HR exhibits the real time characteristics of a living system. This white paper explains why it ia true organizational system.

1. Human Resources as an
Organizational System
DBAI White Paper Series Number Fifteen
DANIEL BLOOM & ASSOCIATES, INC.
HR STRATEGISTS
Guiding Individuals and Organizations on a Journey towards greater productivity
May 2013
Authored by: Daniel T. Bloom SPHR, SSBB, SCRP

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About Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc.
Daniel Bloom and Associates, Inc. (DBAI) began operations in December of 1980 as an independent
consulting firm following the reduction in force from the human resource function of the ECI
Division of E-Systems where the Chief Executive Officer of DBAI was part of the recruitment
function. At the time of the reduction in force, the management of the company referred us to a local
corporation who was scheduled for a visit from the OFCCP to investigate their equal employment
efforts as a government contractor. Over the following six months we created their entire Affirmative
Action Plan. At the completion we were referred to an additional local corporation who was need of
an update of their current plan.
In February of 1988, Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc. became a registered Florida corporation
continuing our assistance to local corporations with a concentration in the corporate mobility arena.
This was done working on our own and through several local real estate firms.
As the economic times turned down in late 2008, DBAI began to expand its services to include
further offerings within the human capital arena. The goal was to provide organizations with the
requisite strategic outlook to improve their management of human capital assets.
In 2013, the organization to better serve our client base, concentrated our service levels around the
areas of HR strategic initiatives; Retained HR; HR process Improvement; Training and Coaching.
In the course of delivering services to our target market segment we have affiliated the organization
with the
• Society for Human Resource Management
• Worldwide ERC
• HR Tampa
For further information on these service areas contact us at:
Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc.
PO Box 1233
Largo, F 33779
Ph: (727) 581-6216
Fax: (727) 216-8532
E-Mail: dan@dbaiconsulting.com
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The Role of the Ecosystem in Life
One of the current trends in education is to teach on the basis of what is called the Core Curriculum. Under
the science area from grade 5 on the students are presented with the concept that “organisms can only survive
in environments in which their needs are met. Within ecosystems, organisms interact with and are dependent
on their physical and living environment. Some changes in ecosystems occur slowly, while others occur
rapidly. Changes affect life forms, including humans. The number of organism and populations an ecosystem
can support depends on the biotic resources available and on abiotic factors, such as quantities of light and
water, range of temperatures and soil composition.”
Thus in a real sense the ecosystem and its internal and external factors help support life as we know it on our
planet we call earth. All of these factors combine to predicate whether we as a species and all the other life
forms on the planet can continue to survive successfully.
The role of the Business Ecosystem
Our business organizations in a sense are like the biological ecosystems and function much like the
ecosystems we study in the science realm. The combination of both external and internal factors provides the
basis for the survival of our organizations. Like the natural ecosystem the business ecosystem can change
slowly or it can change rapidly depending on circumstances at any given point in our operations. This White
Paper (Number 15 in the White Paper Series) looks at the organization as ecosystem or system for short and
what factors affect the success of the organization.
In the LinkedIn groups (TLS-TOC Lean & Six Sigma in particular) there has been an ongoing conversation
about when you merge the three. In the course of the discussion we posted a comment regarding an output
from a seminar we were facilitating which talked about an organization in which the job requisition was
reviewed and approved three times by the same person in a hiring effort. One of participants replied that that
was an indication of mismanagement not a system problem. He further went on to state that the system
represents a bigger picture than the hiring process. It made me wonder whether he was correct.
Definition of a System
On page 552 of the Theory of Constraints Handbook edited by James Cox III and John Schleier, Jr. they
define a system as being made up of inputs, a process of some kind, outputs and the environment in which
these components exist. Chip and Dan Heath in their book Switch , talk about problems being faced by
organizations not being a people problem but rather a "situation" problem. Let me start with the expression of
the understanding that most HR executives and in fact many executives do not know how to look at things in
a systematic way, but we hope the discussion below will help in that regard. So let's look at the parts of the
definition.
HR as a System: The Inputs
Dictionary.com defines input as something that is put in or the act or process of putting in. When we look at
the business ecosystem there are inputs to our organization from every turn. Our customers put demands on
the organization in the form of orders. Our managers put demands on the organization in the form of what
they believe they need to meet the talent management needs of their departments. Our suppliers put demands
on the organization in the form of deadlines when they can ship the materials we use to make products or
provide services. Talk to your peers and you are bound to hear that the feeling is that everyone is trying to
tell us how to do our job. Talk too upper management and they will tell you what they believe the

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stakeholders of the organization are demanding. We also get data from candidate vitae’s as to the available
skills in the employment market. Additionally we get data from outside the organization when we benchmark
the best practices within your industry. These are all inputs and they become a critical part of the business
ecosystem.
HR as a system: The Process
Dictionary.com further defines a process as a systematic series of actions directed to some end or a
continuous action, operation, or series of changes taking place in a definite manner: the process of
decay. Accept the fact that everything we do is part of a process. Whether it is making a product or
delivering a service to our customers in some shape or manner we are creating and completing a
process. We follow a process when we hire a new employee. We follow a process when we investigate
an employee’s complaint. We follow a process when we prepare a report for upper management. Our
organizations thrive on processes; it just is at times we need to make changes to the ecosystem to make
these processes work more efficiently.
HR as a System: The Outputs
Dictionary.com once again defines output as the act of turning out; production: the factory's output of cars;
artistic output; the quantity or amount produced, as in a given time to increase one's daily output.; or the
material produced or yield; product. If everything we do within HR management is based on a process, then
the end results of the process constitute an output. We begin the hiring process then the employment offer is
the output. We begin the process of open enrollment; the employee enrolling in your benefit program is an
output. We develop new policies and procedures, the document is the output.
HR as a System: The Environment
Finally Dictinary.com defines environment as the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences;
surroundings; milieu. In the science of ecology it is the air, water, minerals, organisms, and all other external
factors surrounding and affecting a given organism at any time; or in the material world in which we live it is
the social and cultural forces that shape the life of a person or a population. John Donne stated that no man is
an island, and in this case the previous components of a system do not operate in a vacuum. This world we
call an organization is an environment. Our organizations are shaped by the social and cultural forces that
govern how we operate.
So truly while there may be some arguments to the contrary, HR management meets all the requirements to
be called a system. In recognizing this, we need to clearly consider whether our HR management efforts are
centered on how to make the system work to its maximum level of productivity.
HR as a True System
We can define Human Resources as a sub-system of the total organization and can observe and define that
system through a use of a continuous process improvement tool called a SIPOC diagram. To further explain
the HR System the remainder of this White Paper will dissect the HR Management SIPOC.

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As can be seen in the figure above, the SIPOC asks us to consider and investigate all the social and cultural
forces that shape the life of an organization. It is the basis of the organizational environment in which the
operating system exists. It is only through a careful analysis of the above factors that we can fully respond to
the question posed by this White Paper – Is HR Management a True System?
• HR Management as a System – The Suppliers
One of the characteristics of the working definition of a system was that it was comprised of inputs
into the process cycle. Like any ecosystem it forms a continuous loop in which the efforts form a
cycle. However there needs to be a starting point and it is impossible to have inputs be that starting
point since something or some entity has to create those inputs.
Within the business organization that creator is manifested by the existence of both the internal and
external suppliers who begin the SIPOC form shown above. Inputs as stated above need to originate
from somewhere. The key partners are going to be those who through their actions assist the
organization in reaching its objectives and its strategic initiatives.
The internal suppliers are those individuals whose decisions directly affect the day to day operations
within the organization. Typically the internal suppliers are represented by the hiring managers, top
management representatives and the organizational human capital assets. Each believes that they have
a unique view on the global workplace. It is this unique view that dictates their efforts in creating the
inputs. The hiring manager determines the staffing needs of his or her department. The top
management needs to determine how to respond to the demands of the stakeholders. The
organizational human capital assets look towards what is required for them to engage with the
organization.

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Likewise, the external suppliers are those entities which support the efforts of the organization to
survive in this rapidly changing marketplace. Their actions supplement the requirement of the internal
suppliers. The external suppliers may include the candidates for available opportunities; recruiting
agencies; organizational alumni, the media both social and traditional; our vendors in the real sense
and our client base. These external suppliers comprise a valued part of the voice of the customer
formula.
• HR Management as a System – The Inputs
Our definition of a system began with the point that a system begins with inputs being in place. Each
of the suppliers referred to in the previous section above bring into the system contributions which
help build the total system. Consider the identified suppliers mentioned above.
The hiring manager who understands their hiring needs will develop the details of the job requisition
or the key performance indicators required to successfully fulfill the talent management needs of the
organization. Top management who understands the demands of the stakeholders will provide the
organization with guidance towards meeting those demands. The Client provides the organization
with a sense of the voice of the customer which provides us with a view of what they expect in return
from giving your organization their business. These are all inputs to the business ecosystem.
• HR Management as a System – The Process
Our definition of a process stated that a process is a systematic series of actions directed to some end
or a continuous action, operation, or series of changes taking place in a definite manner. These actions
are the direct result of the introduction of the inputs. The job requisitions or the KPI’s lead to the
actions we refer to as the hiring process. The actions of management lead to the process of developing
new policies and procedures for the organizations operations. With very few exceptions everything
we do in the human resource space is based in some type of process.
• HR Management as a System – The Output
If we were on a production floor this part of the definition would be easy. We produce an item and the
result of the building process becomes the ultimate product. When we move into the human resource
space it becomes a little less clear. Ken Miller who is the author of the book “We don’t make
widgets” expresses the belief that every business organization makes widgets whether they are a
producer or a service provider. If we follow that believe, and we do, then the outputs from this system
we describe becomes the individual we hire, or the policy we develop and communicate to the
organization. The output becomes anything that comes out of the processes we utilized in the
previous stages of the definition.
• HR Management as a System – The Customers or End Users
The final component of the definition talked about the environment in which the process functioned.
Every output has an ultimate space that it is delivered to whether we are talking internally or to
resolve the issue raised by the voice of the customer. We will further find that many of our suppliers
become full circle in the system. They began as suppliers and complete the cycle by being part of the
environment that receives the results of the process.

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Conclusion
So as we complete our review of the human resource function as part of the business ecosystem did we meet
the conditions we outlined in the beginning of the White Paper? Is the human resources function a true
system within the business environment?
We defined a system as being made up of inputs, a process of some kind, outputs and the environment in
which these components exist. We clearly set the framework of an organization being a business ecosystem
containing several subsystems of, which human resources are a critical one. Everyday HR is exposed to
suppliers, who as part of their responsibilities provide the organization with critical points of quality in the
form of inputs to the greater organization. In turn these inputs become the base of our many processes that
govern the tools that HR has to solve the organizational talent management issues.
Every process has its end results or outputs which govern the success of the efforts of the organization. These
outputs are delivered to either internal and external customers or end users. It is the meeting of these needs of
the end user that brings the system to a full cycle. In the end we add feedback loops to the system in order to
determine whether we met the voice of the customer. It is these VOC responses that demonstrate the worth of
the system.
So in final analysis, HR meets all the requirements of the definition of a system with the only caveat that it is
only as healthy a system as the quality of the forces involved in its performance.