially bigger opportunities to focus on are the common needs within the area of the business that they focus on which are the needs of the employees working at their location.  So this structural arrangement is going to tend to pull them down, away from focusing on strategic business needs and towards focusing on more people oriented, operational ones.  That doesn’t need to happen but it does make it more likely.

The difference if you are focused on a division is that you can really, really get to understand your division’s business needs and concentrate on aligning HR activities with these more specific needs.  You also probably cover multiple locations so it’s less likely that you’ll get dragged down into operational issues at these different locations.  Again this structural arrangement doesn’t guarantee that you will do this but it does make things easier for you to do so.


ii.   You're also aligned with a divisional director.

Another benefit of a divisional focus is that you have one clear business client - the director of this division. You can really focus on them, their agenda, and them as a person, developing the practices they need and developing the type of relationship they also require.

iii.   It’s not just that you are aligned to a director but that this director is aligned towards you.

Partnering takes place in two directions.  Even if you’re aligned with only one director if that director is aligned with more than one business partner they’re not going to see either or any of you in the same way.  They need to see you as the individual person they will turn to in order to get strategic advice on HR.

3.   Business partnering as a job

It also makes it easier to partner if you have centres of excellence and/or a service centre and/or additional legs of the business partnering ‘stool’ (which most often has three legs – business partners, centres of excellence and a service centres – but can have many more) so that you can focus more on the business and your partnering rather than doing or developing HR activities.  

HR then becomes the context for what you do but your professional responsibilities revolve around the business and being a partner (ie: ensuring your relationships with your business clients is effective and that you are aligning everything the other legs of the HR model provide with what your business needs).  Note also that one of the most interesting changes in partnering at the moment is the development of the business partnering context to include other areas that are not traditionally part of HR (eg: IT and facilities management – so that you’re not just partnering into HR but into other functions as well).

 

Where you do have responsibilities for HR activities, and most HR business partners do, it also helps if these are strategic, business related activities such as organisation design and/or development, rather than HR oriented and operational ones (eg: dealing with employee relations cases).

If you’re supported by all three of these things, I’d suggest it’s pretty definite that you’re acting in a business partnering job.  If you’re not doing any of them it doesn’t mean that you’re not a business partner but you’ve got things stacked against you so it’s going to be less likely that you’ll be successful.

Which ever of these apply – whether you’re operating in a business partner’s job or just trying to act in the broader role, and if you’re in the job how ever many of the enablers I’ve listed apply to you, I am sure you will find topics of interest and of value, being discussed in Symposium’s Successful Business Partnering Conference, so I hope that I’ll see you there.

The above post has been updated from an original version posted on Symposium.co.uk.