Most leaders I speak to assume their next big change programme will succeed or fail based on budget or the right technology. Those things matter, but they’re rarely what stops progress. The real problem sits in the gap between the teams meant to deliver the change.
HR focuses on culture and people, Finance on cost, and IT and tech teams on innovation. In isolation, each team is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do, but the result is three groups pulling in three directions with no shared plan.
That space is getting more costly to ignore. MHR’s research found that 73% of UK business decision makers say agility and adaptability matters more than a fixed five-year plan. Meanwhile the average time businesses are given to reach core goals has shrunk to just over two years, and when teams are using that time solving the same problem separately, it runs out fast.
Spending more won’t close the gap
When a change programme stalls, the instinct is to spend more. But if HR, Finance and IT are still working towards separate goals, more money funds three separate efforts that don’t add up. You’re not accelerating the programme, but the divergence.
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The solution is improving visibility. Each team needs to see what the others are doing, and how it connects to a shared outcome. When that’s in place, the same people and budgets are able to deliver more, because everyone is pointed the same way.
The skills and AI crunch is already here
This isn’t a future problem. The biggest test of alignment is already here; a skills shortage and a major AI shift both arriving together. MHR’s research found that 70% of leaders will need to re-skill more than half their workforce by 2035. Either challenge on its own would stretch most organisations. Together, they make misalignment a bigger problem.
Consider what re-skilling at that scale requires. HR owns the people and development plans, Finance owns the budget and IT owns the tools and systems people will use. No single team can deliver this alone. Yet in most organisations, these three teams are being asked to plan separately, with no real reason to coordinate until something goes wrong.
When they do work together, things improve quickly. Teams stop competing for resources and start adding to each other’s efforts. When they don’t, large change programmes such as mass reskilling stall before they get going. Not because the idea was wrong, but because teams aren’t agreeing on how to deliver it and nobody was watching the gap between them.
What closing the divide looks like in practice
Organisations will make progress in closing the gap by changing how the three teams work together day to day.
Start with a shared goal: one outcome that all three teams are measured against, rather than three separate sets of targets. When HR, Finance and IT are judged on the same result, they stop tunnel-vision in their own fields.
Visibility matters too. Each team should be able to see the others’ plans and pressures. Finance should understand the people impact of a cost decision before it’s made. HR should have a say in which tools are bought, and IT should know what the workforce plan needs from the systems they build.
Alignment doesn’t happen on its own. Leaders need to set the shared direction clearly and make sure it sticks.
Where to start
If you’re not sure whether the divide is costing you, look at your last stalled project. Did it stall because of a lack of money or not having the right technology, or because each team was solving a slightly different version of the same problem? In most cases, the answer is the latter. That’s actually good news, misalignment is a cheaper fix than a budget shortfall.
Start small. Map out where HR, Finance and IT interact, and where their goals clash. Pick one programme that matters and give all three teams a single shared target. Make each team’s plan visible to the other two.
The organisations that come out ahead won’t necessarily have the biggest budgets or the newest tools. They’ll be the ones whose teams are aligned, working towards the same objectives.
Jeanette joined MHR in 1996 and now leads the HR team. Shortlisted twice as HR Director of the Year in two separate national business category awards, Jeanette has overall responsibility for MHR’s employees and training strategy. Passionate about employee engagement, resilience and wellbeing in the modern workplace, in addition to encouraging employees to embrace new opportunities and challenges, Jeanette is skilled and highly motivated in supporting all MHR colleagues.
- Jeanette Wheeler
- Jeanette Wheeler
