City of Houston

The City of Houston’s HR Director, Omar Reid, has a veritable success story on his hands. At the time when he joined at the invitation of the then newly elected Mayor, he inherited a decentralized, inefficient scenario where carbon paper (lots of it) and typewriters still played a key role. Before the shared services model was adopted, the ratio of HR staff to employees stood at 1:38. After five years of process improvement and innovation, the ratio stands at 1:119, while improving the quality of service.
This article introduces the “burning platform” that drove the HR transformation from a decentralized model to shared services model and takes us through the three phases of the transformation. It also lays out the outline of best practices for HR operations based on Chazey HR practitioners’ experience, and tips on running a transformed HR delivery model. We also list some things you should be aware of before embarking on the journey.

Download the case study of City of Houston HR Transformation