enable change

What I mean by staff groups are those that are supposed to help the business manage itself. The usual ones are HR, IT, Finance, Marketing. Others might be Human Factors/Useability, Quality Control, Tax/Audit, Legal, etc. etc. etc. In very rough terms a large organization can be divided into “the business”, in particular the core business, and staff groups. The core business is what the organization does for a living (to make money). Those in the business are expected to show a profit, to pay their own way. Ah, and then there are those staff groups.

Staff groups cost a fortune, they are overhead, some think of them as a tax on the business. They key questions about staff groups are these: Who do they serve and how? What is their valued added to the organization?

I once had the head of an internal Tax group tell me their job was to keep the IRS happy and make sure the organization complied with IRS rules and regulations! No wonder they got outsourced! The only reason (as the business) that you would have an internal tax group would be that they somehow added value to the business, not just assured compliance with an external regulator. Well there is one other possible reason you might think it is less expensive, but fact is, that is almost always not the case. You can outsource a staff group cheaper than you can sustain it as part of your business. That is UNLESS it creates value.

This is the crux of why staff groups are being outsourced left and right — put bluntly the business does not see them as value added, so wants to get the job done as cheaply as possible. And “the job” is often seen as compliance, caretaking (of the employees) or keeping up appearances (PR).

Too bad. Most staff groups really have a great deal of value to add and the expertise to help the organization in critical ways. But they didn’t know it and they didn’t do it.

Over the next weeks weeks I’ll explore the how and why of it. For right now, consider this: If you are a member of a staff group, and you don’t get that your survival in the business depends on you articulating your expertise and making a case for how it can add value to the business, AND THEN PROCEEDING TO ADD THAT VALUE, then get your resume ready. Your days are numbered.