How to build HR from scratch in a group of companies? MASTER CLASS

 Building HR from scratch within a group of companies is a complex but transformative journey. Unlike a single company, a group structure introduces layered complexities—standardization versus autonomy, data consolidation across disparate entities, and the creation of a cohesive culture amidst diverse business units. This article provides a comprehensive, actionable roadmap for building a high-impact HR function that serves both the group's headquarters and its individual subsidiaries.

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1- Navigating Managerial Challenges: Practical Solutions for Everyday Success

2- Update yourself with HR Knowledge :The Evolved HR

3- Enhance Your career as HRBP: Becoming HRBP ( Listed on Harvard Books , organically)

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The Blueprint for Unity: How to Build HR from Scratch in a Group of Companies

"One hundred percent of Fortune 100 companies have a dedicated HR team."  That statistic from BambooHR’s 2023 report isn't surprising. But for a group of companies—a sprawling ecosystem of different brands, cultures, and legal entities—building that function from scratch is less like assembling a jet mid-flight and more like designing the entire fleet while coordinating air traffic control. The complexity multiplies.

Building HR in a group structure is a high-stakes balancing act. On one side, you need standardization to ensure compliance, efficiency, and a unified direction. On the other, you must preserve the autonomy and unique cultural DNA of each subsidiary that made them successful in the first place. Get it right, and you create a powerful engine for growth, talent mobility, and innovation. Get it wrong, and you bury your operating companies in bureaucracy.

Whether you are a holding company standardizing disparate acquisitions or a conglomerate formalizing people operations, here is your blueprint for building a strategic, high-impact HR department from the ground up.

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Phase 1: Laying the Geological Strata (The Foundation)

Before you hire a single recruiter or write a policy, you must understand the landscape. In a group of companies, you are not dealing with one culture; you are dealing with several. Rushing to standardize without diagnosis is the fastest way to spark rebellion.

1. Conduct a "Group-Wide" HR Audit

You cannot fix what you do not measure. Begin with a comprehensive audit of all existing entities.

• Identify the current state: What formal and informal HR processes already exist? You might find one subsidiary with a rockstar payroll system and another with nothing but spreadsheets .
• Map the legal landscape: A group often operates across different regions or countries. Compliance isn't one-dimensional. You must understand the local labor laws, tax implications, and reporting requirements for each entity to mitigate risk .
• Spot the "Data Graveyards": In group structures, information is often trapped in silos. Look for the "information islands" where data is duplicated, outdated, or lost . One company might use spreadsheets for leave, another uses a legacy system, and a third relies on paper. This chaos is your biggest threat to data integrity .

2. Define the "Group" Philosophy: The Spectrum of Control

This is the most critical strategic decision. Where does your group fall on the spectrum between centralization and decentralization?

• The Centralized Model: All major HR decisions (strategy, branding, leadership development) come from the group HQ. This is efficient and ensures a uniform culture but can stifle agility.
• The Decentralized Model: Each operating company runs its own HR. This is flexible but creates redundancies and makes it impossible to move talent across the group.
• The Center of Excellence (Hub-and-Spoke) Model: This is often the sweet spot for growing groups. The Group HR sets the strategy, the employer brand, the HR tech stack, and compliance standards, while the individual companies manage the tactical execution (recruitment, employee relations) tailored to their specific needs .

Phase 2: Building the Core Infrastructure (The Skeleton)

With the strategy set, it is time to build the shared services that will hold the group together. The goal here is efficiency and visibility.

3. Prioritize the HR Tech Stack (Kill the Spreadsheets)

Hawkeye Group, managing nearly 3,000 employees, learned this lesson the hard way. Their legacy system forced them to run parallel manual processes, leading to a "paper avalanche" and a "data validation crisis" . For a group of companies, a unified HR Information System (HRIS) is non-negotiable.

• Consolidate data: You need a single source of truth. A cloud-based platform allows the group to see global headcount, turnover rates, and talent distribution in real-time, while giving subsidiaries the autonomy to manage their local data .
• Automate the basics: Leave requests, payroll integration, and expense approvals must be digitized. For a remote workforce (like security officers at Hawkeye), mobile accessibility is crucial to ensure forms don't get "lost in transit" .
• Democratize data: Managers across the group should have access to dashboards. When a project needs a specialist, they shouldn't have to email HR; they should be able to look at the talent pool across the entire group .

4. Establish a Unified (but Flexible) Policy Framework

Policies are the guidelines that help everyone work better together . However, in a group of companies, one size rarely fits all. LOTTE Group, a Korean giant, provides a masterclass in this. When transitioning to a job-based HR system, they didn't force it on everyone at once. They allowed each affiliate to customize the design to suit its own strategy and characteristics .

• Create "Minimum Standards": Define the non-negotiables (Code of Conduct, Anti-Harassment, Data Privacy).
• Provide "Templates": Create templates for performance reviews, offer letters, and handbooks that subsidiaries can adapt to their local context.
• Pilot before scaling: Like LOTTE, start with a newly established affiliate where resistance is low. Perfect the model there before rolling it out to the larger, more traditional companies .

Phase 3: The Strategic Pillars (The Muscle)

Now you move from administration to value creation. This is where HR transforms from a cost center to a strategic partner.

5. Talent Acquisition: Building a Group-Wide Employer Brand

You are not just hiring for one company; you are hiring for a portfolio. Candidates should see the value in joining the group, not just a specific subsidiary.

• Internal mobility is king: In a group, the career path is exponential. An employee stuck in a stagnant division can move to a high-growth one within the same group. Build a "Talent Marketplace" that encourages this. Lacoste PCL focused heavily on this, promoting internally and creating "Learning Journeys" to upskill raw talent into leaders .
• Synergistic recruitment: Share candidate pools. If one company rejects a candidate because they are "too creative" for a finance role, they might be perfect for the marketing subsidiary.

6. Performance Management & Development

The group structure allows for incredible development opportunities that single companies cannot offer.

• Cross-functional projects: Allow high-potential employees to work on projects across different companies to foster innovation and break down silos.
• Leadership pipelines: Identify future leaders and rotate them through different subsidiaries to give them a "group perspective." This is how you build leaders who understand the entire business ecosystem.
• Learning paths: Like Lacoste PCL, partner with external consultants or universities to create development journeys tied to core competencies .

7. Total Rewards: The Art of Equity

Compensation is a potential minefield in a group. A software engineer in a tech subsidiary might command a higher salary than a logistics manager in a distribution arm. If these two people sit next to each other at a group-wide town hall, you need to be able to explain the logic.

• Benchmark by role, not by entity: Use market data for the job (e.g., Software Developer) rather than just the internal hierarchy of the company. This ensures you remain competitive.
• Transparent structures: Build clear pay scales. This doesn't mean everyone gets the same, but everyone understands why they get what they get .

Phase 4: Culture and Cohesion (The Heart)

The greatest challenge of a group of companies is the "us vs. them" mentality. "We're the creative agency, and they're the boring corporate HQ."

8. Employee Relations and "The Culture Club"

You cannot dictate culture from an ivory tower. You have to cultivate it. When Lacoste PCL formed its joint venture, they didn't just write a mission statement. They created a "Culture Club" with representatives from each department. These sessions directly shaped their brand values and focus on wellbeing .

• Create cross-company councils: Bring together employees from different subsidiaries to work on group-wide initiatives.
• Standardize the experience, not the personality: Ensure that the processes (like requesting leave or enrolling in benefits) are seamless and consistent, but allow the personality of each brand to shine through.

9. Harmonizing Processes for a Better Experience

Campari Group realized that fragmented procedures were compromising efficiency and creating vastly different employee experiences depending on the region. By creating a one-stop-shop "MyHR" portal with a user-friendly interface, they streamlined processes and boosted satisfaction. Within a short time, 80% of employees accessed the portal, and satisfaction scores hit 4.4/5 .

• The takeaway: When you cut complexity for employees, you free them up to focus on the business.

The Roadmap: A Phased Approach

You cannot build this in a day. Dora Harsh Suri, an HRpreneur, suggests a logical order: start with the basics (Talent Acquisition, Ops, Compliance), then build the scaffolding (Performance, Engagement), and only then move to the complex architecture (L&D, Talent Management, C&B) . For a group of companies, this phased approach is even more critical.

1. Phase 0-6 Months: The Firewall. Fix compliance, consolidate payroll, select the HRIS, and standardize the employee data dictionary.
2. 6-18 Months: The Foundation. Roll out the core HRIS to all entities. Implement a consistent performance management process and a group-wide recruitment framework.
3. 18-36 Months: The Strategy. Launch group-wide leadership programs, implement advanced talent analytics, and build the internal talent marketplace.

Conclusion

Building HR from scratch in a group of companies is not about creating bureaucracy; it is about creating synergy. It is about ensuring that 1+1 equals 3. It requires the patience of an archaeologist (to understand the existing layers), the precision of an architect (to design the structure), and the empathy of a diplomat (to unite different cultures).

By focusing first on unified data, then on flexible processes, and finally on strategic talent mobility, you can build an HR function that doesn't just serve the businesses—it connects them. When done right, employees stop seeing themselves as working for a subsidiary and start seeing themselves as part of a larger, more powerful collective. And that is when the real magic happens.