Global VP for HR Shared Services
In replacing a retiring HR Shared Services leader, this was a chance to recalibrate the role to include additional scope, and to bring significant improvements to shared service operations which hadn’t achieved particularly high satisfaction ratings from stakeholders.
Remit challenges - With an anticipation of needing to reduce operating expenses within the organisation, the company executives planned to redirect additional workloads through to their shared services sites which were scattered across various continents. However the complexity of legislations being worked across and the demand for local tailoring, had meant that to this point, the shared services offering had been inconsistent and clunky - employees, management, vendors were waiting too long for output from the sites and didn’t feel they were receiving a tailored experience either - which was creating significant “negative noise” across the organisation. In addition, technology and process frameworks were long out of date, so shared services staff were clearly overworked, inefficient, and starting to disengage.
Hiring challenges - Finding shared services experts who can work beyond just process and policy adherence, and who can think creatively about new technology and service deployment innovation is always a challenge. Finding these people who had managed (or could assure on their ability to successfully scale up) to the size of budgets and multi market complexities of this particular role narrowed the talent pool further. Our execs needed to “buy” into someone who could prove a history of commercially sustainable ROI - significant additional funding for investment in training, staffing and infrastructure was always going to be needed if the shared services centres were ever going to keep up with company growth, and deliver to a world class standard.
We had a mid-range salary and package to work with, and limited time to hire given the deadlines for existing shared service project milestones. We were also working with a clear preference to secure a professional that could ultimately take on other CofE or VPHR roles within the organisation, which actually wasn’t so appealing to the many global shared services experts who were gainfully engaged on lucrative fixed term contracts.
Solution - 3 professionals were recommended by Carter Morris within just 16 weeks of starting this search. Protracted negotiations were avoided thanks to the pre package communications we had with the preferred candidates right from the outset of the selection process. The appointed professional has been confirmed as a high performance contributor to the global HR leadership team, customer satisfaction ratings lifted after just 6 months, and this person is being actively developed in other specialist fields of the HR function as part of the company’s commitment to her professional development.
or work with us on a role like this.