HRM 5483 Module 1 HR Operations and Structure Assessment Example

Sixty Percent Paperwork: Assessing the HR Function of a Tucson Credit Union Against Ulrich's Partner Model

Student Name

American College of Education

HRM5483: HR as a Strategic Partner

Module 1 Assignment

Instructor Name

March 6, 2028

Introduction

Saguaro Members Credit Union is a composite organization; its details combine several real credit unions and have been altered. It serves about 190,000 members in southern Arizona through 24 branches, a contact center and a lending center in Tucson, and it employs roughly 610 people. Its board has approved a plan to grow small business lending and digital banking over five years. The chief executive has asked whether the human resources department is ready to support that plan. This paper assesses the department's operations and structure, using a time study, interviews with leaders and Ulrich's model of HR roles, and identifies the gaps that keep HR from acting as a strategic partner.

The Business HR Serves

Most of the credit union's employees work in three groups. About 330 work in branches as member service representatives, tellers and branch managers. About 110 work in the contact center, and about 90 work in lending, including underwriters and loan officers. The remaining 80 work in finance, risk, information technology, marketing and executive roles. The growth plan changes what the business needs: commercial lenders who are scarce in the Tucson market, digital product and data staff the credit union has never hired before and branch employees who can advise members rather than only process transactions. Each of these needs falls partly on HR.

The HR Department Today

The department has 15 employees reporting to a vice president of human resources, who reports to the chief operating officer rather than the chief executive. Three generalists each cover a set of departments and handle employee relations, policy questions and leave. Two recruiters fill about 230 openings a year. Four staff run payroll and benefits, three run training and one analyst manages the HR information system, with one administrative coordinator. The ratio of about 2.5 HR staff per 100 employees is within the range common for organizations of this size, so the issue is less how many people HR has than how their time is used.

Method

Over two weeks in January, each HR employee logged time in half-hour blocks against a list of 22 activities, which were then grouped into four categories drawn from the HR roles Ulrich (1997) described: administrative work such as payroll changes, data entry and benefits questions; employee relations work such as investigations and leave; change and development work such as training design and managing change; and strategic work such as workforce planning and advising executives. Interviews with nine senior leaders asked what they needed from HR over the next three years and how well HR delivered now. HR system reports supplied turnover, time to fill and training data for 2027.

What the Time Study Shows

Administrative work took 61 percent of HR time, employee relations 21 percent, change and development 13 percent and strategic work 5 percent. The generalists, whose roles were meant to be advisory, spent 44 percent of their time on administrative tasks, mostly answering questions on pay, schedules and benefits that the HR system could have answered if employees could find the information themselves. Recruiters spent nearly half their time scheduling interviews and chasing hiring managers for decisions. Only the vice president logged any time in workforce planning, and none was spent analyzing HR data for executives.

What Leaders Need

The interviews were consistent. Seven of nine leaders said HR was responsive and trustworthy on individual cases. None described HR as a partner in planning. The lending director said the credit union had lost two experienced commercial lenders to banks in 2027 and HR learned of the departures after the resignations. The contact center director wanted help understanding why first-year turnover stayed near 45 percent. The chief executive wanted a view of which roles the growth plan would require and when. In each case, leaders wanted analysis and advice earlier, before problems arrived, while HR's structure and time went to processing after the fact.

Assessing HR Against Ulrich's Roles

Ulrich (1997) argued that HR adds value in four roles: managing strategic human resources, managing the firm's infrastructure, managing employee contribution and managing transformation and change. Saguaro's HR performs the infrastructure role reliably; payroll errors are rare and benefits enrollment runs smoothly. It performs the employee champion role adequately through its generalists. It performs the change role only in training, and the strategic role hardly at all. Ulrich and Dulebohn (2015) later argued that HR's value is defined by the receivers of its work, such as leaders, employees and customers, rather than by HR's activities. On that test, the department delivers transactions well but little of what its leaders say the growth plan requires.

Assessing the Structure

Ulrich's later work set out a structure in which business partners advise leaders, centers of expertise supply specialized knowledge in areas such as rewards and talent and a shared service center handles transactions efficiently (Ulrich & Dulebohn, 2015). Saguaro's structure mixes these roles inside each job. Generalists are named as advisers but act as the service desk. No one owns talent analytics or workforce planning. Payroll and benefits operate as a de facto shared service but without self-service tools, so routine questions still reach generalists. The reporting line to the chief operating officer also places HR one step away from the executive discussions where the growth plan is shaped.

Why the Gaps Matter

Research supports the business case for closing these gaps. Huselid (1995) showed that firms investing more heavily in selective hiring, training, incentives and employee voice kept their people longer and earned more per worker. A meta-analysis by Jiang et al. (2012) found that HR practices affect outcomes mainly by building employees' skills, motivation and opportunity to contribute, which is the work Saguaro's HR has little time for. Hancock et al. (2013) found that turnover harms firm performance, and Saguaro's contact center and branch turnover rates suggest a sizable cost. An HR department that spends 5 percent of its time on strategy is unlikely to influence these drivers.

Assets the Department Already Has

An honest assessment also records what works. HR has credibility with employees and leaders, which matters because partners must be trusted before they are consulted. Its HR information system already holds the data needed for turnover and hiring analysis; it is simply not used for that purpose. Its training team has designed strong onboarding for the contact center. And the vice president already sees the problem, which makes structural change more likely to succeed than if it were imposed from outside.

Three Priorities for Saguaro

The findings point to three moves. First, shift transactional work away from generalists through employee self-service and a single HR service queue, freeing perhaps a third of their time. Second, convert two generalist roles into business partners for lending and member service, the groups most affected by the growth plan, and give the HRIS analyst responsibility for regular workforce reporting. Third, propose that the vice president report to the chief executive and join the executive team's planning meetings. Later papers in this course will analyze workforce trends, build a workforce plan, design metrics and present the business case for these changes.

Conclusion

Saguaro Members Credit Union's HR department runs a reliable administrative operation but spends 61 percent of its time on transactions and 5 percent on strategy, while leaders want earlier analysis and advice for a growth plan that will change the workforce. Measured against Ulrich's roles and structure, the department delivers infrastructure well and strategy hardly at all, and its blended jobs and reporting line keep it out of planning. Its credibility and data are assets. Moving routine work to self-service, creating business partner roles and placing HR at the executive table are the first steps toward a strategic partnership.

References

Hancock, J. I., Allen, D. G., Bosco, F. A., McDaniel, K. R., & Pierce, C. A. (2013). Meta-analytic review of employee turnover as a predictor of firm performance. Journal of Management, 39(3), 573-603. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206311424943

Huselid, M. A. (1995). The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity, and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 38(3), 635-672. https://doi.org/10.2307/256741

Jiang, K., Lepak, D. P., Hu, J., & Baer, J. C. (2012). How does human resource management influence organizational outcomes? A meta-analytic investigation of mediating mechanisms. Academy of Management Journal, 55(6), 1264-1294. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.0088

Ulrich, D. (1997). Human resource champions: The next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Harvard Business School Press.

Ulrich, D., & Dulebohn, J. H. (2015). Are we there yet? What's next for HR? Human Resource Management Review, 25(2), 188-204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2015.01.004