Building a Resilient HR Function for a Unionized, Public Sector Organization (Copy)
A local public sector organization’s HR department was at a critical inflection point. With a workforce nearing retirement age—many of whom had spent their entire careers there—vital knowledge was walking out the door. These long-tenured employees, often referred to as “knowledge keepers,” held institutional wisdom in their heads, not on paper.
The organization’s HR processes were complex, outdated, and inconsistently documented. New hires, unfamiliar with the legacy systems and lacking access to clear onboarding tools or training, struggled to stay afloat—and often didn’t stay at all. This high turnover cycle only compounded theproblem, leaving the HR department under-resourced and overburdened.
Layered over this were added complexities: a highly unionized environment with multiple bargaining units, geographically dispersed staff, many layers of management, and legacy technology that didn’t support modern ways of working. While some automation efforts had beenrolled out, core systems remained disconnected and, in some cases, actually created more work instead of less
THE ENGAGEMENTTricon partnered with the organization’s People Services team on a 9-week engagement focused on documentation and process clarity—key steps in future-proofing their HR function.
We hosted 27 focused workshops across 10 teams, identifying and mapping 84 priority workflows. This included capturing:
Core responsibilities and step-by-step processes
Key decision points and end states
Scenarios and variables that impacted outcomes
Clarity on manual, partially automated, and fully automated work
The client had identified over 200 processes in total, but to stay within budget, we worked together to prioritize the most critical 84 for immediate documentation. The remaining 126 lowerpriority processes were left off the current scope, with the understanding that the team could either tackle them internally using the templates and practices we modeled—or bring us back in the future.
THE FINDINGSTwo root issues emerged across all teams:
Legacy Business Practices A culture of over-supporting employees—"hand-holding" through every process—had created an unsustainable burden. There was also a tendency to default to manual work and rely on human verification, even when tools existed to streamline tasks.
Technology Limitations Despite having a roadmap for modernization, teams leaned on offline tracking (spreadsheets, paper, email) due to lack of confidence in current systems. Tools like PeopleSoft and ServiceNow lacked integration and clarity. Some automations actually added more administrative burden, and daily audits had become the norm.
THE OUTCOMEThe project produced digital process maps and actionable documentation that now serve as the foundation for consistent onboarding, training, and SOP development. It gave every team a starting point to capture, test, and finalize procedures that are clear, replicable, and sustainable— even as staff transition. By grounding the work in real team input and day-to-day realities, the HR department now has the tools and structure to move toward a more modern, agile, and resilient future
THE IMPACT✓ 84 process maps completed
✓ 27 workshops conducted
✓ 1,200+ sticky notes used
✓ 148 pages of insight captured
✓ 126 additional processes prioritized for future documentation
