HR Models Explained: Theory and Operating Models

HR models fall into two groups. Theoretical models, such as the Harvard, Michigan and Guest frameworks, explain how people management links to business results. Operating models, such as the three-pillar structure of business partners, centers of excellence and shared services, describe how the HR function is organized to deliver that work day to day.

Key takeaways

  • Theory models shape what HR prioritizes; operating models shape who does the work and how employees get service.
  • The three-pillar model is common in large organizations but often struggles with unclear handoffs.
  • Smaller companies usually run a generalist model, then add specialists and shared services as they grow.
  • Choose an operating model based on size, geography, complexity and the technology you can support.

What are the classic theoretical HR models?

These frameworks come from academic work in the 1980s and 1990s and still shape how HR leaders talk about strategy.

The Michigan model (hard HRM)

Developed at the University of Michigan, this model treats HR as a tool for executing business strategy. It links four activities in a cycle: selection, performance appraisal, rewards and development. The emphasis is on fit between HR practices and strategy, and on managing people as a resource to be used efficiently.

The Harvard model (soft HRM)

Developed at Harvard Business School, this model places more weight on employee influence and stakeholder interests. It considers situational factors and stakeholders (employees, management, unions, government) and links HR policy choices to outcomes such as commitment, competence and cost effectiveness, with long-term effects on individual, organizational and societal well-being.

The Guest model

David Guest's model describes a chain from HR strategy to HR practices, to HR outcomes (commitment, quality, flexibility), to behavioral outcomes, to performance and financial outcomes. It is often used to argue that HR practices must be measured by their effect on employee behavior, not just activity counts.

The Ulrich roles

Dave Ulrich's work shifted attention from what HR does to what it delivers. His early framework described roles such as strategic partner, administrative expert, employee champion and change agent, and his ideas later shaped the three-pillar operating model.

What are the main HR operating models?

Operating modelHow it worksBest fitCommon risk
GeneralistA small team handles everything from hiring to payroll questionsSmall and early-stage companiesLittle depth in specialist areas
Three-pillarHR business partners, centers of excellence and shared servicesLarge, multi-unit organizationsConfusing handoffs between pillars
CentralizedOne corporate HR team sets policy and delivers service for all unitsSingle-country, uniform businessesDistance from local operations
DecentralizedEach business unit or region runs its own HRDiverse, autonomous business unitsInconsistent policies and duplicate systems
Product or experience-basedCross-functional teams own employee journeys such as onboardingOrganizations with strong digital capabilityRequires mature data and tooling

The business partner role is the most debated part of the three-pillar model. Our article on the HR business partner role looks at why it often becomes everything and nothing at once.

How do the three pillars divide the work?

  • HR business partners work with business leaders on workforce planning, organization design, talent and change.
  • Centers of excellence hold specialist expertise in areas such as compensation, benefits, learning, labor relations and analytics.
  • Shared services handle transactional work and employee inquiries through a service center, portal, kiosks or chat, usually in tiers.

Shared services depend heavily on HR systems. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that HR managers supervise specialists across recruiting, payroll and labor relations, and those specialties map closely to modules in an HRIS. Our explainer on the subsystems of an HRIS shows how the technology supports each pillar.

How to choose an HR model for your organization

Questions to answer first

  • How many employees, sites and countries do you support, and how different are their rules?
  • How much of HR time goes to transactions versus advisory work today?
  • Do frontline employees have easy access to self-service, or do they depend on managers?
  • Which specialist areas carry the most risk or cost for your business?
  • What systems and data quality do you have to support a service center or portal?

A practical sequence

  1. Inventory current HR activities and who performs them.
  2. Group work into advisory, specialist and transactional categories.
  3. Define handoffs and escalation paths before moving people into new roles.
  4. Build or improve self-service and case tracking for transactional work.
  5. Equip line managers, who remain the main HR touchpoint for most employees.

That last step is often missed. Our piece on equipping managers in the last mile of HR explains why.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between hard and soft HRM?

Hard HRM, associated with the Michigan model, treats people mainly as a resource to align with strategy and manage for efficiency. Soft HRM, associated with the Harvard model, emphasizes commitment, communication and stakeholder interests. Most organizations blend the two, applying hard controls to cost and compliance and soft practices to engagement and development.

Is the three-pillar HR model still relevant?

Yes, many large organizations still use it, but often with changes. Common adjustments include clearer service catalogs, stronger digital self-service, fewer handoffs and teams organized around employee journeys. Smaller companies rarely need full pillars and do better with generalists supported by outsourced specialists and good systems.

Which HR model is best for a small business?

A generalist model usually fits best. One or a few HR professionals cover all areas, supported by an HRIS, a payroll provider and outside experts for benefits, legal and compensation questions. As headcount and locations grow, add specialists in the highest-risk areas and formalize a service desk for routine requests.

Next steps

  • Map your current HR work into advisory, specialist and transactional buckets.
  • Identify the three most common employee requests and how long they take to resolve.
  • Decide which theoretical lens (hard, soft or blended) matches your culture and strategy.
  • Pilot one structural change, such as a tiered service desk, before a full redesign.

Last reviewed: October 2026.

Sources

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Why Workday Onboarding Breaks Down for Frontline Employees

Image
The Onboarding Gap Nobody Talks About Workday's onboarding module is well-designed for its intended audience: office-based, desk workers with reliable computer access, personal email addresses, and the digital literacy to navigate a web-based portal. For this population, Workday onboarding works well, it automates tasks, routes approvals, collects documents, and creates a reasonably smooth first-week experience. But most organizations using Workday have a substantial population of frontline workers: warehouse employees, retail staff, manufacturing workers, healthcare aides, food service workers, drivers. For this population, the standard Workday onboarding experience frequently fails in ways that are predictable, documented, and, crucially, fixable. Understanding why it breaks down and what actually works is increasingly urgent as labor market competition for frontline talent intensifies. How Standard Workday Onboarding Is Designed Workday's new hire onboarding (delivered throu...
Read more

How to Improve the Customer Experience (CX)

Customer experience is the sum of every interaction a customer has with your company, from the first ad they see to the way a return gets handled years after the purchase. Companies that take this seriously outperform those that treat CX as a support function. The ones that struggle tend to confuse customer satisfaction scores with actual improvements, or fix the wrong things. Here's a practical look at what actually moves CX forward. Start with where customers actually struggle Most CX improvement programs begin with surveys. Surveys are useful but limited, they capture what customers are willing to articulate after the fact, which tends to under-report friction in the middle of an experience and over-index on the most recent interaction. The richer data comes from observing behavior directly: where do customers drop off in a purchase flow? Where do support tickets spike? What search queries are people entering on your site that suggest they can't find what they're loo...
Read more

How Do I Log In and Sign In to Workday HCM

Workday HCM is the system your organization uses to manage everything from your pay stubs and benefits to time off requests and performance reviews. Getting in is usually simple once you know where to go, but first-time login, password resets, and single sign-on setups can trip people up if no one has walked them through it. Here's what you need to know. How to find your Workday login URL Workday doesn't have one universal login page. Each organization has its own tenant, a dedicated instance with a unique URL. Your company's HR department or IT team should have provided the URL when you were onboarded. It usually looks something like your-company.workday.com or wd3.myworkday.com/yourcompany . If you weren't given the URL, check your onboarding email, your company's intranet, or ask HR directly. Some organizations also link to Workday from their internal HR portal. Don't try to guess the URL, there's no central directory, and guessing wrong just takes...
Read more

UKG Union Contract and Overtime Rules for Multi-Site Food Plants

Multi-site food manufacturers running UKG often struggle with one thing: each plant has its own union contract, shift pattern and overtime rules, while the timekeeping system is configured centrally. The fix: document every contract rule precisely, map it to UKG pay rules and work rules, test against real timecards, and handle true exceptions with add-ons rather than core customization. Disclosure: The author works at CloudApper, which makes the UKG add-ons discussed in this article. Why are union contracts so hard to configure in UKG? Federal law sets a floor. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must receive at least one and a half times their regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Collective bargaining agreements frequently go further, and food plants often have several agreements across locations. Common contract provisions include: Daily overtime after 8 hours, or after 10 on a four-day schedule. Double time on the seventh consecutive day o...
Read more

Infor HCM Software Engineer Jobs: Salary Factors and Skills

An Infor HCM software engineer's salary depends mostly on the type of employer, the depth of Infor platform knowledge, and location. Engineers who combine general software skills with hands-on experience in Infor CloudSuite HCM, Lawson, Infor ION integrations and payroll logic tend to command more than generalist developers, because that combination is scarce in the job market. What does an Infor HCM software engineer actually do? The title covers several different jobs, and pay follows the job more than the title. Broadly, these engineers build, configure, integrate and support the Infor human capital management stack, which includes core HR, payroll, benefits, talent management and workforce management. Many organizations still run the older on-premises Infor Lawson system alongside or instead of the cloud suite, so experience with both is common. Typical responsibilities include: Building and maintaining integrations between Infor HCM and payroll providers, benefits carrie...
Read more

How to Search in Workday: Find Reqs, Reports, People and Tasks

To search in Workday, type into the global search bar at the top of any page, press Enter, then use the category filters on the left of the results to narrow to people, organizations, tasks and reports or other object types. Workday only returns items your security roles allow you to see, so missing results often mean an access issue rather than a typo. How does Workday search work? Workday uses a single global search box rather than separate menus for each module. Everything in the tenant, from a worker's profile to a job requisition to a custom report, is an object that search can find if you have permission to view it. Three points explain most search behavior: Security trimming. Results are filtered by your security groups. A recruiter and a payroll partner typing the same term will see different results. Categories. After you press Enter, results are grouped into categories that appear as filters. Clicking one hides everything else. Related actions. Once you open an...
Read more

ERP Solution Guide: How to Choose the Best ERP for You

What Is an ERP System and Why Does It Matter? An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is software that integrates the core functions of a business — finance, inventory, procurement, human resources, manufacturing, and customer management — into a single, connected platform. Instead of data living in separate spreadsheets or standalone applications that don't talk to each other, an ERP creates one source of truth for the entire organization. For growing companies, the question is usually not whether they need an ERP but when and which one. Getting this decision right has long-term consequences. A poorly chosen ERP creates more problems than it solves — forcing teams to work around the system, creating data integrity issues, and consuming IT resources in an endless cycle of customization and maintenance. A well-chosen ERP, on the other hand, becomes the operational backbone that lets a company scale without proportionally growing its administrative overhead. Understandin...
Read more

The End of Remote Work: Why Companies Want You Back

Return to Office: The Trend Reshaping the Modern Workplace After years of celebrating the remote work revolution, a powerful counter-movement has taken hold. Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Disney, and hundreds of other organizations have issued return-to-office (RTO) mandates, some requiring full five-day-a-week presence. The era of near-universal remote work flexibility appears to be giving way to something more complicated, and HR leaders are at the center of navigating it. Why Companies Are Calling Employees Back Collaboration and Innovation: Many executives argue that the serendipitous interactions, the hallway conversation, the spontaneous whiteboard session, that drive breakthrough ideas simply cannot be replicated on Zoom. Studies from Stanford and MIT suggest that in-person collaboration produces measurably higher rates of novel idea generation. Culture and Cohesion: Building and sustaining organizational culture at a distance has proven harder than anticipated. N...
Read more

The Future of Employee Healthcare Key Concerns and Strategies for 2024

In a rapidly evolving professional landscape, employers are grappling with an array of challenges as they plan employee-sponsored healthcare strategies for 2024. A recent survey conducted in the US in August 2023 sheds light on the primary concerns and emerging trends in the realm of employee healthcare. Mental health, healthcare costs, pharmacy expenditures, and transformative technologies are at the forefront of employer considerations, signaling a need for comprehensive and innovative approaches to employee well-being. Rising Mental Health Concerns A staggering seven in 10 employers reported a surge in mental health concerns, marking a significant uptick from the previous year. With 77% of employers experiencing an increase and an additional 16% anticipating future challenges, the mental health landscape is a top priority. The implications of the ongoing pandemic, remote work dynamics, and societal shifts are evident as employers grapple with addressing and supporting the mental ...
Read more

How Digital Marketing Helps Your Business Grow: A Practical Plan

Digital marketing helps a business grow by putting it in front of buyers at the moment they search, compare and decide, then measuring which efforts produce revenue. Search, content, email, paid ads and social channels let even small teams reach targeted audiences, test messages cheaply and shift budget toward what works, something print and broadcast advertising rarely allow. How does digital marketing actually drive business growth? Growth comes from three levers: reaching more of the right people, converting more of them into customers and keeping those customers longer. Digital channels touch all three. Reach. Search engines, professional networks and industry newsletters connect you with people already looking for what you sell. Conversion. Clear landing pages, case examples and easy contact options turn interest into conversations. Retention. Email, customer education content and community channels keep existing customers engaged and open to expansion. The underlying ...
Read more