As transactional work gets outsourced, what happens to traditional HR jobs?
In the 10 years Valerie Lockhart has worked in human resources, her career has followed the same circuitous course that characterizes many HR careers.
From a start at reception at Hamilton Health Sciences’ HR department, she moved into compensation and benefits. She then switched to employee labour relations, a move followed by a stint as a generalist providing strategic support to a business unit. Then she bounced back to compensation. Through all that, Lockhart still felt there was much to learn about the business of providing HR.
Last November, Lockhart, along with about 70 of her colleagues in HR at Hamilton Health Sciences, found themselves working for a new employer — a business process outsource company providing HR services. And rather than feeling pessimistic about being part of a transactional HR workforce consumed with “administrivia,” the move, in Lockhart’s view, has opened up a new future.
“The exciting thing from my perspective is this type of partnership and this type of business process outsourcing (BPO) has provided me with so many career opportunities that I never thought would be available,” said Lockhart, now contract manager at Telus Sourcing Solutions. For one thing, the “tools of the trade” are more sophisticated, said Lockhart, pointing to the state-of-the-art PeopleSoft system she now uses.
As part of the $137-million deal with Telus Sourcing Solutions, the network of seven hospitals in Hamilton outsourced all of its HR to Telus. Telus also acquired 73 HR employees from Hamilton Health Sciences as part of the agreement, leaving behind labour relations, employee relations and strategic HR staff.
As a contract manager, Lockhart sees herself learning about business development, customer management, customer service, “all of those things that are so important at a senior level.”
Lockhart’s optimism stands in contrast with the feelings expressed by a sizeable share of HR professionals surveyed by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in the United Kingdom. Of the 1,800 people surveyed in the 2005 report, HR: Where Is Your Career Heading?, four in 10 said HR outsourcing had a negative impact on HR careers, and only 16 per cent felt HR call centres and shared services offered good career opportunities.
But according to Larry Morden, general manager of Telus Sourcing Solutions, Ontario, the future is bright for HR professionals in BPOs. In an internal HR department, many HR practitioners play only a supportive function. As a result, they’re all too often targeted in times of budget constraints. Career options and development opportunities for HR practitioners in such environments also tend to be limited, he said.
He acknowledged, though, that as the outsourcing business matures, not all the HR staff at acquired departments will be absorbed into the BPO. And not everyone who’s absorbed will have the same opportunities to get involved in such challenging jobs as business development.
Heather Turnbull-Smith, director of national learning and development at Ceridian, a Winnipeg-based firm that provides HR services, agrees with Morden that in-house HR jobs can be limiting. As part of an HR department supporting the line functions, an HR professional may get exposure to different aspects of HR, “but you’re always going to be the black sheep of the family because you’re not the organization’s core competency.”
At Ceridian, said Turnbull-Smith, HR professionals may start out dealing with “very tactical questions” from employees of customers, but that’s where they get exposure to the different areas of expertise as well as different work environments.
Once they’ve identified an area of expertise they want to develop, “we would develop them, give them appropriate training, first making sure that they’re a good fit,” said Turnbull-Smith.
The development may take the form of a coach or a mentor relationship, in which the HR person gains more and more responsibility within a function. If the person is really motivated to hone the expertise further, she might look at becoming a business partner, which means working with “senior levels at organizations to understand business needs and how they translate into human capital needs,” said Turnbull-Smith.
Supporters of HR outsourcing often point to the advantages of unloading “transactional” activities to an external provider, thereby freeing up time for strategic work. What happens then to the career paths of people working in transactional jobs?
A glimpse of an answer may be found at ADP Canada, a provider of payroll services, commonly seen as the most transactional of all HR jobs. Vice-president of human resources Denise Hayes said a strong emphasis on promoting from within means front-line employees are encouraged to pursue growth opportunities. The natural progression for these service representatives would be to go into management and then up the leadership chain. Or, if they’re interested in lateral moves, they may go from client service in one market segment into more complex jobs handling national or major accounts.
“And we’ve had a lot of people moving from client services into technology or into sales. There’s a lot of movement at any given time,” said Hayes.
In terms of HR-related projects, client service representatives may occasionally work on special projects. If there’s a product upgrade, someone on the line may be pulled out to work on the communication or the change process around the upgrade.
But because there are so many people working on the line, said Hayes, such opportunities have to be given out on a rotating basis to those who have the necessary skills. In contrast, the internal HR team working under Hayes to provide HR support to ADP employees receives many more such opportunities to work on projects, design programs and come up with solutions.
So in terms of exposure to the various HR projects and functions that would prime someone to deliver strategic human capital solutions later on, Hayes acknowledged that a person would be better placed working in an internal HR department.
“People who want to pursue a pure HR career, when they join our organization, they will often try for a position in my department.” Even in a BPO environment, a stint at the internal department is still crucial, “if they want to be a true HR practitioner,” said Hayes.
From a start at reception at Hamilton Health Sciences’ HR department, she moved into compensation and benefits. She then switched to employee labour relations, a move followed by a stint as a generalist providing strategic support to a business unit. Then she bounced back to compensation. Through all that, Lockhart still felt there was much to learn about the business of providing HR.
Last November, Lockhart, along with about 70 of her colleagues in HR at Hamilton Health Sciences, found themselves working for a new employer — a business process outsource company providing HR services. And rather than feeling pessimistic about being part of a transactional HR workforce consumed with “administrivia,” the move, in Lockhart’s view, has opened up a new future.
“The exciting thing from my perspective is this type of partnership and this type of business process outsourcing (BPO) has provided me with so many career opportunities that I never thought would be available,” said Lockhart, now contract manager at Telus Sourcing Solutions. For one thing, the “tools of the trade” are more sophisticated, said Lockhart, pointing to the state-of-the-art PeopleSoft system she now uses.
As part of the $137-million deal with Telus Sourcing Solutions, the network of seven hospitals in Hamilton outsourced all of its HR to Telus. Telus also acquired 73 HR employees from Hamilton Health Sciences as part of the agreement, leaving behind labour relations, employee relations and strategic HR staff.
As a contract manager, Lockhart sees herself learning about business development, customer management, customer service, “all of those things that are so important at a senior level.”
Lockhart’s optimism stands in contrast with the feelings expressed by a sizeable share of HR professionals surveyed by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in the United Kingdom. Of the 1,800 people surveyed in the 2005 report, HR: Where Is Your Career Heading?, four in 10 said HR outsourcing had a negative impact on HR careers, and only 16 per cent felt HR call centres and shared services offered good career opportunities.
But according to Larry Morden, general manager of Telus Sourcing Solutions, Ontario, the future is bright for HR professionals in BPOs. In an internal HR department, many HR practitioners play only a supportive function. As a result, they’re all too often targeted in times of budget constraints. Career options and development opportunities for HR practitioners in such environments also tend to be limited, he said.
He acknowledged, though, that as the outsourcing business matures, not all the HR staff at acquired departments will be absorbed into the BPO. And not everyone who’s absorbed will have the same opportunities to get involved in such challenging jobs as business development.
Heather Turnbull-Smith, director of national learning and development at Ceridian, a Winnipeg-based firm that provides HR services, agrees with Morden that in-house HR jobs can be limiting. As part of an HR department supporting the line functions, an HR professional may get exposure to different aspects of HR, “but you’re always going to be the black sheep of the family because you’re not the organization’s core competency.”
At Ceridian, said Turnbull-Smith, HR professionals may start out dealing with “very tactical questions” from employees of customers, but that’s where they get exposure to the different areas of expertise as well as different work environments.
Once they’ve identified an area of expertise they want to develop, “we would develop them, give them appropriate training, first making sure that they’re a good fit,” said Turnbull-Smith.
The development may take the form of a coach or a mentor relationship, in which the HR person gains more and more responsibility within a function. If the person is really motivated to hone the expertise further, she might look at becoming a business partner, which means working with “senior levels at organizations to understand business needs and how they translate into human capital needs,” said Turnbull-Smith.
Supporters of HR outsourcing often point to the advantages of unloading “transactional” activities to an external provider, thereby freeing up time for strategic work. What happens then to the career paths of people working in transactional jobs?
A glimpse of an answer may be found at ADP Canada, a provider of payroll services, commonly seen as the most transactional of all HR jobs. Vice-president of human resources Denise Hayes said a strong emphasis on promoting from within means front-line employees are encouraged to pursue growth opportunities. The natural progression for these service representatives would be to go into management and then up the leadership chain. Or, if they’re interested in lateral moves, they may go from client service in one market segment into more complex jobs handling national or major accounts.
“And we’ve had a lot of people moving from client services into technology or into sales. There’s a lot of movement at any given time,” said Hayes.
In terms of HR-related projects, client service representatives may occasionally work on special projects. If there’s a product upgrade, someone on the line may be pulled out to work on the communication or the change process around the upgrade.
But because there are so many people working on the line, said Hayes, such opportunities have to be given out on a rotating basis to those who have the necessary skills. In contrast, the internal HR team working under Hayes to provide HR support to ADP employees receives many more such opportunities to work on projects, design programs and come up with solutions.
So in terms of exposure to the various HR projects and functions that would prime someone to deliver strategic human capital solutions later on, Hayes acknowledged that a person would be better placed working in an internal HR department.
“People who want to pursue a pure HR career, when they join our organization, they will often try for a position in my department.” Even in a BPO environment, a stint at the internal department is still crucial, “if they want to be a true HR practitioner,” said Hayes.
