HR Target Interaction Model: Unlocking the employee experience  

Worldwide trends have elevated the importance of satisfying the workforce. The pandemic accelerated the adoption of new technologies and flexible ways of working. Talent shortages drive a race to reskill. Employees expect support to be physically and mentally healthy, with work/life balance and free time. A new premium has been placed on social sustainability, including calls for increased diversity, equity and inclusion results. 

All of this calls for a bold HR transformation that centres the function around the employee experience, creating a Target Interaction Model to serve as a blueprint. 

HR has a significant impact on the employee experience, so improving the function to better address people’s needs makes sense. 

For many decades, HR has modelled itself around business efficiencies and cost savings, leveraging a trinity of HR business partners, centres of excellence and shared services. This streamlined and outsourced HR services, but it didn’t achieve the intended cost benefit and it negatively impacted employees. That traditional standard target operating model failed to address needs along the employee lifecycle sufficiently and identify gaps or obstructions in processes. It wasn’t effective then, and it’s now more antiquated than ever. 

Placing people and their needs at the heart of human resources calls for HR transformation to be guided by a Target Interaction Model (TIM) before designing the target operating model. In the TIM, HR transforms around people; focusing on relevant services and providing exceptional interactions that yield measurable employee satisfaction. 

While the TIM is based on a fundamental philosophy and common design archetypes, it’s customised for every organisation based on its needs, culture, and people dependency. It’s important to understand the population and its preferences: For example, a given workforce might value the personal touch more than another whereas other use cases put full automation above all. 

Regardless, a key component of any TIM-driven HR transformation is digitalisation, a sometimes unappreciated but critical way to support the business and enhance the employee experience. People expect simple, user-friendly digital experiences at work, just as they do in their personal lives. 

Investing in top technology and designing a TIM, focusing first and foremost on creating an exceptional employee experience, improves business results. When companies become people-centric, they’re rewarded with increased attraction, retention, and engagement; a better experience for customers; greater trust in the organisation and higher productivity.

The TIM reimagines the HR function. It evaluates HR roles, processes and technology against the workforce’s needs and wants. It increases agility by reducing silos and pooling resources from across the function that can be tapped for a variety of projects. It establishes a clear, streamlined, effective roadmap to delivering services in a way that is proven to delight employees, achieve business results and ensure that HR interacts with people in ways that matter. 

After reorganising around a TIM, HR typically frees up about 30% of its administrative load, giving professionals more time to serve the organisation in an elevated role. Today’s HR leaders are taking a seat at the table with the C-suite, helping create a modern people strategy that supports both the workforce and the business — with HR in more digitally advanced organisations four times more likely to be seen as a significant contributor to strategic business planning. HR business partners evolve – unburdened by unnecessary administrative duties, they are free to take on more meaningful work, making a difference in impactful roles such as strategic adviser, data-driven problem solver, influential storyteller, trusted coach and independent voice.