This document discusses the challenges faced by the HR function in defining its role and establishing legitimacy within organizations. It identifies three major obstacles that have undermined HR's authority: 1) its historical focus on administrative tasks, 2) its inability to demonstrate a positive impact on financial performance, and 3) perceptions that HR is an intuitive rather than scientific function. The document then proposes a new framework for organizational effectiveness (OE) with three interacting elements - task-role engagement, expansive utility, and institutionalizing systems - that HR can use to claim a clear area of expertise. It argues HR must focus on building competencies in business strategy, employee experience, data analytics, and change management in order to effectively promote and implement this OE framework

3. The current state of affairs
HR is the function both senior management
and employees love to hate. Since its incep-
tion the function has struggled to define its
mandate and transform its role from secre-
tarial to a necessary member of the
organizational management team.
There are three major obstacles that have
continuously impeded HRs ascension. First,
HR’s developmental history and past as an
administrative function continues to haunt its
aspiration. With the advent of technology
and the adoption of HR service centres, the
function has been able to rid itself of some of
the non-managerial tasks it holds. Neverthe-
less, administration is still seen as a big part of
what HR does and is often the only visible
aspect to employees within an organization.
Second, HR continues to come up as a cost
on the balance sheet. This inability for HR to
mark its activity, or rather, how its activity
leads to positive balance sheet results contin-
ues to undermine its legitimacy as a positive
contributor to organizational direction. This
means that HR continues to be viewed as a
control tool as opposed to a driver.
Finally, and as much as we hate to admit it,
HR practice is built on seemingly intuitive and
logical interactions. Pay your staff well and
they will stay longer, create a sense of trust
and you can capitalize on innovation.
Throughout our careers we have all heard at
least one person exclaim “anyone can do
HR”. This completely undermines the role and
even the necessity of HR altogether!
In an attempt to circumvent these three
obstacles, HR began to lean on the use of
‘practices’. The aim of these practices being
to push HR into a more scientific realm where
research and scientific method can be used
more readily to ‘prove’ how HR adds value.
These practices best surface through HR’s use
of initiatives, be it engagement initiatives,
change initiatives, culture initiatives and so
forth.
However if you look at the literature, it
doesn’t take long to realize that exact
definitions of what these initiatives do are
elusive and difficult to formulate. As a matter
of fact even the terms used to define initia-
tives are easily lost on readers, and soon
enough you begin asking yourself what really
is the difference between a learning organi-
zations and organizational learning, or em-
ployee engagement and employee satisfac-
tion. The deeper you go the more you start to
realize that there really isn’t much of a differ-
ence, and many contemporary concepts
are nothing but old wine in new bottles.
This entrenchment into ‘practice’ didn’t do
much in helping HR define its mandate and
using the words of Sir Arthur Stanley Edding-
ton, if any HR practitioner was asked about
how their work impacts performance the
ultimate reply would be “Something
unknown is doing we don't know what—that
is what our theory amounts to”.
To get to the table then HR needs a clear
mandate; a clear piece of the management
pie that it can claim is its exclusive area of
expertise, which only HR is competent
enough to handle.
HR’s piece of the pie
If you were to go through contemporary
work practice and initiatives to try and orga-
nize what these initiatives really target, you
would be quick to notice recurrent themes in
each of them. Themes that revolve around
utility, agency, innovation, and organization,
ultimately, themes that deal with organiza-
tional effectiveness (OE) and this is
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4. the piece of the pie that HR needs to
entrench itself in, the golden egg.
The problem is that OE also has no definition,
and the last model built to try and represent
it was in 1983. Through our research we were
able to isolate four guidelines to help con-
struct a more relevant model of OE:
First, OE is a separate entity from organiza-
tional performance. OE is the engine that
drives an organization but performance is
ultimately determined by whether or not the
organization chose the correct direction.
Second, OE cannot be determined by any
pre-existing sets of HR initiatives. Rather, it is
an interaction of several concepts.
Third, effectiveness will depend on organiza-
tional objectives. This means that the
elements of OE need to be adaptable and
contingently reflect business needs as set by
organizational strategy.
Fourth, OE is inextricably intertwined with the
external environment, meaning that respon-
siveness is key, and any model of OE must
contain a looping mechanism creating both
system maintaining and system elaborating
elements.
After identifying the conceptual foundations
of OE a model was constructed to reflect
three interacting elements (Figure 1). These
three elements were isolated from literature
on employee engagement, learning organi-
zation, innovation, organizational culture,
and high performance work systems.
Each of these roles can be empowered by
investing in an area of the organization, but
also have their risks if over invested in
(Table 1)
Task-role engagement
The element of task-role engagement covers
employees who are engaged in predefined
role as set forth by management. It is derived
from the concept of organizational utility
which states that the objective of employees
in this element is not to perform extra role
behaviours, but rather to enhance the
efficiency and task delivery within their role.
This element can result in reduced turnover,
increased commitment, productivity,
efficiency, quality of output, and resilience in
times of change. However, to achieve this,
organizations need to develop a capable
layer of direct reports that can create a
sense of trust, facilitate access to resources,
and escalate concerns.
Expansive utility
The element of expansive utility can be pos-
ited as a counter balance to task-role utility.
The focus of this element is purely extra-role
and exploratory in nature.
Through the development of networks within
and outside the organization, employees
tasked with expansive utility are expected to
feed innovation and act as cross functional
bridges by developing shared mental models
with others within the organization.
This will both increase firm responsiveness to
external changes and elaborate on internal
practices in an effort to create new work-
flows and increase organizational
connectivity.
Institutionalizing systems
The final element is the only non-human
element in the OE model and is the key in
creating ‘agency’ – aligning the behaviours
and values of employees with those required
by the organization.
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5. Systems can help create this agency by
answering two questions: what are the
expected behaviours, and how much inde-
pendence individual employees have.
Two types of systems are usually found in
organizations, work practice, which are
systems used to align employees, and
employment practice, which deal with
individual factors such as motivation. Building
and maintaining these two systems often
results in clogging managerial resources,
inflexibility, and work intensification at the
level of employees removing the notion of
self-management.
Thus, it is ultimately important for organiza-
tions to critically asses what kind of systems
are necessary to bring around employee
performance and agency, and what can be
left for the discretionary management of
direct reports. No matter what the decision is,
simplicity remains key in this element.
As previously stated, it’s not simply the
elements that give rise to OE, but rather the
way they interact. The model above then
also displays what arises when one of the
elements interacts with another.
The interaction of the first two elements of
task-role engagement and expansive utility
will ultimately shape the social structure of an
organization. This is differentiated from the
hierarchical structure as it is the
social/network structure of the organization
and not its hierarchical one that impacts
effectiveness of roles.
The interaction of the elements of expansive
utility and institutionalizing systems is heavily
reflective of innovation. This interaction is
reflective of individuals who have the knowl-
edge, experience, and network to determine
which systems will benefit the organizations
and more importantly, with time, how these
systems should change.
Finally the interaction between institutionaliz-
ing systems and task-role engagement helps
create what is loosely defined as “culture” or
the rules, procedures, and beliefs that govern
the day to day activity of staff as well as the
socialization patterns that help create the
sense of employee agency.
This interaction between the three different
elements is what gives rise to contingency.
Organizations will need to place different
emphasis on each of the three elements
presented by the OE model depending on
their business objectives and direction.
This selection or investment into specific
elements over others is not only directed by
competitive positioning, but also by limited
resources available to the organization and
external limitations. What this presents then is
a fluid image of organizational decision
making which can be tracked over time as a
company grows and directions change to
adapt to the external environment.
3
Business strategy
HR competence
Organizational Effectiveness
Institutionalising
systems
Task-role
engagement
Expansive
Utility
Figure 1: The OE framework

6. The new HR
To effectively claim OE as its exclusive piece
of the pie, HR needs to undergo changes in
its competencies and capabilities. Foremost,
HR must move beyond its fascination with
counting ‘practices’ and focus on task-level
employee-centred to stay away from gener-
alizing assumptions and live up to the fact
that workplace performance is influenced by
team performance and, prior to that, by
individual job performance.
To successfully do this HR must focus on build-
ing four competencies.
Business strategy and analytics
All HR practice must easily be placed within
the larger business context, and this is nothing
new. However, HR must play a more central
role in strategic planning as only it can pro-
vide the critical information related to the
availability and organization of needed
resources to meet business needs.
To play an effective role in strategic formula-
tion HR needs to become a power hub of
information, and although HR has been able
to identify key metrics to assess effectiveness
of individual units of performance, such as
absence, turnover, and productivity, which
do have an impact on cost related bottom
line delivery. HR bodies have become accus-
tomed to spending too much time setting
KPI’s and targets for their own systems, over-
looking the need to develop
metrics that are easily tied into organizational
performance.
Once HR is successful in accessing, manipu-
lating, and presenting this data, it will be able
to feed back into the business strategy sec-
tion of our OE model.
Organizational design and resource planning
Imperative to our OE model is the ability to
select how much to invest in each of the OE
elements. It is this premise that makes the
model in itself contingent.
HR will need to identify how much it should
invest in each of those elements which will
ultimately be reflected in the types of roles
designed. Simply put, HR will need to answer
the questions: how much emphasis do we
need to place on task-role engagement,
and how much emphasis should we place
on individuals that occupy an expansive
utility role. This will help determine the best
approach to structure and position the busi-
ness to quickly and efficiently respond to it
needs.
System monitoring and creation
The selection of which systems to apply, and
how to apply them, is crucial to the creation
of organizational social norms and the institu-
tionalisation of behaviours. HR’s role here is to
ensure that systems and processes are vetted
against business objectives and evaluated as
business cases, as well as
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Table 1: Summary of OE elements
Element Empowered by Risks Example practices Results in
Task- role
engagement
Managers
Employee Fit
Intensification TQM
Teamwork
Productivity
Commitment
Expansive utility Networks
SMM
Diffusion BPR
Short term project teams
Innovation
Responsiveness
Institutionalizing
systems
Technology
Resources
Inflexibility HR Policy
Operating procedure
Shared vision
Alignment

7. guaranteeing that implementing them will
not result in work intensification.
Further than playing an evaluating role, HR
must also be able to plan the implementa-
tion of new systems and how they will reflect
on current responsibilities. As such, and as
part of this competency, HR must also be
knowledgeable with change and stake-
holder management practices.
Individual and team performance through
skill transference and communication
This competency operates on two levels. First
by ensuring individuals possess the correct
skills needed to operate within their roles at
full utility. This translates into HR partnering
with line managers and leadership teams to
ensure that they are using people processes
effectively, setting appropriate objectives,
and working towards delivering the organiza-
tional business plan. HR should also respond
to and provide additional support to leaders
and member staff who through ability or
attitude aren’t working towards the same
goals.
Second, it should be HR’s responsibility to
create a sense of belonging and increase
agency by cascading an understanding of
roles within the broader business context. This
will help ensure that people are aligned in
delivering the strategic objective, and have
the clarity on how to contribute.
The next step
The OE model presented above provides a
real opportunity for HR practitioners and
departments to change the way they are
perceived within organizations. By moving
away from traditional HR practices and
functions to a more comprehensive and
integrative way of looking at work practice,
HR departments can become a key and
necessary ally in the management of the
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Jade Saab
HR and organizational consultant
The above is a findings summary of research done
for a dissertation presented for the degree of Masters
of Science in Human Resource Management at the
University of Edinburgh which was commissioned
and supported by:
For the full report please email
jade.saab@gmail.com
Blog: itsnotaboutpeople.com
Twitter: @jadesaab
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jadesaab
organization as a whole. To do so, HR must
begin by critically examining its own activities
against the individual elements of OE frame-
work and then align them to the overall
strategic objectives of the organization.
By emphasising the importance of OE, HR
practitioners can shift their focus away from
traditional single variable practices and aim
to impact the organization at a much larger
scale. For senior managers, we hope that this
leads to a perception shift on the importance
of the role of HR in not just forming internal
initiatives but also in guiding the organization
in setting strategic goals and as a facilitator
of organizational responsiveness, which is an
immediate predictor of performance.