How to Design HR Organization Structure

The HR Departments are usually small functions in organizations. It makes the design of the HR Organizational Structure even more difficult. The jobs in the structure have to be meaningful and the reporting lines have to be clear. The structure has to keep the consistent career path for HR employees.

The design of the organizational structure has a significant influence on the motivation of employees in the HR Department. The jobs created within the structure have to be meaningful. It means that the roles and responsibilities of the job positions are clearly defined and there are no overlaps with other jobs in the HR Function.

The common mistake is in designing the organizational structure around employees. The structure has to be designed around the HR Model. The jobs have to be designed using the roles and responsibilities of different units in HR. Designing the organizational structure around employees is dangerous as it does not utilize the power of the HR Model. It just uses the know how and skills of the best employees in HR.

The outcomes have to be defined for each job in the structure. If the team has difficulties to define outcomes of the job, it should cancel such a job position. The key responsibilities for the job have to be designed and the measurement for outcomes assigned to each key responsibility.

How to Design HR Organization Structure and what needs to be considered and evaluated like HR Processes, Jobs, HR Model and Strategy

The basic assumption for the effective HR Organizational Structure is the proper definition of all required job profiles including inputs and outputs and key responsibilities of the job position. This approach allows to group similar job profiles into one logical unit. No job profile is forgotten.

The management team has to be able to create the natural career paths for HR employees. The structure with no career opportunities for best employees results in the loss of key talents. The structure cannot be build around employees, but employees have to see the opportunity to move in the organizational structure.

The modern and competitive HR Management is based on the internal development of HR know how. The HR Development is extremely difficult. The organizational structure must support the growth of employees. They have to see the next job opportunity inside the current HR Structure. Otherwise, they will look at the job market.

The organizational structure has to follow the decision making reporting lines in Human Resources. Employees cannot be pushed to ask several managers for the approval. They have to be accountable for decisions and the only one supervisor can be leading them. The number of managers has to be kept at lowest possible optimum. The span of control has to be comparable with the rest of the organization. Many HR Departments have less employees per manager than other departments in the organization.

The organizational structure has to be designed as it protects employees and managers agains overloading. Many structures have the unique job profiles with many responsibilities and decision rights. These roles have to be divided into separate roles and other job profiles have to be strengthened. Most HR Departments have enough employees, but they have insufficiencies in the proper design of key responsibilities and job roles.

HR Organization Structure Section Content

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