MCA Awards 2003
Winner: Human Resources Category
PA Consulting Group; client - Barclays
During the 1990s, decentralisation was often deemed to be an essential for business managers. It's easy to see why; there was no easy internet technology to link everyone together regardless of their disparate locations and even mobile phones were few in number. By the start of the millennium a lot of the geographical barriers between managers and their employees had faded away and it became possible to take advantage of the economies of centralisation without losing any of the availability of information and immediacy of contact for staff.
In 2000 Barclays Bank came to the decision that it needed to overhaul its decentralised HR function. This was spurred by measures introduced by new CEO Matt Barrett, for strategic flexibility, improved control and cost containment. PA Consulting Group was commissioned to assist with the design and implementation of this major change.
The ensuing project lasted 18 months. Malcolm Hill, HR shared service director at Barclays, comments that this was made manageable by getting the brief right in the first instance. "The nature of the relationship we had with PA Consulting was a partnership, with Barclays driving the change through. Jonathon Hogg, the member of PA's management group responsible for the project, agrees. "PA integrated itself successfully. It was a joint achievement but throughout, Barclays retained ownership of the change."
Following a period of consultation, at the heart of the solution confirmed by Barclays was an in-house HR shared service centre (SSC). It was to enable the bank's employees to be a call away from HR advice and give line managers access to more consistent, high quality HR advice and answers to both simple and complex HR queries. There was little UK precedent for an HR shared service centre of this size or complexity, so this was an exploration for both parties in devising a high level organisational design for the HR function that would have Shared Services and SAP implemented in parallel.
The first stage was to map the new structure and processes out as a blueprint for the new operational HR model. Written in near- layman's terms, this blueprint was the road map to ensure people bought into the new structure and for getting the bulk of the work started. The project was structured around five workstreams: developing an operational design, preparing business readiness, formulating a new office environment, realising an integrated customer, work and management system and managing programme implementation.
Mr Hogg explains that it was essential to get the stakeholders within the business to buy into the changes that were about to happen. Balancing the needs of the project against the day-to-day issues and needs raised by the stakeholders was one of the main challenges for this groundbreaking project. Buy-in from employees and line managers across the retail and corporate banking operations plus Barclaycard and other areas was vital, and no business interruption could be tolerated.
On completion of the project, all HR administration, contact with employees, and HR advice, was centralised to the SSC. Barclays had re- engineered its core HR processes, such as employee relations advice and resignation, and automated many of the high volume processes that were based around the employee lifecycle events.
While the technical questions raised by the creation of the SSC were complex, the principal issues required a new focus on the customer, with close attention to their needs at all times. The notion of "customer" was flexible; it could mean an employee with a query about pay, a line manager wanting input on disciplinary issues and much else besides. Barclays chose telephony as its delivery system and the SSC was designed to mirror the experience of well-run external contact centres.
The design and implementation involved six consultants from PA over 18 months working flexibly to meet skills needs - so that anything from one to three consultants were engaged at any one time.
The benefits have been considerable. The SSC exceeded its target of a 44% reduction in head count by the end of 2002 which not only illustrates the cost savings involved, but is a whole year ahead of schedule. Line managers can get the input they need more easily than before. Staff feedback is good because they are dealing directly with HR rather than filling in forms. The working shifts and environment have also been changed so that the SSC can cover the company for more hours than before. Finally, professional outsourcers are impressed by the SSC and Barclays' Mr Hill has been invited to speak at international conferences about Barclays' achievements.
There is much to be learned from any remodelling of businesses on this sort of scale. Mr Hill believes it went well because parameters were established at the outset. "Once you've got shared focus and achieved sponsorship at the right levels it becomes achievable," he says.
