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Copieux Group

HR designed for impact

The HR Bottleneck Diagnostic

Use this checklist to diagnose where your team is losing capacity, clarity, control and commercial impact. It identifies bottlenecks across work design, ownership, systems, data, AI readiness and executive alignment.

Complete it as a team, then compare scores across HR, finance, operations and line leaders. The biggest bottlenecks are usually where scores are low and the issue has a direct impact on capacity, risk, decisions or employee experience.

Scoring scale

0Not in place
1Major gap
2Partially in place
3Working well

0 of 70 answered

Total score 0 / 210

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Section 1

Capacity and workload

A score below 15 suggests HR capacity is being consumed by reactive and low-value work rather than protected for strategic priorities.

0 / 30

Not started

1.1Can we clearly show how much HR time is spent on strategic work, operational work and reactive firefighting?
1.2Do we know which activities consume the most time but create the least value?
1.3Have we identified the manual, duplicated or repetitive tasks that could be removed, simplified, delegated or automated?
1.4Do we know how many hours per month are lost to manual reporting, chasing information, rework and workarounds?
1.5Are there clear service standards for employee, manager and business requests?
1.6Do we know which requests should be self-service, handled by a manager, handled by HR or escalated to leadership?
1.7Is there protected time in the calendar for workforce planning, business partnering, organisation design and improvement work?
1.8Can the HR team operate effectively when one or two key people are absent?
1.9Do we have a prioritised backlog rather than treating every request as urgent?
1.10Do we regularly stop, simplify or retire HR activities that no longer add value?

Section 2

Ownership and accountability

A score below 15 suggests HR is acting as the default owner of issues that should sit with managers or business leaders.

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2.1Do we have a clear RACI or decision-rights map for major people processes?
2.2Can every manager explain what they own versus what HR owns?
2.3Are performance conversations, feedback, absence management and development clearly owned by line managers?
2.4Do we have defined escalation thresholds so issues reach HR only when appropriate?
2.5Are managers held accountable for following people processes and acting on people data?
2.6Do we know which recurring issues are caused by unclear ownership rather than a lack of HR resource?
2.7Is HR involved early enough in restructures, operating-model changes, technology decisions and workforce reductions?
2.8Do business leaders understand the people implications of their decisions before approving them?
2.9Are HR recommendations assigned an owner, deadline and success measure?
2.10Do we review whether decisions made without HR input later created avoidable people risk or cost?

Section 3

Process design

A score below 15 suggests work has grown around the team faster than the operating model has evolved.

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3.1Have we mapped how core HR processes actually work, rather than how they are supposed to work?
3.2Do we know where each process starts, who is involved, what triggers it and what the required output is?
3.3Have we identified handoffs, approvals, delays, rework loops and duplicate data entry?
3.4Are processes documented in a way that a new team member could follow?
3.5Do employees and managers know how to raise a request and what will happen next?
3.6Are approval steps necessary, or have they accumulated over time?
3.7Do we measure cycle time for key processes such as hiring, onboarding, absence, employee relations and offboarding?
3.8Do we know which process failures create the greatest employee frustration, manager frustration or business risk?
3.9Have we removed workarounds rather than simply adding another spreadsheet or tracking document?
3.10Do we review process performance after implementation, rather than assuming a redesigned process is working?

Section 4

Systems and technology

A score below 15 suggests the organisation may be paying for technology capability it cannot use because the underlying work design is unclear.

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4.1Do we know which HR system capabilities we own but do not use?
4.2Is the HR system configured to reflect how the organisation actually works?
4.3Do workflows, permissions, approvals and notifications match the real process?
4.4Are employees and managers able to complete routine tasks without contacting HR?
4.5Do we know which data is held in the HR system, spreadsheets, email, shared drives or individual inboxes?
4.6Have we identified where the same data is entered more than once?
4.7Do we know which integrations are missing, broken or manually maintained?
4.8Can we explain the cost and benefit of each proposed system change?
4.9Do we avoid recommending a new platform before optimising the system we already own?
4.10Do system changes get tested, adopted and handed over properly rather than remaining dependent on one administrator?

Section 5

People data and reporting

A score below 15 suggests the team has a decision-confidence problem, not simply a reporting problem.

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5.1Do we have agreed definitions for headcount, attrition, regretted attrition, vacancies, absence, span of control and internal mobility?
5.2Can we produce the same core metric from one authoritative source?
5.3Do reports reconcile, or do different teams produce different answers to the same question?
5.4Do we know which reports are actively used to make decisions?
5.5Have we retired reports that nobody reads or acts on?
5.6Can we produce an executive people report without significant manual assembly?
5.7Do we know the data quality issues that affect decisions, such as missing, duplicated, outdated or inconsistent records?
5.8Can we connect people data to business outcomes such as cost, productivity, service levels, quality or risk?
5.9Does every key metric have an owner, a target, a review rhythm and a defined action if performance moves outside tolerance?
5.10Can we explain the so what behind every metric presented to the executive team?

Section 6

AI readiness

A score below 15 suggests AI is being considered before the underlying work, data and governance are ready.

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6.1Have we identified the HR processes that are stable enough to automate?
6.2Have we identified processes that should be stopped, simplified or redesigned before automation?
6.3Do we know where AI could genuinely create capacity rather than simply add another tool?
6.4Have we assessed the quality, completeness and accessibility of the data AI would rely on?
6.5Do we know which AI use cases involve sensitive employee data or require additional governance?
6.6Do we have clear rules on acceptable use, privacy, security, bias, human review and accountability?
6.7Have we identified which decisions must remain human-led?
6.8Do we have a prioritised AI roadmap rather than a collection of disconnected experiments?
6.9Can we explain the expected capacity, cost, risk and business value of each AI use case?
6.10Do we have a plan to measure whether AI adoption actually improves outcomes?

Section 7

Executive alignment and sponsorship

A score below 15 suggests HR may have a strong operational function but insufficient influence over enterprise decisions.

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7.1Can we clearly explain how the people strategy supports the business strategy?
7.2Do we understand the CEO's growth, cost, risk and execution priorities?
7.3Do we have a working relationship with the CFO as well as the CEO?
7.4Can we translate people issues into cost, productivity, risk, revenue or customer impact?
7.5Do we bring the executive team options, trade-offs and a recommendation rather than only a problem?
7.6Can we quantify the cost of doing nothing?
7.7Do major people initiatives have a named executive sponsor?
7.8Do we have agreement on what HR can decide independently and what requires executive approval?
7.9Do we report outcomes and business impact, not only activity and completion?
7.10Can we take our people plan, business case and risk assessment into a board or CFO meeting with confidence?