One thing I learned in HR: sometimes the smaller the HR function becomes, the more the organisation expects from it

In one of my HR roles, we changed the operating model significantly. The HR organisation was decentralised, giving more responsibility to the countries and businesses. At the same time, the central HR team was reduced. There was a clear rationale behind it. Bring decision-making closer to the business. Reduce duplication. Create more ownership locally. Build a leaner corporate function. All perfectly reasonable objectives.

But something interesting happened. The HR organisation became smaller. The expectations did not. In fact, they increased.

The Executive Committee still expected strategic support on organisation, talent, leadership, performance and transformation. The Board wanted increasingly sophisticated discussions around succession, executive talent and workforce risk. The countries had more ownership, but they still faced complex HR issues and often needed support. And the central team, now smaller, was still expected to connect it all.

That is when “doing more with less” stops being a slogan and starts becoming a real leadership challenge.

The work does not disappear when the roles do

One of the traps in organisational redesign is assuming that when you remove roles, the work attached to those roles disappears too. Sometimes it does. Sometimes a process can be simplified, automated or stopped. Sometimes local teams can genuinely take greater ownership. But not always.

Some work simply moves. A decision that used to be taken by a specialist ends up with a business partner. A question that was previously handled locally is escalated because nobody is quite sure who now owns it. A gap in the structure is temporarily absorbed by the senior HR team. And temporary solutions have a habit of becoming permanent. Before long, the organisation looks leaner on paper while the remaining leaders are quietly carrying more and more.

When everything is important, nothing is prioritised

This is where the role of the CHRO becomes particularly difficult. Because the requests arriving on your desk are rarely trivial. The CEO needs support on the leadership team. The CFO wants productivity improvements. The Board wants a stronger succession pipeline. A country is struggling to retain critical talent. There is a performance issue with a senior executive. The organisation needs to reduce cost. A transformation programme needs HR leadership. None of these are obviously things you can simply ignore. So the natural response is often to keep absorbing.

One more meeting. One more exception. One more late call. One more issue you personally step into because it feels too important to leave unresolved. And that works. Until it doesn’t.

The real question is not: how do we fit it all in?

The more important question is: What should HR stop doing?

That can be surprisingly difficult for senior HR leaders. We are often good at taking responsibility. Good at solving problems. Good at stepping in when something is not working. And if you have spent years building your credibility with the business, saying “this is no longer ours” can feel uncomfortable. But a smaller function cannot continue to behave like a larger one indefinitely.

Something has to change. That may mean simplifying processes. It may mean removing work that no longer creates enough value. It may mean being much clearer about what belongs with HR and what belongs with business leaders. And sometimes it means telling the ExCo that a new priority cannot simply be added to the list without something else coming off it.

That conversation is not always easy. But it is part of strategic HR leadership.

Being close to the business does not mean doing everything for the business

One of the ambitions behind decentralisation is often to bring accountability closer to where the work happens. That can be very powerful. But only if the accountability is real. If every difficult people issue is still escalated back to central HR, the organisation has changed the structure without really changing the behaviour.

The same applies to line managers. HR should provide frameworks, judgement, challenge and support. But leaders also have to lead. A smaller HR function cannot compensate indefinitely for managers who avoid difficult conversations, business units that do not build their own capability or senior leaders who treat every people issue as something for HR to solve. At some point, supporting the business has to include asking the business to own its part.

The CHRO cannot become the shock absorber for the organisation

There is another consequence that is easy to underestimate. When the function is stretched, the most complex work tends to move upwards. Senior leaders become the escalation point. The CHRO becomes the person who resolves the gaps. And because many of those decisions genuinely matter, it is easy to justify stepping in. But over time, this creates a different risk.

The CHRO becomes indispensable to too many decisions. The team gets less room to operate. The organisation becomes dependent on escalation. And the strategic agenda gets squeezed by operational noise. That affects more than the diary.

It affects the ability to think. To anticipate. To influence. To spend time on the organisational questions that may not be urgent today, but will matter enormously in twelve months. And, eventually, it affects life outside work too. Because the work that does not fit into the day has to go somewhere.

Senior HR leadership is also about protecting capacity

Protecting capacity does not mean doing less because the work is difficult. It means being deliberate about where HR creates value. It means having the confidence to say: This is critical. This can wait. This belongs with the business. This process no longer needs to exist. And if you want us to take on this new priority, we need to decide together what comes off the list.

That is not resistance. It is leadership. A leaner HR function can absolutely be a stronger HR function. But only when expectations, ownership and priorities change with it. Otherwise, the organisation has not really reduced the work. It has simply redistributed the pressure.

I work with senior HR executives navigating high-stakes people and organisational decisions, helping them lead with confidence, strengthen their influence on the executive agenda and make sure that a demanding role does not consume everything outside it.