Yum! Inc repositions HR at the heart of its global operations
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390780001008 |
| Pages | 10-11 |
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Author | Cornelius Colao |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
10 Volume 6 Issue 6 September/October 2007
HR AT WORK
,
Short case studies that demonstrate best practice in HR
Yum! Inc repositions HR at the
heart of its global operations
N
ot long ago, the HR profession
had a dramatic choice to make:
stay the same and risk drifting
into irrelevancy, or change and become
one of the most critical roles in any
organization. Since it was sink or swim,
the answer was clear – change. How to
make this happen, however,was a much
harder call.
This was the quandary facing HR at
Yum! Inc, the world’slargest restaurant
company.The corporation is made up of
several major restaurant brands,
including A&W,KFC, Long John Silvers,
Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, and has over
34,000 restaurants in 100 countries. The
HR functions among them had a loose
reporting relationship. Although they
were intellectually aligned regarding HR
roles, the roles varied significantly across
entities. HR’squestion for corporate was:
“What role do you want us to play?”
Asking the right questions
Cornelius “Connie” Colao, chief people
officer at Taco Bell, is a longtime
veteran of HR. He has a powerful
network of HR colleagues from other
industries, and at a meeting held near
the end of 2005 he and his colleagues
discussed the transforming role of HR in
their businesses. The questions this
group had weredifferent from those
Colao heard at Taco Bell and Yum!:
“What does our company need from us,
and how do we have to change to fulfill
those needs?” Colao brought these
questions back to his HR colleagues at
Yum!. By doing so, he hoped to help
people look for the root cause of issues,
rather that just fix the symptoms, and to
put into effect a change of mindset
from being reactive to being proactive.
Tohelp answer these questions, Colao
turned to Root Learning, a strategic
engagement company that helps
companies of all sizes in matters of
organizational change. HR wanted to
get an assessment of its current state
from the viewpoint of the HR
practitioners and from HR partners in
the various regions. In February 2006,
the Root team conducted one-on-one
interviews with some of the top 140 HR
leaders and line managers at Yum! on
the existing state of HR in order to
create an accurate pictureof current
realities. The interviews offered a real
opportunity to see how HR could add
value to the business, and they helped
capture the reality that would blend the
perspectives of the HR practitioners and
partners in order to get at the truth.
Aclear view of the present and future
One of Root Learning’stenets is:
“Transformation occurs much more
naturally if we have an honest
assessment of wherewe areand a clear
pictureof wherewe want to go.” It was
critical to create the tension to change
and, to this end, Root created a sketch
that metaphorically illustrated what HR
was experiencing in its existing form.
Because at the front line HR can get
dragged into reacting to the day-to-day
tasks and not have time to do the real
HR work, the sketch showed the HR
function as a team of firefighters,
putting out daily fires but never seeing
the big pictureor finding ways to keep
the fires from starting.
Colao says that this exercise of
creating the “current state” picture was
agreat way to get everyone on the
same page. Although some in the group
initially felt the picture was too severe, a
few weeks later they agreed that it was
more realistic than they had thought.
Root then crafted a model of the
“futurestate” to show how HR could
add the greatest value. This model was
created in conjunction with Colao,
Anne P.Byerlein, who is chief people
officer of Yum! Brands, and the Yum!
HR leadership team, which is comprised
of chief people officers and key HR
specialists. While the current state
picture showed HR as a fire
department, the future state picture
Yum! Inc is based in Louisville,Kentucky
and has 34,000 restaurants in 100
countries. Its portfolio of brands includes
A&W, KFC,Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut and
Taco Bell. In 2005,Yum! generated US$9
billion in revenue.
YUM! INC
Cornelius “Connie” Colao, chief people officer at Taco Bell, outlines the steps taken at Yum! Inc to transform
its HR function on a global scale so that it was placed at the heart of the business.
© Melcrum publishing 2007.For more information visit our website www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com
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