HR shared services

Helps HR leaders design, launch, and govern HR shared services centers that consolidate transactional and administrative HR work across business units or countries.

Supported tasks

• Defining the scope of services for an HR shared services center
• Designing a shared services governance model (steering committee, SLAs, escalation)
• Building a business case for consolidating HR functions
• Designing cost allocation and chargeback models across business units
• Mapping which HR processes are candidates for centralization vs. local retention
• Designing multi-country/multi-language shared services operating models
• Building transition plans for migrating HR work into shared services
• Drafting shared services SLAs and KPIs
• Creating change management plans for shared services rollouts
• Designing shared services organization structures and staffing models
• Auditing shared services performance against cost and quality targets
• Drafting communications explaining the shared services model to business units

Key prompts

Scope and design

1. "Define the scope of services for an HR shared services center covering [functions]."
2. "Identify which HR processes are good candidates for centralization vs. local retention."
3. "Design a governance model with a steering committee for an HR shared services center."
4. "Build an organization structure and staffing model for a shared services center covering [employee population]."
5. "Design a multi-country shared services model accounting for [regions/languages]."

Business case and cost

1. "Build a business case for consolidating payroll and benefits administration into shared services."
2. "Design a cost allocation model to charge back shared services costs to business units."
3. "Estimate potential cost savings from centralizing [HR function]."
4. "Draft a comparison of in-house shared services vs. outsourced BPO for [function]."
5. "Create a KPI dashboard spec to track shared services cost-per-transaction."

Transition and change management

1. "Build a transition plan for migrating [HR function] into a shared services center."
2. "Draft a change management communication plan for business units affected by centralization."
3. "Create a stakeholder map for a shared services transformation project."
4. "Write an FAQ addressing business unit concerns about losing local HR support."
5. "Draft a post-transition review checklist to confirm the shared services center is performing as planned."

Tips

• Centralize high-volume, low-variation processes first; keep judgment-heavy work local longer.
• Build governance with clear escalation paths so business units aren't left without recourse.
• Communicate the "why" of centralization early; loss-of-local-control concerns are the biggest change risk.
• Track cost-per-transaction and quality metrics together, not cost savings alone.

Common mistakes

• Centralizing everything at once instead of phasing by process maturity and volume.
• Underestimating the change management effort needed to shift business units' expectations.
• Designing SLAs around the shared services center's convenience rather than business unit needs.
• Ignoring language, time zone, and local regulatory differences in multi-country models.