HR Shared Services (HRSS) has long been viewed as a transaction factory – a centralized hub focused on efficiency, cost reduction, and processing high volumes of HR tasks.
In the early days, many shared services centers achieved significant cost savings, but often at the expense of employee experience (Segal). Employees were shuffled through impersonal ticketing systems and offshore call centers that, while efficient, left them frustrated.
This outdated assumption – that efficiency must come at the cost of experience – no longer holds true.
Today’s leading HR organizations are proving that you can cut costs and improve service quality at the same time. In fact, an experience-first approach in HRSS is quickly becoming the new mandate for HR leaders in the “Experience Age,” where we design and deliver experiences, not just processes.
Earlier, we discussed how to balance efficiency with experience in HR operating models.
Now, we take a deep dive into applying an experience-first strategy specifically to HR Shared Services.
We’ll explore how HRSS can evolve beyond transactional efficiency to actively drive better employee satisfaction without losing the operational discipline that keeps HR services running like clockwork.
Along the way, we’ll share practical advice, metrics, and real-world examples to help you transform your HRSS from a cost-center into an employee experience engine.
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HR Shared Services 1.0 was all about centralization and standardization: consolidating HR processes into one hub to eliminate redundancy, ensure compliance, and reduce labor costs.
And it worked: nearly 80% of organizations that implemented HRSS increased process efficiency and 88% reduced costs, according to industry research.
But this success sometimes came with a reputational hit: early HRSS models were often perceived as bureaucratic and impersonal, leading business leaders and employees to mistrust them for anything beyond basic transactions (Bain & Company).
The result?
HRSS stayed confined to low-value tasks, while more strategic or complex work remained in the business units, and employees learned to expect “service” that felt more like dealing with a machine than a helper.
HR Shared Services 2.0 – the model emerging today – breaks that paradigm. Modern HRSS organizations are reorienting around the employee as the customer.
They recognize that internal “customers” (employees and managers) want more than rote transaction processing; they expect responsive, tailored service experiences and a value-added partnership, just as external customers do.
This means HRSS must deliver not only on speed and accuracy, but also on empathy, proactivity, and personalization.
The shared services model has evolved to become more than just a cost-savings strategy; it’s now a core business function that can directly improve employee engagement and productivity when done right (TechTarget).
In short, the new mandate is an experience-first shared services model built entirely around the employee’s needs and moments that matter.
Envision a simple 2x2 matrix mapping “Operational Efficiency” on one axis and “Employee Experience Quality” on the other.
In the past, many HRSS operations sat in the high-efficiency/low-experience quadrant – they were lean and standardized, but employees often felt like cases instead of people.
On the flip side, a traditional high-touch HR model (like a dedicated HR rep for every team) might deliver high-experience/low-efficiency – very personalized service but at a high cost and inconsistency.
The goal of an experience-first strategy is to move HRSS into the high-efficiency/high-experience quadrant.
In this ideal state, HR Shared Services delivers fast, reliable HR support AND leaves employees feeling valued and satisfied. It’s about combining operational discipline with a human-centric touch. The remainder of this article explores how to achieve that balance in practice.
Research shows a strong link between positive employee experiences and business outcomes. For example, employees who report having a positive overall EX are 16 times more engaged than those with negative experiences (Speakap).
Highly engaged employees are more productive and innovative, and they contribute to better customer service and profitability. Likewise, companies with superior employee experiences tend to enjoy higher retention – unoptimized, poor experiences are a core reason many organizations struggle to keep talent (63% of companies say retaining employees is now harder than hiring them).
In short, if your HR services frustrate people, you risk lower engagement, higher turnover, and even lost revenue due to disengagement and attrition.
HR Shared Services has an outsized impact on EX because it is often the front door of HR for everyday employees.
Consider all the touchpoints a typical employee has with HRSS: getting a question answered about benefits, resolving a paycheck issue, updating personal information, onboarding or offboarding, etc.
Each of these interactions is a “moment of truth” that shapes the employee’s perception of HR and the company. If those interactions are slow, confusing, or uncaring, employees notice – and it erodes their trust.
Too often in the past, employees didn’t know where to turn for help or got conflicting answers depending on who they asked, resulting in frustration, delays, and even compliance risks (HR Executive). None of that contributes to a positive experience or a productive workforce.
On the other hand, when HRSS delivers consumer-grade service – think clear communication, quick resolution, and a helpful attitude – employees can focus on their jobs rather than HR hassles. They feel supported.
A well-run shared service center actually boosts employee productivity and morale: employees get their issues resolved quickly and conveniently, which positively impacts their engagement. In the new world of work, employees have grown to expect workplace services (HR included) to be as easy and user-friendly as the apps they use in their personal lives.
When there’s a gap between those expectations and reality, frustration ensues. But if HRSS meets or exceeds the expectation, for example, by providing an intuitive self-service portal or a friendly HR agent who solves an issue on the first call, it builds good will. Employees who feel valued by HR are more likely to stay with the company, advocate for it, and go the extra mile in their roles.
Finally, an experience-first approach doesn’t just make employees happy – it also drives better HR outcomes.
When employees have positive interactions, they become more willing to use cost-saving HR options like self-service. One organization’s HR transformation led to a 200% increase in self-service use and a 25% jump in employee satisfaction, all while lowering the cost-to-serve by 30% (Segal).
This illustrates a powerful point: experience and efficiency can rise together. Satisfied employees are more likely to trust the HR service center, use it appropriately, and provide constructive feedback. That feedback, in turn, helps HRSS improve processes further (creating a virtuous cycle we’ll discuss later).
In sum, prioritizing experience in HRSS is a win-win – employees win through easier, more personalized support, and the organization wins through higher productivity, retention, and even cost savings from streamlined services.
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To make the shift from a transactional shared service center to an experiential one, HR leaders can focus on three core pillars: Proactive Outreach, Personalization, and Feedback Loops.
Think of these as the building blocks of an experience-first HRSS framework (see the 3-Pillar Model of Experience-First HRSS, below). Each pillar represents a fundamental change in how HR shared services operates:
Let’s explore each pillar in depth, with practical examples and tips on how to implement them.
In many organizations, HRSS traditionally sits in a reactive mode: the team waits for employees to call, email, or submit a ticket with their problem, then works to resolve it.
An experience-first strategy flips this dynamic by injecting PROACTIVITY. Instead of only putting out fires, the HRSS team actively looks for opportunities to solve problems before they spark, guide employees through complex moments, and make helpful information available at just the right time.
What does proactive HR shared services look like? It can take many forms, for example:
Implementing proactive outreach requires planning and coordination. HR shared services teams should work closely with Centers of Excellence (COEs) and HR Business Partners to map out the employee journey and identify “moments that matter” (onboarding, promotions, life events, etc.).
For each key moment, decide what proactive action HRSS can take – whether it’s sending information, offering a consultation, or simply a friendly check-in.
How-To: Start Being Proactive in HRSS
A. Identify Frequent Issues & Key Moments: Review your HRSS data and employee journey maps. Pinpoint the most common employee questions or pain points, and the career/life events when employees most need HR support.
B. Create a Proactive Calendar: Build an outreach calendar aligned to those moments. For example, schedule new hire check-ins at 30/60/90 days, benefits guidance every Q4, etc. Automate reminders where possible.
C. Develop Content and Scripts: Prepare helpful resources in advance – FAQs, tip sheets, email templates, or chatbot scripts – so you can push out timely guidance. Ensure the tone is friendly and genuinely helpful, not just procedural.
D. Train the Team: Help your HRSS advisors develop a proactive mindset. Encourage them to not only solve the issue asked but consider “What else might this person need next?” and offer it. Recognize and reward team members who take initiative to prevent future issues.
E. Pilot and Iterate: You don’t have to overhaul everything at once. Pilot one or two proactive outreach ideas (e.g. a new hire check-in call) and gather feedback. Measure the impact (did new hire questions drop? did satisfaction rise?). Learn from the pilot and refine your approach before scaling up.
The payoff of proactive outreach is a smoother experience and a sense of “HR has my back.”
Employees start to feel that HR isn’t just there when they reach out, but is walking alongside them, helping them navigate work life. This can significantly increase employees’ trust in HRSS.
Plus, by catching issues upstream, you reduce the volume of fire-fighting later – which actually frees up capacity in the service center, allowing your team to focus on more value-add activities. It’s a perfect illustration of experience-first also being efficiency-first in the long run.
The second pillar of an experience-first HRSS is personalization. In the consumer world, people have grown accustomed to personalized service – from Netflix recommending just the right show, to retailers offering tailored promotions.
Employees now expect a similar level of personalization in their workplace interactions (Reworked). One-size-fits-all HR service is no longer enough. Different employees have different needs, preferences, and circumstances, and acknowledging those differences is key to making them feel valued.
Personalization in HRSS can be as simple as using the employee’s name and recognizing their context in every interaction – or as sophisticated as using AI to tailor content and recommendations to each individual.
Here are some ways shared services can introduce personalization:
It might sound like personalization conflicts with the standardization that shared services are built on.
After all, how do you personalize at scale without blowing up efficiency? The key is to personalize the experience without necessarily customizing the process. Core processes and policies can remain consistent, but the way you deliver them can be flexible.
Technology is a huge enabler here. For example, AI chatbots and virtual assistants can provide personalized answers by drawing on relevant employee data (role, history, etc.) and the company knowledge base (see All About HR Shared Services).
One global firm deployed an AI-powered HR assistant that would greet employees by name on the HR portal, answer questions specific to their employment record (e.g. “How much PTO do I have left?”), and even pre-fill forms for them.
This not only delivered faster service but made employees feel like HR knew and cared about them – all without requiring an army of HR staff. The Applaud platform, among others, highlights how such AI assistants act as “personal digital helpers,” delivering fast, personalized answers while significantly reducing repetitive caseloads for HR. In effect, personalization can increase efficiency: employees get what they need more quickly, and HRSS handles fewer follow-ups and clarifications.
Another important aspect is training your HRSS team to personalize their human interactions. This involves soft skills: active listening, empathy, and adaptability. HR agents should be empowered to bend a rule when it makes sense for a better outcome (within policy guardrails, of course).
For instance, if an employee had a death in the family and is struggling with a leave request, an empathetic, personalized response might mean the HRSS agent helps fill out the form for them or expedites an approval outside the usual SLA. These small acts of human-centered service make a lasting impression.
Senior HR leaders need to set the tone that it’s okay for HRSS to occasionally “do what’s right, not just what’s written.” That philosophy, backed by smart guidelines, ensures personalization doesn’t devolve into inconsistency or favoritism, but rather stays focused on improving legitimate employee outcomes.
No service, no matter how proactive or personalized, gets everything perfect. What distinguishes an experience-first HRSS is a relentless commitment to continuous improvement, driven by real feedback from employees. This is where the third pillar, feedback loops, comes in. It’s about creating mechanisms to listen to your internal customers, measure their satisfaction, and then, crucially, act on what you hear.
Consider this: in a Bain & Company global survey, 66% of shared services organizations claimed that putting internal customers front and center was a strategic priority – yet 68% of them did not even measure internal customer satisfaction, and only 8% were using a metric like Net Promoter Score (NPS) for their internal services. In other words, many HR shared services talk about being customer-centric but aren’t systematically listening to those customers. An experience-first strategy demands that we close this gap. We need to treat employee satisfaction with HR services as a key performance indicator, just like a customer-facing business would.
Here are steps and best practices to build strong feedback loops in HRSS:
How-To: Build an HRSS Feedback Loop
1. Gather Baseline Data: If you’re not measuring yet, start by establishing a baseline. Run a simple internal survey asking employees to rate their HR service experiences over the past month or quarter. Include qualitative questions like “What could we do better?” to gather initial insights.
2. Pick a Metric (or Two): Decide on the primary metric you’ll use going forward, eg, CSAT %, NPS, or a composite “service quality index.” Keep it simple and easy to explain. Set a realistic target (eg, “Improve CSAT from 70% to 80% in six months”).
3. Implement Always-On Feedback Channels: Integrate feedback requests into your HR service workflows. For instance, automatically email a 1-question survey link when a ticket is closed, or add a feedback widget to your portal’s answers. Make sure it’s mobile-friendly.
4. Monitor and Analyze: Assign someone (or a small team) to monitor incoming feedback at least weekly. Look for patterns: Are issues clustering in a particular area? Do certain teams have lower satisfaction? Use analytics tools if available to categorize comments (e.g., by topic or sentiment).
5. Respond and Resolve: Develop a playbook for responding to feedback. Critical or negative feedback should get a human follow-up if possible (“Dear employee, I’m sorry your issue wasn’t resolved. Let’s discuss how we can fix it.”). For common pain points that surface, initiate improvement actions (update the FAQ, retrain staff, adjust a policy, etc.). Prioritize fixes that will impact many employees or significantly boost satisfaction.
6. Communicate Changes: As you roll out improvements based on feedback, announce them. Use internal comms or an HR newsletter: “You spoke, we listened: HR has now simplified the leave application process – check out the new one-click form.” This closes the loop and demonstrates that giving feedback is worth the effort.
7. Iterate: Treat this as a continuous loop. After implementing changes, measure again. Did the scores improve? If not, why not? Continuous improvement is an ongoing journey, not a one-time destination. Celebrate wins (e.g., hitting a new high in service satisfaction) to keep the team motivated, and always keep asking “what can we do better next?”
By embedding feedback loops, HR Shared Services becomes a learning organization. You move beyond just meeting SLAs (Service Level Agreements) to meeting employee expectations, which are a higher bar.
And importantly, you create internal customer loyalty. Bain’s study found that shared service groups which adopted NPS and rigorously improved based on feedback were able to expand their scope (integrating 36% more functions into shared services than others) because they had earned the trust of the business.
That trust is gold: it means business leaders see HRSS not just as a cost center, but as a reliable partner that adds value.
In many ways, that is the ultimate goal of an experience-first strategy – to elevate HRSS from a back-office utility to a frontline contributor to employee success and organizational performance.
To truly empower a shared services team to focus on experience, you must expand the metrics for success.
Traditional HRSS KPIs have been things like call volumes, average handle time, tickets closed per agent per day, cost per employee served, etc. Those are still important (operational efficiency must be monitored) but they are not sufficient.
An experience-first strategy adds new metrics and measurement models that quantify employee satisfaction, service quality, and outcomes.
Here are some metrics HR leaders should incorporate, and how to use them:
In implementing these metrics, avoid overload. It’s better to choose a concise “EX dashboard” for HRSS – maybe 5-6 key metrics combining both efficiency and experience – than to drown in data. A sample balanced dashboard might include: CSAT or NPS, First Contact Resolution, Average Resolution Time, Self-Service Adoption Rate, and Volume of Feedback Received. This mix ensures the team is accountable for both speed/cost and quality/satisfaction.
Crucially, use the data in management discussions. Regularly review these metrics with your HRSS leadership and staff. Celebrate improvements (e.g., “Our ESAT is up 10 points this quarter – great job team!”) and dig into drops (“NPS for payroll inquiries fell last month; let’s find out what went wrong and fix it”). By treating experience metrics with the same seriousness as you would budget or compliance metrics, you send the message that experience is part of everyone’s job, not a fluffy extra.
An experience-first strategy cannot succeed without the buy-in and empowerment of the HRSS team members on the ground: your HR advisors, call center reps, case managers, and analysts. They are the ones delivering the experience day-to-day. To truly empower HR Shared Services staff, leaders should focus on two things: culture/skills and enabling technology/processes.
1. Build a Culture of Service and Empathy:
Even the best process falls flat if the person executing it is disengaged or uncaring. Invest in training your HRSS team on customer service skills, much as you would for a customer support team.
This includes active listening, diffusing difficult situations, and going the extra mile. Encourage a mindset of ownership – the HR rep who takes a call “owns” that employee’s issue, even if they must involve others to resolve it.
We want employees to feel like the HRSS rep is their advocate, not a gatekeeper. Role-model and reward empathetic behavior. For example, share positive feedback from employees in team meetings (“This employee said our HR rep was so compassionate and helpful during a tough time – kudos!”).
Create pride in being not just efficient administrators but “people champions.” At the same time, make sure the team understands the business context – why their work matters.
One leading practice is to have HRSS team members periodically shadow employees or spend time with different business units to grasp what employees’ day-to-day looks like. This deeper understanding breeds empathy and also helps HRSS suggest more relevant solutions.
2. Empower Decision-Making
Nothing frustrates an employee more than an HR rep who says, “I can’t help you, that’s just the policy,” when a slight exception or creative solution could solve the issue.
Of course, HRSS must uphold policies and consistency – you can’t have each rep doing totally different things. But an experience-first approach gives front-line staff a degree of autonomy to address unique situations.
Establish clear guidelines for what reps can decide (maybe they can authorize an off-cycle payroll correction up to a certain amount, or expedite an IT access request for a new hire without multiple approvals, etc.). If something falls outside, have a quick escalation path so the employee isn’t left waiting.
The goal is to minimize bureaucracy the employee experiences, even if HRSS behind the scenes has to do some internal navigation. When HRSS staff feel trusted to make calls in service of the employee, they are more engaged and proactive – which loops back into a better experience.
3. Streamline Processes and Remove Pain for Staff
An unhappy or overburdened HRSS team member is unlikely to deliver a great experience. So part of an experience-first strategy is also improving the employee experience of your HRSS staff themselves.
Are your HR systems clunky for the team to use? Do they have to jump through hoops or toggle through ten screens to get an answer?
Simplify and automate internal workflows so that your team can focus on the human connection, not paperwork. For example, use a unified case management system that brings all employee data and history together in one view for the agent.
Provide AI-powered tools that suggest likely solutions or knowledge articles to the agent in real time (so they’re not desperately searching while the employee is on hold). Reducing the cognitive load and stress on your HRSS team frees them to be more attentive and caring with employees. It also cuts down errors. This is operational discipline in service of experience: smooth internal processes = better external service.
4. Continue to Leverage Standardization – Smartly:
Experience-first doesn’t mean throwing out standard operating procedures. In fact, standardization and clear processes under the hood enable personalized, speedy service at the front end.
The difference is you design those standards around what works best for employees, not just what’s easiest for HR’s silo.
One example: Standardize on a single HR knowledge base and make sure both employees and HR staff use it. That way, everyone gets consistent information, and you avoid the classic scenario of “conflicting answers from different HR people” that frustrates employees.
Clarity and consistency are themselves parts of a good experience (no one likes getting bounced around or told different things). As the TechTarget insight put it, shared services improves EX through clearer communication and standard processes that remove confusion.
So yes, maintain your checklists, your SOPs, your SLAs – just ensure they are built with a service mindset (eg, an SOP should dictate not just the steps to complete a task, but how to communicate status to the employee along the way).
5. Align Goals and Incentives:
Recalibrate what success looks like for the HRSS team. If agents are only incentivized on volume (like number of tickets closed), they might rush through interactions at the cost of quality. Incorporate experience metrics into performance goals – for instance, a team goal for maintaining a high CSAT, or personal goals around feedback from customers.
This signals that taking an extra few minutes to reassure someone, or thoroughly solving the problem now (so it doesn’t recur), is valued more than just being fast.
Efficiency metrics can coexist with experience metrics in a balanced scorecard for the team. Many high-performing shared services centers use a balanced scorecard approach where, say, 50% of KPIs are efficiency/cost and 50% are quality/experience. That ensures a focus on operational discipline and customer-centric behavior.
6. Share Success Stories and Lessons Learned:
Make employee experience a frequent topic of discussion. Encourage the team to share stories – both wins and challenges. For example, an HRSS rep might share: “I had a caller who was really upset about a payroll mistake. I listened and empathized, then not only fixed it within 2 hours but also followed up next pay cycle to make sure it was correct. She was so grateful.”
Telling that story reinforces the desired approach. Likewise, discuss difficult cases: “What could we have done differently to make that experience better?” This constant learning culture keeps experience at the forefront and helps newer team members learn the ropes of an experience-first philosophy.
Empowering HR Shared Services with an experience-first strategy is about challenging the old assumptions. No longer should HRSS be seen as a low-cost transaction factory or a necessary evil hidden in the back office.
Instead, HRSS can be the heartbeat of employee experience, the friendly face (or voice, or chatbot) of HR that actually makes employees’ work lives easier. By being proactive, personalized, and perpetually improving through feedback, shared services becomes a source of employee satisfaction and even delight, not drudgery.
This transformation doesn’t mean abandoning efficiency – far from it. It’s about realizing that efficiency and experience are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing. A well-designed HR shared service center can simultaneously streamline processes, ensure compliance, and provide a “white-glove” service feel. The payoffs are tangible: happier employees, a more agile HR function, and a stronger reputation for HR within the organization.
In fact, many companies find that once their HRSS earns employees’ love, it opens the door to doing more and more through the shared services model, extending into areas like payroll analytics, onboarding coordination, and beyond (because the business trusts HRSS to deliver value, not just cut costs). In an era where doing more with less is a constant pressure, an experience-first approach turns HRSS into a lever for greater impact without a proportional increase in resources.
For senior HR leaders, the journey to an experience-first shared services model will require vision and courage. You may need to overhaul legacy processes, invest in new tools, and perhaps most challengingly, shift mindsets on your team and among stakeholders.
There may be skeptics who still believe speed or savings are all that count, or who assume employees don’t care about the service “niceties.” It’s up to you to paint the picture of what’s possible and make the case. Show that an HRSS that treats employees like valued customers will in turn create employees who value the company. Be bold in setting experience goals and challenging the status quo (“Why can’t our HR helpdesk have a satisfaction score rivaling that of top retail brands’ support centers?”).
In implementing these changes, remember to take your own advice: be empathetic and iterative. Apply a bit of design thinking to your HRSS transformation. Pilot new ideas, gather employee input, and refine as you go.
Perhaps start with one region or one process to prove the concept. As you roll out improvements, keep telling the story – both quantitatively (metrics) and qualitatively (employee anecdotes) – of how HRSS is evolving into something new and exciting.
By embracing proactive service, personalization, and continuous feedback, HR Shared Services can fulfill a bold, new role. It can be efficient and people-first, tech-powered yet human-hearted. It can turn moments of HR interaction into moments of value.
And it can transform HR’s reputation from a cost center to a trusted enabler of talent and business success. This is the future of HR Shared Services – an evolution already underway – and it’s an exciting time for HR leaders to lead the charge in making shared services not only efficient, but truly empowering for the people it serves.
How Applaud Helps You Make It Happen
At Applaud, we believe employees are a company’s most important customers. That’s why our technology is built entirely from the employee’s point of view—delivering more human, intuitive, and rewarding HR experiences that empower HR teams to do more for their people.
If you’re ready to turn employee-first HR from vision to reality, we’re here to help. Get in touch to see how Applaud can transform your HR Service Delivery and create a workplace where employees truly thrive.
Duncan Casemore is Co-Founder and CTO of Applaud, an award-winning HR platform built entirely around employees. Formerly at Oracle and a global HR consultant, Duncan is known for championing more human, intuitive HR tech. Regularly featured in top publications, he collaborates with thought leaders like Josh Bersin, speaks at major events, and continues to help organizations create truly people-first workplaces.