Avaya’s journey to global HR shared service: Moving from localized HR services to a global shared service model

Pages20-23
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/14754390580000590
Date01 January 2005
Published date01 January 2005
AuthorMichael Donelly
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour
20 Volume 4 Issue 2 January/February 2005
UST FOUR YEARS SINCE birth, Avaya,
created as a spin-off of Lucent, is now a global
leader in business communications software,
solutions and services. It employs 15,000 people
globally and is recognized as a world leader in the use
of innovative technology. It has also become a model
for managing the provision of HR services to a far-
flung and diverse global workforce.
In 2002, Avaya recognized a need to enhance and
integrate its global HR model in order to more
effectively manage its disparate workforce (it has
employees in 52 countries) and both improve and
quantify the strategic value of HR. Given the business
Avaya is in where its primary core competency is
customer relationship management it may have
seemed likely that if any company could undertake a
global HR management program such as this on its
own, Avaya could. But this meant creating a potentially
larger HR organization than was appropriate for the
new company. To make the new model work, Avaya
had to find a partner for which managing a full range of
HR Business Process Outsourcing services was, in fact, a
core competency.
This article describes how, working in partnership
with Convergys, Avaya has implemented an
international network of shared service centers. These
have cut costs, improved the speed and accuracy of
employee transactions and helped turn previously
disparate and unusable data into business intelligence.
Workforce agility in the global economy
Faced with increased global competition and a raft of
changing laws, regulations and market forces, more
companies are realizing that their workforce is a source
of competitive advantage and their success, indeed their
survival, is tied to whether they are able to mobilize
their workforce to meet these demands with speed,
precision and agility. According to the findings of a
recent study conducted by
Saratoga/PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Dr. Richard
W. Beatty of the University of Michigan1, the keys to
this workforce agility include:
gaining access to actionable workforce data;
using business intelligence drawn from that data;
aligning workforce strategy with business strategy;
delivering HR services effectively and efficiently; and
ensuring that HR systems arent impeded by
traditional geographic and company boundaries.
According to the study, without sufficient workforce
agility, companies overspend significantly on
workforce-related costs, including compensation and
benefits, turnover and excessive headcount. Moreover,
they underperform due to factors such as poor job
performance and poor morale, often the result of
inadequate handling of employee transactions.
Avaya wanted to increase its workforce agility and
J
by Michael Donelly
Convergys
Avayas
journey to
global HR
shared service
In 2002, Avaya realized the need to move to a global,
rather than local, approach to providing its HR
services. Here, Michael Donnelly explains how, in
partnership with Convergys, it implemented a network
of global shared service centers to cut costs, improve
speed and accuracy, and turn previously unusable data
into actionable business intelligence.
Moving from localized HR services to
a global shared service model
© Melcrum Publishing Ltd. 2005. For more information, go to www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com

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