This guide is part of a progression set comprised of Core, Advanced, and Emerging Lean HR practices.

What it is

“Lean” practices represent a methodology designed to impact the entire business system, from defining value in the most differentiating ways to empowering employees to redesign how they accomplish their work to improve productivity and engagement. Traditionally associated with process improvement within manufacturing operations, these principles and corresponding practices have proven to be excellent approaches when adopted across the enterprise, including Human Resources (HR). In fact, with HR’s typical broad reach within an organization, the function can play a visible leadership role in the organization’s overall Lean efforts by modeling these principles and championing their adoption.

Lean HR is an approach that aligns HR practices with proven process design principles to make the function more purposeful and value-adding in how it delivers outcomes through its processes, practices, programs, and technology platforms. “Lean” represents more than just a search for greater efficiency; it is a methodology that can also create a special identity for HR within its work culture. With a clear understanding of the value it aims to deliver, HR can lead a transformation that greatly improves its contributions to the organization's overall success. This means not only reducing inefficiencies within HR operations but also ensuring that HR directly adds value to the organization by optimizing talent, defining cultural practices, and enhancing workforce productivity.

The core concepts are based on Toyota Motor Company’s “Toyota Production System (TPS),” developed after World War II to eliminate manufacturing waste and inefficiencies, improve product quality, and increase production flexibility to meet customer demand. As such, this has evolved from a de facto manufacturing methodology for so many products built worldwide to a comprehensive value-adding business strategy applicable to any enterprise. 

The process starts with a clear understanding of business strategies and goals. This is not an easy task, given the ongoing changes as organizations try to meet changing needs and unforeseen shifts in market dynamics. It is not a single, non-recurring project (e.g., “once and done” effort), but rather a continuous process of examining how policies, structures, and workflows can be refined to support the organization's evolving direction. The goal is to establish an HR function that is both strategic and adaptive, with increasingly effective activities, reducing non-value-adding efforts, and reinforcing business priorities.

Lean HR is about maximizing the effectiveness of HR’s role in driving organizational performance. Applying Lean thinking enables the function to focus its time and resources on work that directly impacts business outcomes.

Why use it

A Lean HR strategy helps increase efficiency, reduce costs, improve the employee experience, and strengthen organizational culture. Lean HR creates a continuous focus on eliminating wasted effort and misused resources to improve activity and workflow, better enabling HR teams to support employees as they contribute more directly to business results. The reality is that many work processes can be hopelessly inefficient but go unnoticed because they have become accepted and standardized as “the best way”, and thus fully integrated into the culture as “how we do things around here.” Without a commitment to continuous improvement—the hallmark of Lean—processes and routines can devolve into entropy, disorder, or less predictable outcomes.

To understand the concept of entropy, consider a recently cleaned kitchen. Without continuous attention, items are left on the counters, dishes pile up, and disorder becomes more pronounced. Work routines and processes are similarly affected by these forces. For example, in HR, using a hiring process under pressure to quickly recruit new talent illustrates this point. As pressure for speedier outcomes builds and haste becomes the norm, processes tend to break down, as workarounds and shortcuts undermine well-designed practices, often becoming the new standard. Through Lean principles, HR can not only streamline processes but also maintain an ongoing cycle of monitoring and improvement.

Lean is also like a team sport, where all team members participate in making small yet meaningful improvements within their roles and responsibilities. Not only can processes be enhanced, but a sense of belonging can also be cultivated—something that is often elusive when the pace of change, along with the surrounding complexity and uncertainty, leaves employees feeling disconnected from their work. A simple assessment can serve as a first reality check.

Outcomes

Lean HR engages team members directly in process improvement efforts and provides the tools and resources they need. As these changes are implemented, the employee experience (EX) becomes more positive and efficient across a wide range of HR services, from benefits administration to performance management and career development. This approach increases engagement and satisfaction among HR’s internal customers and contributes to a stronger work culture beyond HR. In this context, Lean becomes a practical pathway for HR to achieve value-adding status in increasingly chaotic, complex, and uncertain work environments.

Lean can also help HR move away from a common negative reputation that stems from its broad agenda, such as being seen as the “complaint department” or the “principal’s office.” A Lean HR-based strategy moves the perception of HR closer to a business operation, by focusing on keeping HR operations efficient and aligning them more clearly with business objectives. By mapping workflows, continually refining small processes, improving employee experiences, and tracking key performance indicators, HR can foster a culture of continuous improvement that enhances both operational efficiency and employee engagement.

A Lean HR organization fully responds by:

• Clarifying and communicating its purpose through its range of value propositions that serve the organization (e.g., talent management, performance management, rewards and recognition, and others) in the service of specified business objectives.
• Streamlining and continuously improving its processes to amplify its true value (e.g., HR is easy to pull value from, whether a manager is trying to hire someone or handling an employee performance issue).
• Engaging and empowering the people of the organization in the most positive and productive ways (including the facilitation of their well-being).

Additionally, with freed-up time and resources, HR can focus on strategic initiatives such as talent development, workforce planning, and leadership development, enabling faster, more effective responses to changing business needs. By understanding the business's needs and supporting them, Lean HR helps align the function’s activities with the organization's overall goals.

Practice guides at this level

Aligning HR priorities with business strategies to increase the value of HR contributions by applying Lean principles.

Establishing a clear connection between business objectives and HR to enhance operational efficiency while ensuring that all activities contribute effectively to advancing organizational goals.

Identifying potential Lean applications best suited to core HR practices.

Selecting high-impact HR processes for Lean application to demonstrate measurable improvements, engage business leaders, and showcase HR’s capability to drive operational excellence.

Involving senior leadership in defining a Lean HR strategy to sustain transformation.

Driving leadership commitment to Lean HR by providing executives with the insights, metrics, and governance necessary to embed continuous improvement and link HR efficiency to business performance.

Building a culture of problem-solving and continuous improvement.

Embedding continuous improvement into HR’s daily work, enabling employees to identify inefficiencies, experiment with solutions, and drive lasting performance gains through data-informed problem-solving.