Learn From Leading International Organizations

Discover how leading organizations have successfully transformed the HR function to have an increased involvement and contribution in shaping corporate strategy. Below are abstracts from just a few of the leading organizations specially researched for this new report.

The UK and Ireland division of US-owned employment services group Kelly Services has taken a pro-active stance on upcoming European legislation that will require agencies hiring out temporary staff to fully employ them. The senior executive team sees this as an opportunity not a threat, a chance to upgrade and expand the service the company provides to its clients. This is an HR-led strategy championed by HR director Darren Cox who has expanded the function six-fold to enable Kelly to fully integrate a temporary workforce 20 times as numerous as their core staff. But he doesn’t see this as empire-building. Rather, he and his HR colleagues relish the opportunity to become an integral part of Kelly’s commercial proposition and full members of the sales and client service team.

Does the strategic credibility of an effective HR function derive from the standing of the function itself or the individual leading it? Mike Lewis, head of strategic human resources at the Allied Irish Bank (AIB), drew on his own line management and consultancy experience to re-establish the authority of a discredited department. But after seven years of embedding HR in every level of AIB, he is confident that it can stand on its own two feet. Critical to this process has been the introduction of new non-financial measures to balance a focus on short-term business results and establishing an open meritocracy that ensures that all management appointments are transparent and systematic.

When France Telecom acquired mobile telecom innovator Orange from its rivals Vodafone in June 2000, the idea was that it would be a standalone merger: no integration, no rationalization and Orange’s existing management team would remain intact. A year later, in an attempt to reduce its debt mountain, France Telecom thought again. But the resulting cross-fertilization of resources and values, far from marginalizing its operations, has transformed Orange’s group HR function into the engine not only of its own company’s salvation but that of its parent corporation as well. Orange’s group HR strategy director Alison Speak demonstrates why.

The launch next year of the Government’s Child Trust Fund marks a new peak in the fortunes of The Children’s Mutual, the newly-branded company that was formerly The Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society. Nobody has done more to develop the concept of tax-friendly savings for the family than The Children’s Mutual. Its influence in this field belies its size: the company only employs 180 people. David Borner, fresh from a strategic personnel role at the Woolwich, was appointed Head of HR to revolutionize the people strategy. His progress in just twelve months has been astonishing but, ironically, the very Treasury initiative that will most boost the company’s standing may also de-rail Borner’s pioneering good practice.

Additional case studies include:

• Marks & Spencer
• Hong Kong Government
• British Telecom
• ITNET
• Shell Oil