European HR Association Launched to Help

The huge success of the HRO World Europe Conference in Brussels last November demonstrates HR transformation trends in Europe: more than 300 senior executives turned up in Europe's capital to explore how HR transformation is contributing to the organization's bottom line.

Although participants walked away very happy and promised to be back next year, while enjoying an after-event drink with the organizers we could not help asking ourselves what could have been done better.

Only one important aspect came to everybody's minds: why the average HR executive in a large corporation has such a hard time unfreezing to HR transformation and embracing at least the idea that HR can only gain from a different way to handle its processes?

MAKING MOVES TO HR TRANSFORMATION

Talking to the many HR executives at the conferences, it sounded like there is a notable reluctance and lack of confidence in making any moves to HR transformation, be it through internal shared services or centers of excellence, or be it through the even more disruptive choice of outsourcing to an external service provider.

The many positive case studies heard at conferences are not balanced by any horror stories, being very difficult to find an HR executive keen to disclose his/her journey from a badly run HR department to an even worse outsourcing deal. These disasters only come to the surface on the press, revealed by some other company department or by a very embarrassed service provider or consultant. So why is it so hard to get these HR executives to come and share their negative experiences with their peers at the main European event on these topics?

I'll leave any answers to this dilemma to your creative minds, but here is a solution for the time being: realizing the need for a reliable and continued forum to exchange experiences ('warts and all…') on HR transformation, the US-based HR Outsourcing Association and the global Shared Services and BPO Association (SBPOA) have teamed up to launch a European association, HROA Europe.

HROA EUROPE – 'HELPING HR TRANSFORM'

With "Helping HR Transform" as its mission, HROA Europe has the objective to help HR executives to make sense of the many options readily available today to transform HR processes, without getting lost in the maze of often confusing commercial offers or the hype of HR being force-fed.

How HROA Europe's founding members intend to achieve this ambitious goal? Let's hear what Andrew Kris, chairman of the advisory board of SBPOA (Shared Services and BPO Association, which will be merging its HR-related activities into HROA Europe), has to say: "The objective of HROA Europe is to provide independent, unbiased support for organizations transforming their human resources activities. It is clear that this can only be achieved if a large number of HR executives join forces. HROA Europe needs to represent the interests not only of those who have already started transforming their processes, but also of those who are just "sitting on the fence", perhaps wondering whether to go for an insourced model or to partner with one of the outsourcers. This is our first objective," continues Kris "to involve as many HR executives as possible not only from the UK, traditionally more open to transformation, but also from Germany, France, and Southern Europe, which are still lagging behind, at least in terms of number of transformation initiatives."

It is clear that the main industry players, represented by the top consultants, service providers and sourcing advisors, are actively involved and bring their experience and heavy weight competence to support this initiative, but HROA Europe does not want to become "the voice of the HR transformation industry" alone. As Andre Rampat, the appointed executive director of HROA Europe explains: "We cannot limit ourselves to simply promote the industry services. Out there a great need exists for balanced, neutral an objective information and research, for continued networking that goes beyond the traditional, and often stale, run-of-the-mill conferences organized by generalist event companies, for a connected group of HR specialists that with their experience and drive can really transform HR processes".

It sounds like a challenge that only SBPOA, the largest independent network of executives engaged in business transformation worldwide, and HROA, active in the US since 2002, could take on. Keep an eye on HROA Europe's website, become a member and, why not, get involved in one of the Association's activities. Not only it is a smart choice, but could be the tiny difference between transforming HR successfully or failing.