The essential HR architecture

What is the key to the delivery of an integrated Talent Management service to the customer groups of HR?

Most businesses today have a good articulated human capital strategy today, but they cannot deliver on it due to shortcomings with HR structure, HR people, HR processes and HR technology. This is the domain of architecture and the key performance area for the HR Architect.

Systemic thinking, complexity and integration are important concepts for the HR architect and HR practitioners must endeavour to try to master the fundamentals of these concepts and how they affect our current thinking on the HR organisation.


The concept of information as it relates to HR services is a connection we need to understand:

• The nature of customer services is integrated information - if you think about it, it is either statistics, trend analysis based on statistics, reports such as those presented to the Department of Labour, advice based on information, certain  results based on predetermined and configured analytics, etc.
• The quality of customer services is measured against its consistency and reliability. Consistency is the regularity with which the services are rendered, and the availability or the easy and effortless access available to the particular service. 
• Reliability is the measure of the relevancy of the service provided to the problem or need at hand, specifically to what extent the service has solved the specific problem that the customer had.
• Therefore to ensure quality of HR service delivery, the HR organisation's quest for integrated information across all its operations becomes extremely important as the basis for its professional service delivery to business.
• All customer groups of HR - including the HR teams themselves - demand the same integrated information from the HR organisation, and their demand is very specific - the service must be delivered with consistency and must be reliable!
• In IT language, we talk of data integrity - the measure of the "cleanliness" of the data we work with in the information system. When the data captured into the system is done by not following specific data conventions (rules/standards), or the master data records are not adequately maintained and distributed, then the integrity of the data is questionable, and if that is the case, there is a negative impact on the quality of the integrated information, and subsequently also on the quality of HR services.
• Whatever the HR activity in context of HR transactional services or Talent Management services, care should be taken to make sure that there are representative data sets that are captured and completed in the information system as the material basis of HR service deliver.

The concept of Business Process Management (BPM) in context of information and HR service delivery is another link we need to explore:

• My favourite mantra when talking on BPM is as follows: "People work in processes delivering customer services using applications" - to make this statement more relevant to HR, it looks like this: "HR People work in HR processes delivering HR customer services using HR applications".
• One of the central ideas in the above-mentioned statement is that it is all about PEOPLE and their work processes, not the other way round. HR people need to be empowered with the responsibility and accountability to redesign their own work processes (according to predetermined design standards). 
• Substantial positive change effects and "buy-in" are gained when HR teams are intimately involved with the redesign of their work.
• There are volumes and volumes written on the concept of Business Process Management. For HR, it is an area that is neglected as a key knowledge and skills area. In order for HR service delivery to be designed, build and delivered professionally, adoption to the BPM concept is not an option any more.
• A Business Process could be described as a (logical) sequence of activities. From a service delivery perspective, a business process delivers specifically identified (and agreed-to) customer results. 
• There could be a number of "internal" customers as part of a process, and there should be external customers identified with a number of deliverables or customer results per individual process delivered. Should internal or external customer groups and customer results not be identified, then we cannot readily talk of a business process.
• From an information perspective, well designed and documented business processes are vital "channels" or vehicles for the capturing of data. It is when HR business processes are executed, in sequence, that data according to certain rules are captured, maintained and distributed. It follows then that where HR business processes across the people value chain do not exist, or if those that do exist are poorly designed and executed, the existence of validated HR data and information will be highly unlikely.
• The integration between the HR business processes and the enabling HR computerised information system(s) or applications is crucial as it provides the worker (the HR process worker) with an integrated work design where the specific HR business process guides the execution of the task activities whilst the worker is using the HR information system at the specific interface points. (The lack of integration between the business process layer and the applications layer in the architecture is more than often responsible for the lack in data integrity and misuse of the system!).
•  The business process layer is where all dimensions of the architecture come together because it is where people work.

The connection to, and influence of HR applications on the quality of HR data & information, HR business processes and therefore on HR service delivery are likewise important concepts to understand:

• The "best-of-breed" HR applications are modular, but fully integrated information systems such as SAP and Oracle (Peoplesoft). These types of applications have been developed to ensure that data are created, combined and integrated across the comprehensive people value chain that contains all the HR business processes.
• Pre-programmed and integrated HR applications provide the best possible enablement for all the HR services via business processes to the business as it enhances the adoption to standardisation functionality. In contrast, when the HR information system landscape consists of disparate (unrelated or different) applications, HR will experience a lack of integration on the system, data and process layers in the architecture, as well as spend a significant amount of money, time and energy on ensuring systems interface and alignment of data.
• During the business blueprint phase, the HR information system is "designed" - please note: not developed or programmed (in the case of SAP and Oracle) - and this is the most important phase of an implementation project as the final approved design or prototype will be carried forward during the subsequent phases of the implementation project, and finally becoming the reality when the system is live.
• When using well designed HR business processes for the basis of the business blueprint, a substantial and significant milestone have been achieved as integration between HR data and information, HR business processes and the functionalities of the application will be guaranteed.
• The mere existence of HR business processes and an integrated HR application does not mean that an integrated HR organisation is operational. The objective of following an architecture approach is to ensure that at the level of design, all components or layers of the architecture are integrated.