Nowa strona 1 » How to Design HR’s Role in Value Chains and Operating Units

Introduction: Positioning HR at the Heart of Value Creation

In the evolving business landscape, organizations compete not just by what they offer but by how effectively they create and deliver value. This process unfolds along the value chain—a complex, interconnected set of activities that transform inputs into valuable outputs for customers and stakeholders.

The concept of the value chain, introduced by Michael Porter, has evolved beyond its original manufacturing focus to apply to services, digital platforms, and ecosystems. For HR, this evolution demands a fundamental rethinking of the function’s role: no longer just administrative or transactional, HR must strategically embed itself within the organization’s value-creating architecture.

This guide provides HR leaders with a strategic roadmap for designing their function’s role across value chains and operating units. It challenges traditional HR models, advocates differentiated approaches for diverse business contexts, and highlights practical ways to align HR efforts with business priorities.

1. Identifying and Aligning HR with Core, Enabling, and Supporting Value Chain Activities

1.1 Understanding the Value Chain: A Strategic Framework for HR

To effectively contribute to business success, HR must first understand the value chain framework in detail. At its essence, the value chain segments organizational activities into three broad categories:

Core Activities: These are the primary drivers of competitive advantage and value delivery. They directly engage with customers or create the company’s product or service. Examples include product design, marketing, sales, and customer service.
Enabling Activities: These provide the essential capabilities that allow core activities to function efficiently and innovate. This category includes functions like IT, human resources, finance, and procurement.
Supporting Activities: These activities ensure the business operates smoothly behind the scenes. They cover administrative services, compliance, facilities management, and other operational tasks.

For HR, distinguishing these categories is critical because it informs where the function should invest its resources, how it should structure its teams, and what types of services it should deliver.

1.2 The Risks of Misalignment

When HR fails to recognize these distinctions, it often falls into a "one-size-fits-all" trap, where standardized processes and uniform programs are imposed across diverse business units. This approach can lead to disengagement, inefficiency, and missed opportunities.

For example, a core innovation unit may require a flexible talent acquisition strategy with rapid cycles, frequent reskilling, and leadership development focused on creativity and risk-taking. Conversely, a supporting administrative unit prioritizes operational efficiency, compliance training, and process stability.

Without alignment, HR risks being perceived as disconnected from business realities—an administrative burden rather than a strategic partner.

1.3 Mapping HR Roles Across the Value Chain

To overcome these challenges, HR must design differentiated roles and services tailored to the unique demands of each activity type:

Core Activities: Here, HR acts as a strategic business partner. It co-creates workforce strategies with business leaders, embedding talent planning, leadership development, and performance management into the core value creation process. HR partners with innovation leaders to forecast skills needs, design career paths for critical roles, and implement agile learning programs that accelerate market responsiveness.
Enabling Activities: HR functions here as a capability builder, delivering expertise in talent management, organizational development, and HR analytics. These enabling roles support the core by providing the infrastructure and specialized knowledge to build workforce capacity.
Supporting Activities: In supporting activities, HR focuses on delivering efficient, consistent shared services—payroll, benefits administration, compliance training—often enabled by digital platforms to ensure scalability and accuracy.

1.4 Practical Example: High-Tech Manufacturing Company

Consider a high-tech manufacturing company with three value chain segments:

Core: Product engineering and R&D teams driving innovation.
Enabling: IT and HR teams providing tools and talent solutions.
Supporting: Facilities management and administrative services ensuring operational continuity.

HR’s approach varies significantly:

For the core R&D teams, HR deploys rapid talent acquisition strategies targeting specialized engineers, develops leadership programs around innovation management, and supports performance metrics aligned with project milestones and patents.
For enabling functions, HR develops capability-building programs in digital skills, supports leadership succession planning, and provides workforce analytics to predict future talent needs.
In supporting areas, HR automates payroll and compliance training, focusing on cost efficiency and error reduction.

This tailored approach ensures HR's impact is felt where it matters most while maintaining operational excellence elsewhere.

2. Differentiating HR’s Support Across Front-Office (Market-Facing) and Back-Office (Shared Services) Operations

2.1 Front-Office vs. Back-Office: Defining HR's Dual Mandate

The organizational split between front-office and back-office operations is foundational to how HR delivers value.

Front-Office Functions: These units directly interact with customers and markets, such as sales, marketing, and customer service. Their success is tied to external performance metrics—market share, customer satisfaction, revenue growth—and requires high agility, innovation, and relationship management.
Back-Office Functions: These are internal operations supporting front-office units, including finance, IT, HR shared services, and administration. Their focus is on operational efficiency, risk mitigation, compliance, and cost control.

HR must design distinct yet complementary support models for these two spheres to maximize organizational effectiveness.

2.2 Tailoring Talent Acquisition and Management

Talent acquisition in front-office units requires a market-driven approach—agile sourcing strategies, employer branding targeting specialized skills, and hiring processes that emphasize culture fit and customer orientation. Retention programs may focus on career growth opportunities, recognition, and engagement linked to customer impact.

In back-office operations, recruitment emphasizes process adherence, role standardization, and compliance. The goal is steady staffing levels, operational reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Here, retention may hinge on structured career paths, benefits competitiveness, and operational excellence recognition.

2.3 Learning and Development: Customized Strategies

Front-office L&D programs prioritize customer-centric skills, innovation, agility, and leadership development that embraces uncertainty. For example, sales teams may receive coaching on consultative selling and digital tools adoption, while marketing teams may train on data analytics and content strategy.

Back-office L&D focuses on compliance training, process optimization, systems proficiency, and cross-functional collaboration. For instance, finance teams might receive advanced training on regulatory changes, while HR shared services focus on technology adoption for payroll accuracy.

2.4 Performance Management Nuances

Performance management systems must reflect the operational realities of each area. Front-office units often have clear, measurable outcomes tied to revenue and customer metrics, requiring dynamic and flexible goal setting. Back-office functions benefit from stable, process-oriented metrics emphasizing quality, timeliness, and compliance.

2.5 Case Study: Global Retailer

A global retailer segments its HR delivery accordingly:

Embedded HR business partners work closely with front-office teams to anticipate seasonal workforce needs, support leadership development for store managers, and foster employee engagement focused on customer experience.
A centralized HR shared service center handles transactional processes, benefits administration, and regulatory compliance for all back-office functions.

This bifurcated model supports agility at the front line while maintaining operational discipline centrally.

3. Enabling People Priorities Across Operating Units with Different Strategic Contributions

3.1 Recognizing Strategic Diversity Among Operating Units

Not all operating units contribute equally or in the same way to business success. Some drive growth and innovation, others optimize efficiency, while some focus heavily on risk management and compliance.

HR must develop a nuanced understanding of each unit’s strategic role to design appropriate people priorities.

3.2 Differentiating People Strategies by Unit Type

Growth-Oriented Units: Characterized by high uncertainty and rapid change. People priorities include talent acquisition for emerging skills, leadership development for innovation, and fostering a culture that tolerates risk and failure.
Efficiency-Focused Units: Emphasize process discipline, cost management, and operational reliability. Here, HR prioritizes process training, retention strategies to minimize turnover, and continuous improvement methodologies.
Compliance-Critical Units: Require rigorous adherence to rules and regulations. HR ensures robust training programs, clear role accountability, and systems to monitor risk mitigation behaviors.

3.3 Workforce Planning with Strategic Granularity

Workforce planning must incorporate unit-specific drivers:

Forecasting skill needs aligned with product roadmaps in growth units
Optimizing headcount and productivity metrics in efficiency units
Monitoring compliance certifications and audit readiness in regulatory units

3.4 Leadership Development Tailored to Unit Needs

Leadership programs reflect the distinct challenges leaders face:

In growth units, programs focus on visionary leadership, innovation management, and managing ambiguity.
Efficiency units benefit from leadership in operational excellence, cost control, and process optimization.
Compliance units require leaders skilled in governance, ethics, and risk management.

3.5 Engagement and Culture: Balancing Local and Enterprise Priorities

Employee engagement strategies must resonate locally while reinforcing enterprise culture:

Growth units may prize autonomy, creativity, and open communication.
Efficiency units value stability, recognition for reliability, and clear career progression.
Compliance units focus on trust, transparency, and fairness.

HR must design communication, recognition, and feedback mechanisms that respect these nuances.

3.6 Practical Example: Telecommunications Company

A large telco operates multiple units:

Its digital innovation lab focuses on rapid product development, supported by HR through agile recruitment, hackathon-based learning events, and innovation leadership coaching.
Its network operations center prioritizes uptime and regulatory compliance, with HR providing standardized training, certifications, and adherence tracking.
Customer service units balance efficiency and frontline engagement, with HR delivering tailored coaching and performance incentives.

4. HR as a Strategic Enabler Across Value Chains and Operating Units

4.1 Building Effective HR Business Partnering Models

HR business partners must be embedded with sufficient autonomy and expertise to tailor solutions to their operating units’ needs. This may include creating specialist HR roles aligned to critical business segments, such as innovation HR partners, compliance HR leads, and operational HR coaches.

4.2 Leveraging Workforce Analytics for Targeted Impact

Advanced analytics allow HR to pinpoint:

Critical skills gaps in high-growth areas
Turnover risks in front-office sales and service teams
Productivity drivers in efficiency-focused units

Data-driven decision-making enables proactive interventions, resource prioritization, and impact measurement.

4.3 Driving Change Management and Organizational Agility

HR plays a central role in change leadership, ensuring initiatives account for unit-specific readiness and culture. By facilitating dialogue across units, HR reduces silos, manages dependencies, and builds enterprise-wide agility.

5. Conclusion: Designing HR’s Role for Strategic Impact in Complex Organizations

Designing HR’s role within value chains and operating units is a complex yet critical endeavor for senior HR leaders. It requires a sophisticated understanding of the business model, an ability to differentiate services thoughtfully, and a commitment to agile, data-driven partnership.

By embracing these principles, HR transforms from a transactional function to a strategic enabler—one that drives competitive advantage through people.