Embracing the hybrid talent model
The workforce is central to an organisation’s success. In an increasingly volatile world, businesses must respond quickly to client and internal needs with a limited set of resources, scaling capability and size to meet demand, all at an impeccable level of quality.
With the emergence of Shared Service Centres, Centres of Excellence, Outsourcing and Contingent Labour to complement employees working in global, multifunctional and remote environments, organisations have a wealth of options they can leverage to help solve this challenge. Driven by learnings from COVID-19 and subsequent world events, these models have adapted (and continue to evolve) to provide even greater value for the organisation and its customers.
Shared Service Centre (SSC) SSCs are centralised units or facilities that provide support services such as finance, IT, HR or procurement to multiple business units or functions within an organisation. The goal of an SSC is to optimise operations, reduce costs and improve service quality and consistency across the organisation.
Centre of Excellence (CoE) A team or entity that provides leadership, best practices, research, support and training for a service area to a whole organisation. A CoE can exist within a department or across multiple departments and its main purpose is to promote expertise, innovation and standardisation of processes and practices.
Outsourcing Contrary to SSCs, outsourcing involves the strategic use of external (third-party) resources to perform activities traditionally handled by internal staff and resources. Outsourcing can be used to leverage external expertise, reduce cost and complexity, improve efficiency or access specialised resources that may not be available in-house.
Workforce model A workforce model is a framework that outlines the composition and structure of an organisation's internal and external workforce, including skills, abilities and roles. The model helps organisations plan and optimise human resources to achieve business goals. It includes identifying the skills and competencies needed to fulfil objectives, determining the resources required and creating a structure for how they will be composed and operated. It is an important tool for organisations to align their human resources with their business strategy, ensure that they have the right people in the right roles and manage their workforce effectively.
Our Point of View Whether motivated by improving efficiency, creating new offerings, enhancing the customer and employee experience or driving strategic business outcomes, it is important to explore the benefits and limitations of these models and understand how they can be leveraged in combination to achieve strong, sustainable competitive advantage.
Interval has extensive experience and subject matter expertise in assessing, designing, implementing and optimising workforce operating models to suit individual client needs and objectives. If you are interested in finding out more about our workforce transformation or wider consulting services, reach out to us and we will be happy to set up some time with our experts.