Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again

A View of a fragmented HR function by Lynda Gratton

Questions about ‘how do we structure the HR function to deliver value?’ seem to be asked with more frequency right now than I remember them ever being asked in the past. Over the last decade we have fragmented the roles and responsibilities of the function. We have out-sourced the lower-value, operational work; we are beginning to develop the employee survey work and customisation to become ‘employee champions’; we are putting the ‘change agent’ roles back into the streams of business to work closely with their line manager partner; and the ‘business partners’ are either going into the businesses or clustering around ‘best practice’ centres which may be located in different places. In other words, whilst the HR function may have at one time been a rather inefficient, but pleasant and kindly ‘Humpty Dumpty’ it has now fallen from the wall and has shattered into fragments on the hard pavement below. By the way, the fall was inevitable in the bloated, introverted state that many functions had become.

But this fragmentation of the HR function is causing all sorts of unintended problems. Senior managers look at all the fragments, and are not clear how the function as a whole adds value and whether outsourcing the lower value end (to low cost providers), the top value end (to strategic consulting firms), and the employee facing part (to line managers), does not make more sense. From the perspective of the function, the centre has diminished and I sense growing alienation and even suspicion across the fragments.

So should we leave the fragments, and let the centrifugal power diminish and allow each of the fragments move into their own orbit? I have no doubt that unless there is a countervailing force applied this is exactly what will happen. However, I believe that the HR function can and should add value as a totality, where the sum of the fragments can be greater than the fragments on their own. But to do this we have to learn the lessons of integration, in other words, we have to learn how to ‘put Humpty Dumpty back together again’.

The question of integration has been one of my interests for some time and late last year a colleague of mine, Sumantra Ghoshal and I wrote an article for the Sloan Management Review (Fall 2002, Vol. 44, No.1) called ‘Integrating the Enterprise’. Whilst we did not talk specifically about the HR function, many of the points we made have real implications for how to ‘put Humpty Dumpty back together again’. In thinking about integration we have proposed that there are four critical components of integration.

The first is operational integration through standardised technology infrastructure. Here the employee portal technology can provide an enormously important common front to the employee and a powerful integrating force for the function. For BP, this employee portal has been a powerful force to integrate the HR function around a common employee brand.

The second is intellectual integration through the creation of a shared knowledge base. Here the emphasis is on creating, sharing and exchanging knowledge both within and outside the HR community. Knowledge, for example, about best practice and a system for testing ideas and hypotheses, but also opportunities for people to generate ideas together through a variety of chat rooms, bulletin boards and dedicated forums. At RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland), the HR team are ensuring that the intellectual capital of the function is rapidly codified and shared across the function.

The third is social integration through collective bonds of performance, where the function has a clear sense of what it wants to achieve and the means by which it can be achieved. At Kraft Foods, the HR team have created a very clear ‘dashboard’ that enables them to collectively measure, describe and share the performance contracts they have been agreed with the business.
The fourth is emotional integration through a sense of shared identity and meaning. The capacity of the whole team to move into collective action through shared bonds of friendship and reciprocity. At BAT, every member of the HR team from across the world attends a two week meeting when they learn about the function, about the aims of the business, but more importantly, where they make lasting friendships.

So, there are many ways in which ‘Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again’…the challenge is to believe this is important, and then to move into action around each of the four elements of integration.

Lynda Gratton is Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School and is Programme Director of Executive Educations Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Organisations