#431 Merging IT and HR: Why Some Organisations Are Doing It – and What You Can Learn - article by Niels Brabandt
Merging IT and HR: Why Some Organisations Are Doing It – and What You Can Learn
By Niels Brabandt
Two worlds, one department? For many leaders, the idea of merging IT and HR feels counterintuitive – even risky. Technology and people management are often seen as polar opposites. Yet, forward-thinking organisations are proving that, when done right, this integration can accelerate decision-making, increase efficiency, and unlock new strategic potential.
Why Organisations Are Merging IT and HR
The primary driver is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Many HR processes – from recruitment to employee engagement – are increasingly technology-driven. Meanwhile, IT departments need a deeper understanding of people’s needs to design user-centric solutions. The traditional back-and-forth between these functions slows progress and creates frustration.
Other reasons include:
Faster Decision-Making: Reducing communication bottlenecks between two essential functions.
Greater Efficiency & Effectiveness: Achieving goals with optimal resources and methods.
Stronger Strategic Alignment: Ensuring HR and IT goals support the broader business strategy.
Enhanced Skill Development: Encouraging cross-functional growth and broadening career pathways.
Case Studies: From Pharma to FinTech
Moderna: Introduced a Chief People and Digital Technology Officer to connect the dots between people and tech in a highly regulated industry.
Covisian: Appointed a Chief People and Technology Officer to align HR and technology strategies in the AI-driven customer management sector.
Bunq: Implemented partial integration with an HR and IT Team Lead, enhancing collaboration while retaining some functional independence.
These examples show that integration is not limited to start-ups – it’s gaining traction in complex, established organisations.
The Advantages
Better Execution: Projects move from planning to implementation faster.
Improved Integration: Systems and processes align more seamlessly.
Greater Mobility: Talent can move between functions more easily.
Unified Vision: Reduces silo mentality and encourages shared goals.
Empowerment: Employees gain more involvement in decision-making.
The Challenges
Merging IT and HR is not without obstacles:
Skill Gaps: Finding talent fluent in both people and tech domains is difficult.
Cultural Differences: Bridging contrasting mindsets takes time.
Maintaining Specialisation: Critical technical and HR expertise must be preserved.
Integration Risks: Poorly executed changes can create more division, not less.
Resistance to Change: Fear of job losses can undermine engagement.
The “Best Fit Model” – No Copy-Paste Solutions
There is no one-size-fits-all structure. The Best Fit Model adapts integration to an organisation’s specific culture, industry, and objectives. Moderna, Covisian, and Bunq each took different approaches, all valid in their context. The key is to engage stakeholders early, communicate benefits clearly, and demonstrate quick wins.
A Crucial Point: No Job Losses
In every case study mentioned, no jobs were lost. While roles evolved and responsibilities shifted, the aim was to improve effectiveness and efficiency, not to cut headcount. This point must be made clear from the outset to avoid resistance and fear.
Final Thoughts
Merging IT and HR will not be the right choice for every organisation. But where AI, digital transformation, and business agility are strategic priorities, it can be a powerful lever for change. With the right model, clear communication, and committed leadership, the result can be stronger collaboration, better service delivery, and an empowered workforce.
If you’re considering such a transformation, or want to explore how the Best Fit Model could work in your organisation, feel free to reach out. As Niels Brabandt, I work with organisations worldwide to create sustainable leadership solutions – ensuring that innovation serves people and performance in equal measure.
Niels Brabandt
---
More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcripts, read below this article.
Is excellent leadership important to you?
Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com
Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn
Website: www.NB-Networks.biz
Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.
Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, moderator.
Podcast Transcript
Niels Brabandt
If I'd asked you to merge IT and HR by next week, what would you tell me? You probably would say, oh, but bun, that was a bit of a longer night in the pub, wasn't it? One of these ideas you have after four drinks.
No, it's not. People actually did that, organisations did that. And of course I know what the usual question is. The usual question is, which startup did it? Where is this new idea coming? No, I'm referring to a publication that the BBC just did last week and I received quite a high number of emails about it where people ask me, what do you think about this? And that's why we talk about can we and should we merge between HR and it?
Why should we or why shouldn't we when this is our topic, of course I'm going to give you all the sources, as I always do. And when I give sources, of course I always have to give the disclaimer, everything I use here is fair use. So I'm allowed to quote that. You see here all the legal stuff between the English, American and the British and the German system. So fair use policy. And when you talk about merging IT and hr, of course you wonder, how did the BBC get to that point? So. Well, I can tell you, they published about it and that article went pretty viral in certain decision maker circles where people thought, why on earth should we do that?
We have it, that's the tech side and we have hr, which is the people side. They are almost polar opposites in many people's perception. And the question is why should. Give me any reason why I should do that and no worries, I will. There are a couple of reasons why you could think about and one of the reasons is, and you can't be surprised about that when you follow the actual discussions, AI, artificial intelligence, often AI focuses on people aspects and suddenly IT and HR have to work together a lot more than before. And the usual what happens is a ping pong game of you have to do this, but then we need that and then, okay, here you have this. No, we need tech terms, but we only do people terms back forth, back forth and not much moving from there, at least not very quickly.
So when you say there are reasons because of AI, people say, okay, what are the reasons where there are there any kind of benefits in there? And of course, when you have two departments that have one, many people think, ah, it's about job cuts, right? And no, it's not. It's not about job cuts. When you put two departments together, you of course, usually when you do it well have quicker decision making, so. So that means more efficiency, more effectiveness. And just to give you the difference between the two, because just last week I had a couple of people in seminar sitting who did not know what the difference is and there's no shame in that.
Efficiency and effectiveness. If I tell you, here's a candle, please put the candle out. And then someone takes a bottle of champagne, pours it over the candle and the candle's out, is it effective? Yes, we reached the goal, it's effective effectively. The candle's out, Is it efficient? No. A bottle of water had been the better choice, or many other things, but not using champagne.
The effectiveness is that we reach the goal, broadly speaking, and efficiency means that we use the best means available to achieve that goal. And of course, when you have more efficiency, more effective, that immediately plays in the game of strategy. Corporate strategy is a different one. When you suddenly have departments working together that before that, let's face it, weren't best friends. They were not best friends. And when you want to say skill development, you could say, it's an interesting merge. Suddenly tech and people get together because, let's face it, many things in the future, no matter if it's IT or sales, which are usually the worrying parts, where people are looking for talent for a long time and struggle to find people.
When you suddenly have this together, you can have a different approach to skill development and also you need to have a different approach to skill development. So let's get into the cases because often people ask, which startup had this idea? No, it's not a startup. I have to disappoint you there, the first one. Because often, usually people say, oh yeah, some, some, some. Moderna is a minor company, right? Some people now say, isn't that the one from the COVID vaccine?
Yes, it is. Massive pharmaceutical company, not the Shed or the garage around the corner. And a new starter barrier that your council decided to build with limited success. Moderna simply said we need to put in a chief people and digital officer because many aspects of what we do today are so merged together that we need someone who is able to do both. And just to be very clear here, that does not mean you need to be an expert on both in detail. If you are an IT leader and now think, do I need to know payroll by next week?
No, you don't. If you are a people leader right now and you wonder, do I have to know what SQL databases, Oracle and Exchange servers do by next week? No, you don't. So no worries. Moderna is just One case, by the way, cuvision is a company which is working in the customer management space regarding AI. And another one is bank that you probably heard of. It's in a payment system.
HR and IT team lead different approaches here. So you have Moderna, which is chief people and digital technology officer, while Cuvision decided to have chief people and in general technology officer while bank didn't fully integrate the two and say we have an HR and IT team lead, but not fully fully integrated together. So you see there are different approaches. It is not one size fits all. It is not that. You say, just throw the departments together and then everything will be better from there. Because the main question of course will remain how do you make it work?
How can you implement that? How is it possible to implement these very different two departments? And of course we have to talk about the cons as well. There are very obvious pros, of course, when you put two departments together, you usually have things done quicker, not necessarily better, but you have them done quicker. But also you can think them through better. And that means you integrate aspects way better than before. I can just give you a very simple example that you probably eyewitness by yourself, you tell the IT oh, we need this piece of software, and they say, okay, we get it done.
A month later, here it is. And then you say, yeah, not like that, we expected something different. And this kind of integration issue can be dissolved, can be solved now. And of course you have other aspects with job mobility as well. When people in the IT sector said, well, I've done it for such a long time and I see I'm focusing on people more than technology. I like to move into the people space. Usually difficult, suddenly possible when you have people who say, well, I did paywall for such a long time and I'm really an expert on the software.
I really want to move into the software and tech field. You certainly can do that very quickly. So the mobility is better in two areas where you usually struggle to find talent quickly. It's also more attractive for people to work in departments like that because they way more options available. And of course the common vision that you have together simply leads to these issues of we deliver something.
No, not like this. What about that? No, what about this? And then back and forth back and that disappears or at least becomes a lot less common. As long as you give people the empowerment, when you allow people to probably not probably properly participate, then people will be happier with what they do. The empowerment simply means that people now hold shares, they hold a share of the decision Making process, they cannot say which is the, as you probably heard, grenade, over the fence, communication. When you say, yeah, I work in IT and I need this paywall software.
Here's my grenade. Good luck.
It from here I now take two weeks off, that disappears because these issues, often from wrong implementation or not great implementation, come from exactly that point that people say communication wasn't great, that becomes better as well. But of course we have to talk about certain cons, certain disadvantages and of course when you now say, when we talk about more, more flexibility and mobility and whatnot, you need to find people who have these skills. Yes. And the skill aspect is a massive one. The skill aspect is a massive one. You need to be able to have people who do not only think in people or tech terms, but in both. And that is quite a difficult thing.
I just, I am now here in London in the United Kingdom and in London we are quite advanced with this. In the US as well, in central Europe, the German speaking market, especially in Germany, not that much, unfortunately in Switzerland they are far advanced with that. I am now in a country in the UK where you have artificial intelligence live and public service, let's say in Germany. You're not there yet, let's just put it that way. And the skill gap of course is one aspect, but the cultural aspect of course is one as well. When you need to say we suddenly have this merged, you cannot put these silos into the organisation where people say, I do payroll, I do tech, I do this, I do that. You suddenly have a culture of things merging together and of course you still need specialised people.
But now specialisation becomes even more difficult. Just think of you put up a job ad where you say, we need a software developer who has these skills in these programming languages and in addition knows how HR work, what processes we have there, how payroll works, what kind of working models we have. Employment law would be very handy as well, if you know a bit about that, maybe some legal aspects. And all of that together with a high specialisation in software development, it doesn't get easier from there. So specialisation is there, but it's even harder to find talent here. So you have to talk about that. And now some people might wonder why is integration on both sides, pros and cons?
Well, when it works well, integration is great. However, when it does not work too well, then integration becomes a struggle. I am now here in the UK because we have a project, I have a project from an international corporation where we integrate HR and IT department and it starts with training, speaking at Events, coaching, consultancy, mentoring as well, even project interim management. Conducting the whole project by myself, not only talking about it, very important. I always offer both services. So it's the full package here. And the process will last for at least a year.
Goal is to have it integrated by the end of 2026, which is challenging, but possible. When the integration does not go too well, it becomes worse than before because then people put up walls and say, this is my tech space, don't touch it. This is my people space, don't touch it. And that's not what you want to have. The resistance is then omnipresent and usually people start to form coalitions, they talk to other people and they say, you need to be on our side. And then you have one group against the other and it gets worse from there. So. So resistance is part of the game and very important is what you now choose is the so called best fit model.
And the best fit model simply means you say, I take these couple of things but I think we don't need this. But I also take these couple of things but I don't take this. This is why and only look at the examples we have here. Moderna has a chief people and digital technology officer. So digital with a focus Coision has chief people and technology officer in general.
So way more overarching. While bank says HR and IT team lead, massive difference. So when you see these aspects, then it's very important that there is not a one size fits all solution. And you cannot simply say, yeah, just merge them, you know, exchange the signs of the door and then people have a meeting and a lunch together, maybe, maybe an evening dinner. But don't make it too expensive, we just rename the department, I mean renamed it, we already renamed it from HR to People and let's just say people and IT or whatever, People, technology, something like that. And that is not an approach. The best fit model needs thorough analysis.
This is why we're conducting coaching consultancy here. It needs thorough analysis and then a process that works together with the people. Listen to people first. Listen to what they like, what they dislike and what their goals are. You need to have immediate benefits as quickly as possible. That people say, this is now working better than before. And not only the people from HR and it, anyone in the organisation needs to see, hey, this was a great idea.
Suddenly when I now say, hey, I just filed my wish for vacation, paid holidays, whatever, and now I don't have to wait because they say, oh, the IT is not working, could you please open a ticket? And then I have to open a ticket and then it talks to me and solves the ticket and then I have to get back to HR because I tell them, yeah, they just sold the ticket. Could you please process my wish for paid holidays now back forth, back forth. You can now simply say, one department solved. And that is a massive, a massive benefit of it. The best fit model is the solution. And in addition, and I deliberately add that here because I know what other people what otherwise people will think, because some people will say, come on, Brabant, I know what's happening here.
I hear AI, I hear merging departments and I know what that means. It simply means job cuts. Just don't sugarcoat it, don't beat around the bush, just tell me it's job cuts. Isn't it very important here?
All of these case model? And I showed you the article, you can look it up. Every single one of these case studies, not a single job lost. And that is a massive advantage. The massive advantage here is simply that you say, we have an approach that merges two departments that can work together. And of course some people now ask me, what's your opinion on it? Is it a fit for every organisation? No. As soon as someone says, is this always?
Usually the answer is either no or it depends, because it is hardly ever only yes or only no. Except in very rare cases, which usually can be legally defined. So when you say zero jobs lost, it does not mean that people do not have different tasks. But suddenly people can focus on the real task and not do nauseating administrative tasks that no one wanted to do, but they had to do it by hand because there was no other approach. Suddenly you have more effectiveness, more efficiency and no jobs lost. And I think that is very important to communicate in the beginning because people will be maybe a bit scared when you say merging departments. They quickly will think of losing jobs or not being able to sustain their position.
And when you put AI on top of that, merging departments plus AI, people will get straightforward scared. So it's very important that communication comes first. When you do it in the way that we discussed here, you will have the best fit model in place, including all the benefits. And I wish you all the best doing so. And when you now say, well, I think I have about 48 questions regarding this, feel free to contact me anytime. So of course, when you now watch me on YouTube, feel free to leave a like there, subscribe to my channel comment, put a review when you listen to me on Apple podcasts or Spotify, and please leave a five star review. Thank you.
Very much for doing so. And recommend the channels I have here because you see, it's not advertising, it's just content. Recommend on social media, share it with friends, colleagues, anyone you like to see this content. In addition to that, when it comes to leadership tips, we have one special offer which we only have on YouTube for free, of course, it's the YouTube shorts. Roughly one tip per day. We now have roughly 100 tips online and will be more in the future. You can see all the leadership tips, so it pays off to put the Little Bell on YouTube.
So you always get notified when you have a new. When we have a new video online, it's basically one per day, five a week. It depends how much happens in the leadership space, of course. So feel free to join there as well. But of course you can also follow me on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and you can also go to my website, NB Networks Biz and you see what I do there. When you now say, I'd like to discuss that, but not in the comment section because that's public and I have something which is confidential. And of course when you text me, send me an email.
It's highly confidential and that means you do not have to fear that anything goes to public. Everything that happened here was based on discussions that I had with people this week. And as you see, I didn't mention a single one that was texting me. I only mentioned the BBC articles. It's 100% confidential. When you now say, hey, so by the way, my email address, nb networks.com Looking forward to hearing from you there. Very important is when you now say, do you have live sessions?
Yes, we do. We just had one last week. Expert.nb networks.com when you go there and put your email address in there, you only receive one email every week. No worries. Every Wednesday morning.
It's 100% content ad free. Guarantee you get free access to all my articles. More than 400 in English and German.
No paywall, no nothing. Free access to all the podcasts, no paywall, no nothing on all the podcasts there as well. And you get free access. That's the third one. We only announce the live sessions via the Leadership Letter. There is no other resource where you get the information in the Leadership Letter. There is the date, the time and the link to join.
You don't even have to register. You only need to keep the email with the link so you can be sure that this works in the future. And by the way, we only communicate live sessions for the readers of our Leadership Letter. So it really pays off to register there. Of course you can also follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. We don't announce live sessions there, but everything else is on there. So looking forward to being in touch with you there as well.
The most important aspect is always the last one which I mentioned. Which I mentioned. And that is apply, apply, apply what you hear on this podcast. Because only when you apply what you hear, you will see the positive aspects of what we talked about right here. And probably you will want to see you, you want to see positive aspects because otherwise you wouldn't sit with me here for 20 minutes or even more to listen to what I say. I wish you all the best doing so. If you now say, hey, I want to contact you about something very specific, training, speaking, coaching, consulting, mentoring, project, intro management, feel free to do that.
I'm looking forward to hearing from you. If you only want to drop me an email and discuss, we can do that as well. Doesn't cost you a penny. I do this every week. Thank you very much for the amazing exchange we had during the last weeks. I'm looking forward to hearing from others in the future. And now apply what you heard and you will see the positive benefit if you text me, by the way, on any channel.
I answer every single message within 24 hours or less. So I'm looking forward to hearing from you. And at the end of this video cast and at the end of this podcast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Thank you very much for your time. It.