Transforming LEGO Group HR, brick by brick

The move toward “communities of expertise” is a good example of this increased impact. Shuster’s contention is that while good work is done in the centers of excellence that HR so often creates – around compensation, for instance, or talent – it is inevitably developed in isolation from the business and then foisted upon it. He prefers a model based on co-creation and collaboration. 

In practice, that means finding a group of 10 to 15 individuals for any project HR is running – not just representatives from HR itself, but also people from diverse areas of the business. This means that when the project is finally deployed, it is based on the expertise and experience of end users, instead of coming solely from HR.

An example is an ongoing exercise to reimagine learning and development at the LEGO Group, where a community of expertise is working on a project known as “LEGO U.” The individuals involved come from different parts of the business, work at different levels, and have worked at the LEGO Group for different lengths of time. 

“They are the ultimate audience for our learning and development, so their points of view are super relevant,” Shuster explained. “Because they have been through the process from beginning to end, they are effectively change agents embedded in the business. Plus, they give an initiative real credibility because the rest of the business knows it is something that wasn’t just designed by a bunch of HR folks.”

Change 2: digital product management 

Similar principles underpin the LEGO Group’s determination to improve HR’s digital product management capabilities. “It has become a real problem for HR organizations trying to support digital transformation that unless you are digitally embedded, it becomes an academic exercise,” says Shuster. “How can you support part of the business that it trying to transform itself around HR unless you have experience of that yourself?”

It is not as if HR stands apart from the digital transformation agenda. Innovators and entrepreneurs have developed multiple tools and technologies aimed at the industry over the past couple of years. The LEGO Group is using some of these not just to improve the way HR functions, but also so that its process of transformation mirrors what the rest of the organization is going through. 

For example, Shuster has appointed product managers in three areas within HR – talent, pay and time, and hire to retire – and asked them to run cross-functional teams that incorporate engineering and user experience design roles as well as end users. “We are basically learning in HR how to operate with a digital mindset,” he explained. “Then we take those learnings and apply them to the transformation that is happening in other parts of the business.”

Change 3: a fluid pool of partners 

Shuster’s third area of significant change to the LEGO Group’s HR structures is the move to a more fluid pool of partners. He says that other CHRO’s tend to be “curious and somewhat envious” when he tells them about it. “It is a capability that we are building as I speak, through time and motion analysis that seeks to understand exactly how our partners spend their time and when they have peaks and troughs.” 

In a traditional HR organization, each unit or function of the business would typically have its own head of HR plus a group of partners dedicated to supporting the unit. At the LEGO Group, however, each member of the executive leadership team has their own HR lead but the 80 or so HR partners previously embedded across each of the leaders’ functions are now in a single pool. They are then allocated to different areas of the business according to need.