For the past twenty years, there has been an extraordinary amount of dialog among executives, HR professionals, and academics about reinventing the human resources function. The hotel industry, in particular, has called for improved HR effectiveness to respond to the property-level challenges of attraction, retention and training as well as broader corporate concerns such as cost containment and improved leadership capability. The goal has been to strike the right balance between higher quality, more strategic service delivery and cost-effective, operational efficiency.

Unfortunately, most HR functions have delivered neither the value promised by more strategic HR, nor the operational efficiency expected of new technologies, 6-Sigma, shared services or outsourcing. More than ever, organizations must rethink their approach to HR. They must redefine the underlying assumptions that guide transformation initiatives so HR can achieve a higher level of operational effectiveness, and as a result, shape practices that drive improved organization performance.

Nothing has revealed the core of this challenge more dramatically than the implementation of new HR technologies. Even simple technology implementations have exposed the extent to which HR functions have tailored data, process and HR governance to meet the specific requirements of countries, divisions, functions ...