HR Q&A

GUEST EXPERT - Louis Hua: What are some of the challenges for organisations thinking about implementing an HR Shared Services structure in the Banking and Financial Services world?

Answer:

Louis Hua
Operations Strategy Head SVP, Asia Pacific Japan
Citi Employee Services
Based in Singapore

Firstly, one must be in a position to successfully handle organisational change. Globally, the approach and implementation should be top-down. HR Leaders and top executives will need to understand that every region will have its own complexities, such as with compliance to local HR and data regulations, language capabilities, and the set-up of legal vehicles and entities. So they must be prepared to support and understand that it's almost impossible to achieve the ideal of standardising processes across the globe, and there cannot be one shared services centre that can support services universally. However, the principles and types of services may remain the same, so the model of the shared services is absolutely critical. The set-up period takes an estimated time frame of about 1 to 4 years depending on the size and complexity of the region and organisation.

Secondly, there's the subject of mindset change, as existing HR employees may themselves be nervous about such large structural changes. HR leaders should therefore prepare their HR business partners to recognise that the shared services team is their working partner, and that the primary reason for its existence is to centralise transactional duties to achieve cost efficiency. The secondary reason is to relieve them from these activities so that they can provide more focus and act as advisors to their business.

And finally, it comes down to a matter of resources. It will be a constant challenge to hire the right candidate for any HR Shared Services role, as requirements change over time. At the initial set-up stage, you will require a team that has project management experience, with strong analytical and process skills coupled with regional knowledge. Subsequently, depending on the set-up model, the team skill-set may shift towards strong customer relationship management coupled with advisory and execution skills. Talent retention can also be a significant longer-term challenge in this post-setup phase, as these roles may be mundane and repetitive. So thought must be put into the correct strategy for talent pipeline management.

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