Not Here, But There: Human Resource Allocation Patterns

Abstract

The digital age entails challenges that pressure organisations to redesign their business processes for improved performance. A significant aspect of this effort is the appropriate assignment of human resources – or people – to tasks. Despite the importance, there is a lack of structured guidance on allocating people to tasks considering various performance considerations such as time, cost, quality and flexibility. This paper presents 15 human resource allocation patterns organised into five categories: resource capability, utilisation, reorganisation, productivity and collaboration. The pattern collection is designed to offer guidance on diverse strategies for human resource allocation, focusing on process redesign for performance improvement from a resource perspective. The research was conducted in a two-phase approach. In the first phase, a literature review was conducted to identify existing resource patterns and practices, synthesised into an initial catalogue of human resource allocation patterns. In the second phase, this catalogue was evaluated through expert interviews with ten practitioners. The patterns provide a repository of knowledge guiding academics and practitioners on different ways a person can be assigned to a task for improved process efficiency. These patterns form a strong foundation for future research in the area of human-centred business process redesign.