Both the administration and outside groups have been emphasizing on sharing of HR services–along with IT and certain other services—within and among agencies, but such sharing brings its own set of management challenges, MSPB has said.
“There is increasing demand for HR services above and beyond mere personnel action processing—including the entire HR lifecycle from strategy to hire to separation,” said a recent publication. “This demand means there is also an increasing opportunity for poor outcomes if the shared services arrangement is not properly developed and maintained. The mere fact that most shared services arrangements move the HR service farther from its customers presents significant challenges.”
For example, in a survey MSPB conducted, HR staff who served more than one agency or department were more likely to believe recruitment actions were being manipulated to provide an advantage to a pre-selected candidate. Such manipulation can include aspects including the period the vacancy is held open, the area of consideration, circumventing veterans’ preference and even influencing other applicants to withdraw, it said.
“We cannot state definitively that distance between a hiring manager and HR provider reduces the fairness of HR actions, but the pattern of such perceptions should be a concern for agencies that use or are considering using the shared services business model,” it said.
