HR makes leap to strategic partner - News - Wells Fargo Bank

HR Magazine, July, 2003 by Adrienne Fox

SAN DIEGO--In 2000 the HR department of the San Francisco Bay Region of Wells Fargo Bank set out to do what HR departments in organizations across the country either have done, are currently doing or want to do--make the journey from administrative to strategic HR.

Rolland Kwok, vice president of HR at Wells Fargo, shared the experience here May 20 at the 2003 American Society for 'Training & Development International Conference & Exposition.

Course of Action

Kwok recalled that the HR team members had to create a new vision and a business case. The team served five markets in the San Francisco area with 185 branches, 3,000 employees, five market presidents and 15 market area managers--all doing $20 billion a year in business.

"If you had asked managers what HR does [before the transition], the answer would have been operational or administrative," Kwok said.

The new vision would move HR from that role into the strategic realm to serve the business units and anticipate and address their needs. In other words, HR would be consultants to the managers. The business case was clear, Kwok added: Line management needed HR solutions to their organizational problems--solutions that would improve the bottom line.

However, the HR structure was not set up to serve this new vision, Kwok recalled. It had been arranged as a silo with the vice president of HR at the top and HR consultants and staffing managers in separate divisions--all centralized at headquarters. But to serve the managers, HR needed to be closer to the clients. So, the team created a new structure where HR consultants and recruiters worked at the branch level as an integrated team to support the managers there, and all administrative responsibility moved to a centralized location at headquarters. This freed up consultants, recruiters and managers to do their primary, strategic duties.

During this year-long process, Kwok asked branch managers what they needed from HR, what they expected from HR, and how HR was living up to their expectations. Then, based on input received, Kwok decided to hire an external trainer because the responsibility and skills of the HR team had to change dramatically. No longer were they "keepers of the policy!' They needed to develop their skills and knowledge to fit their new role.

Kwok hired Suzanne Saxe, president and CEO of Advance Consulting Inc. in San Francisco, to help team members move from administrators to business partners.

Saxe assessed the skills of the 14 HR team members and developed those with weaknesses in eight key consultative roles, from technical expert and administrator to strategist and partner.

Reorganization Results

The HR team also learned to use a four-phase consultative methodology to work with clients and team members to produce results.

The first phase involved creating a work agreement. "This was not a contract" said Kwok, "but an understanding of the clients' needs and the setting of ground rules." The second phase defined key issues and solutions that team members identified having gathered analysis and data, performed surveys, and conducted one-on-one meetings.

In the third phase, the HR department sold and argued its case. "Sometimes it was a joint discussion [with the business units] and sometimes it was adversarial," Kwok noted. "But because we had completed phases 1 and 2, we I were on better ground" to make those arguments.

The final phase involved implementation and follow up. "We needed to understand what it was going to take and what organizational issues existed at the time;' which determined the time frame, said Kwok.

The transition occurred over a year and has yielded positive results. Financially, the shift reduced employee turnover by 19 percent, saving the company roughly $500,000, and cut pay problems by 99 percent, he said. By centralizing the administrative duties, HR saved branch managers three hours a week--an annual savings of $975,000, according to Kwok. The new recruiting structure reduced the processing time of new hire paperwork from 14 days to seven.

Strategically, the reorganization created value-added processes by moving HR consultants and recruiters closer to the managers to help them achieve their business goals, Kwok reported.

And personally, HR team members are "valued more and they tell me how much they love their jobs," said Kwok.

Training and coaching continues for HR team members. "It's a discipline like golf or karate;' Kwok explained. "To get good and stay good, you have to practice it and continue to learn."