HR Front Office Future

The current HR Organization will have to be reviewed in the future. The HR Director is lost in the difficult relationships his/her subordinates build internally and externally and the chance to manage the relationships does not exist at all. The HR Front Office coordination is difficult and the management of the customer expectation is a mission impossible in some organizations. The HR Model of David Ulrich was built for the ideal world and cooperative organizations, not for the management fighting for its staff.

The HR Management will have to shape the role of the HR Front Office as it does not build a network of high expectations, which are not aligned with the overall HR Strategy. The HR Front Office responsibility to make the promises has to be limited and the responsibility to approve has to be taken out of the HR Front Office as the HR Director has the right to decide.

The role of the HR Front Office will be redefined and it will be the modern trend for the improvement of provided HR services. The change of the role and scope of the HR Front Office will definitely bring a short term decrease of satisfaction of the HR Front Office employees and their customers, but in the long term view it will bring huge benefits to managers and HR Team.

The current model of the HR Front Office, which tries to bring the best custom made solution to the manager, will be changed to the model managed by the HR Management Team with a defined set of HR Services and processes, which are in the offer. The HR Front Office employees will not offer everything (possible or impossible), they will make a selection from the menu and they will be able to agree on the timing of the delivery as the HR Back Office will guarantee some basic durations.

The idea of the independent HR Front Office is excellent, but the HR Front Office has to live in the frame of Human Resources, not in the environment of their internal customer. The customer can have a lot of wishes, the HR Front Office has to align the wishes with the reality and the HR Strategy. It will be the trend of the near future as the current HR Front Office model does not work in many organizations.