Articles

How Do HR Shared Services Leaders Maintain a Positive Mindset While Navigating Tough Changes?

The HR Shared Services Circle is a forum where senior HR leaders come together to share candid insights on today’s most pressing challenges.

In our February session, led by Amy Wang, Former Head of HR and HR & Payroll Shared Services, Americas at Mercedes-Benz North America, members explored how to stay steady through restructuring, uncertainty, and transformation without falling into “toxic positivity.”

Key Takeaways:

• Communicate under pressure - set clear expectations on what’s decided, what’s open, and when updates are coming to maintain trust
• Address change fatigue head-on - acknowledge the impact on adoption, service demand, and employee interactions with HR
• Use champions to drive adoption - local reinforcement and practical training reduce resistance when roles and expectations shift
• Protect leadership capacity - boundaries, routines, and peer support help leaders stay present and empathetic without burning out

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Our latest article explores what it takes for HR Shared Services leaders to integrate new teams, systems, and processes while still delivering accurate payroll, clear benefits, and a reliable employee experience.

In this article, Stacy Marshall, Director, HR Shared Service & Systems, People Analytics and HR Programs at Lifemark Health Group, shares how HR leaders can treat integration as a repeatable capability rather than a series of one-off projects. For HR leaders managing growth, transformation, or restructuring, the value is practical: it shows how to protect trust, reduce disruption, and scale with more consistency.

Key Takeaways:

• Communicate clearly during integration - employees need confidence in what is changing, what stays the same, and what happens next
• Protect trust at critical moments - payroll, benefits, onboarding, and access issues can quickly damage confidence
• Standardize with intention - create consistency where it matters most without flattening local culture
• Build repeatable integration models - clear ownership and structured processes reduce risk as growth accelerates

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Is your HR Shared Services AI strategy built on data you can defend?

AI has moved from a side topic to a standing agenda item, but "moving fast" only works when HR can stand behind the decisions AI informs. In this article, we break down key takeaways from an interview with Zundra Bryant, Senior Vice President, Global People Experiences and Services at Cushman & Wakefield and HR Shared Services & Outsourcing Week speaker, on what real AI readiness looks like for HR Shared Services: Trusted Data → Governed Demand → Defensible AI.

✅ Assess your people data foundation with clear ownership and simple quality metrics (completeness, timeliness, consistency)

✅ Put governance around AI and tool demand so you avoid sprawl, duplication, and wasted spend

✅ Filter use cases through enterprise impact so pilots don't outpace readiness

✅ Build an AI approach your organization can explain, audit, fund, and rely on

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Are your metrics keeping up with HR’s digital transformation?

As self-service becomes the default for HR delivery, it’s not enough to track volume - you need to measure value. This quick-hit worksheet breaks down the 5 essential KPIs you should be using in 2026 to evaluate and improve your HRSS model. Built from real use cases and powered by trends like automation, agentic AI, and self-service acceleration, this tool will help you:

✅ Benchmark performance across SLA compliance, CSAT, and digital maturity

✅ Align your KPIs with operational efficiency and employee experience

✅ Uncover gaps in your current reporting framework

✅ Start meaningful conversations with your leadership team

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The HR Shared Services Circle is an invite-only forum where senior HR leaders share candid insights on today’s most pressing challenges.

In our October session, hosted by Jen Swenson, Director, HR Shared Services at First Citizens Bank, members explored how to design operating models that scale without losing local nuance.

Key Takeaways

• Standardize before you automate - governance and SOPs unlock quality, speed, and future automation.
• Co-design change - involve HRBPs and front-line users early to reduce resistance and clarify roles.
• Prove value with a service catalog + metrics - guide intake, set SLAs, and share hours saved, CSAT, and resolution times.
• Globalize where it makes sense, localize where it matters - centralize repeatable work while keeping sensitive or regulated steps close to the region.
  

What if “employee first” is your fastest path to better service outcomes?

Putting employees first can sound counterintuitive in shared services, but at Cox Automotive, it’s operating logic. In this article, Tom Sterling (VP, People Solutions Operations) breaks down how a people-first model strengthens customer outcomes, reduces escalations, and builds trust that extends beyond the business. You’ll also get a practical playbook for making the “service-profit chain” measurable in HRSS, month by month.

✅ Build a testable EX → CX → outcomes chain (eNPS, manager index, well-being uptake → FCR, Customer Effort, CSAT/NPS → renewal/repeat revenue)

✅ Pressure-test your metrics: what to do when eNPS rises but Customer Effort stays flat

✅ Apply Cox’s HRSS playbook: benefits uptake as a leading indicator, performance + mobility standards, and continuous improvement that drives savings and quality

✅ Learn how manager behaviors become the multiplier for both employee experience and customer effort

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How First Citizens unified three service teams under one skills-based model

Designing a skills-based organization is not about a new chart or a new tool - it is about routing work by verified capabilities, reducing handoffs, and lifting quality where employees feel it most.

This concise guide distills how First Citizens combined three banks and stood up specialist pods with team leads - covering intake to resolution, cross-training in the flow, light proficiency signals, and the controls that keep sensitive processes safe. Use it to:

✅ Map a simple skills baseline per pod and set clear proficiency levels

✅ Turn on skills-based routing and cut avoidable escalations

✅ Launch a focused cross-training rota that pairs generalists with SMEs

✅ Track impact with a balanced scorecard of FCR, reopen rate, QA, and internal fill

How S&P Global balanced one experience with 44 sets of rules

Designing a global parental-leave journey isn’t about picking a tool - it’s about separating a consistent core from country-by-country nuance, then keeping both current.

This concise guide distills Tiffany Clark’s playbook for scaling parental leave across 44 countries - covering product mindset, configure-over-customize guardrails, knowledge in the flow, clear human handoffs, and what’s next with AI nudges. Use it to:

✅ Apply a simple model for global baseline + governed local addenda

✅ Reduce technical debt by favoring configuration and reusable patterns

✅ Embed guidance where work happens and cut avoidable tickets

✅ Set smart triage rules (e.g., “>3 exceptions = human”) and measure impact with time × volume + sentiment

What does the future of HR Shared Services look like? It’s already taking shape - and it doesn’t follow the old blueprint.

In this article, we explore how leading organizations are reengineering HR Shared Services with a bold focus on skills-based models, AI-powered delivery, and frontline-first design.

You’ll learn:

• Why companies like Unilever, GSK, and Sun Life are reorganizing work around skills - and the technologies powering that shift
• How HRSS teams are deploying generative AI to scale Tier 0 service, reduce resolution time, and elevate HR agent roles
• What it takes to design truly inclusive HR services for the 80% of workers who don’t sit at a desk - and the business impact that follows
• Where leading organizations are seeing measurable gains in efficiency, agility, retention, and EX scores

If you’re rethinking your HRSS strategy for 2025 and beyond, this article offers timely insight and practical takeaways from across the field.

Ever wish you could get inside the minds of other HR Shared Services leaders? Good news, we asked, and they answered. In our exclusive Q&A article, “5 HR Shared Services Executives on Current Priorities, Challenges, & What’s Next,” we sat down with senior HRSS leaders to uncover how they’re navigating today’s biggest shifts in HR operations.

Here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll learn:

• AJ Golden (Sr. Director, Global Payroll & HRSS, Edgewell Personal Care) on maximizing operational efficiency and enhancing teammate experience, even on a tight budget.
• Astrid Whitley (HR Director – HR Central) on building a culture of service excellence and where AI tools make the biggest impact.
• Tom Nesteruk (SVP HR/Associate Chief People Officer, AdventHealth) on end-to-end AI integration and delivering a consumer-grade employee experience.
• Max Dubroff (Sr. Manager of HR Solutions, Sandia National Labs) on why human connection still matters, and how bots can support it.
• Tom Sterling (VP, People Solutions Operations, Cox Automotive) on training “utility players,” and blending automation with human touch.

These HRSS leaders are tackling the same challenges you face — and they’re revealing the strategies, priorities, and lessons driving shared services forward in 2025. Request your copy here and we’ll email it straight to your inbox.