Following the acquisition of a German group of companies by an international corporation, the interim manager was given the task of making the HR department fit for HR work in a corporate group and turning it into an internal service provider with genuine consulting expertise. The situation was as follows:
The HR department consisted of rather inexperienced employees who had changed frequently in recent years. The HR employees had hardly any responsibility and only carried out their tasks as instructed by the HR manager. A large proportion of the administrative tasks were carried out by trainees. All tasks that went beyond HR administration were handled by the previous HR manager and his deputy, creating a significant bottleneck. As a result, many important tasks were completed with significant delays, in poor quality or not at all. Payroll accounting was previously part of the finance department and was now to be integrated into the HR department. In addition, there was no technical support whatsoever. Around 3,000 applications a year were processed using Excel and Outlook. The payroll accounting system offered almost no evaluation options. There was neither a personnel information system nor a digital personnel file. The group consisted of 34 companies whose payroll accounting was carried out partly internally and partly decentrally by external tax consultants.
First, the interim manager provided the HR officers with employment law training and individual coaching sessions to enable them to work independently and handle more complex tasks. At the same time, she introduced an applicant management system and a personnel information system. The personnel information system also included the option of a digital personnel file.
The integration of payroll accounting into the HR department was a lengthy process. The interim manager supported this through joint team meetings and the introduction of smaller jour fixes between HR officers and payroll accountants. This strengthened mutual understanding and generated greater cohesion within the HR department. Payroll accounting, which had previously been carried out by external partners, was moved over to the head office.
