HR Operating Model
By Redaktion techport.ai, HR-Beratung · Last updated on
On the organisational chart, your HR Business Partners are strategic advisors to the business units. In their calendars, they are administrators with meeting appointments. The operating model lies between these two: the answer to the question of who does what in HR, through which channels employees and managers receive services, and which of these tasks are handled by a system.
The classic model with Business Partners, Centres of Expertise, and Shared Services is over twenty years old and was designed for large corporations. In mid-sized companies, it is often copied without the necessary prerequisites: enough volume for a service centre, enough maturity for genuine consulting, enough system support for self-service. The result is expensive job titles and unchanged work.
How you can tell
- Managers call the person they know, not the department responsible.
- Simple questions about holidays, certificates, or address changes tie up the most expensive staff.
- HR cannot say how many enquiries are received per month, let alone what kind.
- New tasks such as Entgelttransparenz (pay transparency) or AI governance land with whoever happens to be available.
Why this happens
An operating model rarely arises from a decision, mostly from growth. Every new task was assigned to a person, every new person brought their tasks with them. At some point, no one has an overall picture anymore. In addition, self-service does not work without good systems, and good systems cannot be implemented without clear processes. The operating model is therefore always a question of systems too.
Our approach
- Record service catalogue. We record what HR actually delivers, for whom, how often, and with what effort. Usually, there are sixty to eighty distinguishable services.
- Assign tiers. Each service receives a channel: self-service in the system, service desk with a knowledge base, specialist expert, strategic consulting. The rule of thumb: what can be standardised should not be handled by the people with the highest daily rates.
- Derive roles and capacities. This assignment shows which roles you need and how many. This is the moment when job titles and job descriptions become honest.
- Adjust systems. Self-service requires a portal, the service desk needs ticketing and a knowledge base, and consulting needs data. We will set this up or select with you what is missing.
What you gain from it
- The capacity for consulting is created without anyone being hired, because routine disappears from calendars.
- Managers know where to turn and receive reliable response times.
- New tasks have a home before they arise.
From our projects
When we record service catalogues, it almost always turns out that the most expensive HR roles spend more than half their time on processes that a portal could handle. The insight rarely surprises, but the scale often does. Our experience also shows that organisational restructuring initially does more harm than good: those who rename roles before routine is removed from calendars end up with strategists performing administrative tasks.
Frequently asked questions
Is an HR service desk worthwhile even for 300 employees?
Yes, if it is lean: a mailbox or ticket system, a knowledge base, clear response times. A dedicated service centre with a shift rota requires significantly more volume. The benefit comes from structure, not size.
Do we need to reorganise for this?
Not necessarily. Often, it is sufficient to reassign services and channels and to refine two or three roles. Organisational changes are a last resort, not the first.
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Further reading
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