TY  - CHAP
AB  - Purpose This chapter seeks to optimize HR shared services performance by highlighting the potential for service fragmentation that can arise out of in the so-called Ulrich (structure or service delivery) model.Design/methodology/approach The evidence used in this chapter principally comes from the author’s own work, especially research for the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), and draws upon academic literature where possible.Findings This chapter argues that HR directors should guard against three sets of fragmentation risks. Firstly, HR shared services should be properly connected to the rest of HR to offer customers an integrated service to avoid the structure’s division of labor inducing incoherence. Second, to guard against this risk, HR directors should exercise care in outsourcing/offshoring beyond individual, discrete services because contractually or spatially separating services risks exacerbating this tendency to fragmentation. Outsourcing/offshoring may focus too much on cost savings and insufficiently on quality. So, third, HR should argue for the distinctiveness of its activities and fight commoditization that is also implied in the creation of cross-functional shared service centers.Research limitations/implications The arguments in this chapter could be better supported by academic research. In-depth case studies of management decision making and shared services operation would help support or challenge the chapter’s conclusion, as could quantitative evidence on the benefits/disbenefits of outsourcing/offshoring/cross-functional shared services centers.Practical implications We have highlighted a number of reported problems with HR shared services operation, besides the three principal risks noted above, but we have suggested possible solutions that could be adopted by practitioners.Originality/value HR managers may find this chapter helpful in designing new HR structures or in assessing the effectiveness of shared services that goes beyond the typical key performance indicator measures.
VL  - 13
SN  - 978-1-78350-536-4, 978-1-78350-535-7/1877-6361
DO  - 10.1108/S1877-636120140000013002
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/S1877-636120140000013002
AU  - Reilly Peter
PY  - 2014
Y1  - 2014/01/01
TI  - Managing Boundaries Better: The Key to More Effective HR Shared Services
T2  - Shared Services as a New Organizational Form
T3  - Advanced Series in Management
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 17
EP  - 38
Y2  - 2024/04/24
ER  -