SmartSuite for the Shared Services Director
The Shared Services Director leads enterprise service delivery for internal functions such as HR, finance, legal and facilities: one intake, service standards, SLAs, case management and the metrics that show employees are served well. They own the enterprise service management program.
What you own
The Shared Services Director leads enterprise service delivery for internal functions such as HR, finance, legal and facilities: one intake, service standards, SLAs, case management and the metrics that show employees are served well.
- Own the enterprise service management strategy and service catalog
- Set service standards and SLAs for internal functions
- Run one intake and case management model across HR, finance, legal and facilities
- Govern domain service teams and resolver groups
- Track employee satisfaction and service costs
- Report enterprise service performance to executives
Reporting lines
Who this role reports to, who reports to them, and the peers they work with most.
Reports to
Direct reports
Works closely with
How SmartSuite supports this role
Lead
Request. Provides one employee portal for HR, finance, legal and facilities requests with routing, approvals and case tracking.
Service level. Sets and measures SLAs per service and domain team.
Knowledge. Maintains self-service knowledge for internal services.
Reporting. Reports volumes, SLA attainment, satisfaction and cost per service to executives.
Products this role uses most
Industry reference
ITIL 4's guidance on enterprise service management extends service desk, request and knowledge practices beyond IT, and the Shared Services and Outsourcing Network's operating model work describes the center itself. Each domain brings its own rules: HR cases carry employment law and HIPAA when benefits data is involved, finance requests carry SOX approval controls, legal intake carries privilege and public sector shared services follow procurement and records law; SOC 1 reports are common where the center runs controls for others.
Related roles
Explore Further
Guides and definitions from the GRC Knowledge Center and the What-is glossary, chosen for this role.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Shared Services Director accountable for?
The Shared Services Director is accountable for enterprise service delivery to employees: the enterprise service management strategy and the service catalog, the service standards and SLAs for HR, finance, legal and facilities, one intake and case management model across those functions, governance of the domain service teams and resolver groups, employee satisfaction and the cost of each service, and the reporting of enterprise service performance to executives. They own the program that makes internal functions feel like one service.
How does SmartSuite help a Shared Services Director run one intake for every function?
Service Desk & Request Portal provides one employee portal for HR, finance, legal and facilities requests with routing, approvals and case tracking, so an employee asks in one place and the request is routed to the HR Operations Manager's team, the Legal Operations Manager's intake or the Facilities Director's group by rule. HR Requests & Case Management and Legal Requests & Intake handle the domain-specific case work behind the portal. The Shared Services Director sees every function's queue in one model.
How are SLAs set and measured per service and domain team?
Service Level Management (SLAs) sets and measures SLAs per service and domain team, so a payroll query, a contract request and a desk move each carry their own target and the domain team that owns it is measured against it. Service Catalog defines the services and what each promises. The Shared Services Director governs the domain teams from attainment by service rather than from anecdote, which is the basis for the service standards the role sets.
How does this role build self-service for internal services?
SmartSuite maintains self-service knowledge for internal services, so the answers to the questions that fill HR and finance queues, such as how to claim an expense or change a benefit, are published where employees look before they raise a case. The Shared Services Director can see which services generate repeat requests and direct the domain teams to write the article. Volume for those services falls as the knowledge improves, and the Service Desk Manager's team handles what remains.
How does a Shared Services Director report to the COO and CIO?
SmartSuite reports volumes, SLA attainment, satisfaction and demand by service to executives, so the Shared Services Director's report to the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Information Officer shows each service's demand, performance against its SLA and employee satisfaction drawn from the case records, with the cost to deliver each service set beside them. Cost per service is the figure that justifies the shared services model, and the Controller can read the same numbers for the finance services the center runs.
How does a shared services center migrate functions into one portal?
One function at a time, usually starting with the domain whose request volume is highest or whose intake is most scattered; the portal, routing rules and SLAs for that function are set up, its cases opened in the portal and its knowledge published, before the next function follows. The Service Desk Manager runs the front line throughout. Getting started needs the service catalog as it stands, each function's request types and approvers and the SLA targets agreed with the domain leads.
How does SmartSuite handle the controls that shared services run for others?
Each domain brings its own rules, and the case record is where they are evidenced: HR cases carry employment law and, where benefits data is involved, HIPAA; finance requests carry SOX approval controls; legal intake carries privilege. Because approvals and routing are recorded on every case in the one intake model, the Shared Services Director can show an auditor how a request was approved and who handled it, which is what a SOC 1 report on the center's controls asks for.
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