Building a Global HR Function in 60 Days: The Ralliant Story

When Ralliant spun off as an independent company, it inherited 7,000–8,000 employees across 41 countries and almost no HR operations framework to support them. There was no standardized case management, no tiered support structure, no service-level discipline, and no single source of truth for how HR work got done. The clock was 60 days. Mark Thompson was brought in to build the entire function from nothing.

I did not start with software. I started with the operating model. The first decision was structural: a Tier 0 to Tier 3 support framework that routed routine questions to self-service and knowledge, freed specialists for complex work, and gave escalations a clear path. With the model defined, I built the engine on top of it. We stood up ServiceNow as the backbone, redesigned 25 core HR workflows, and authored 445 knowledge articles so employees could resolve questions without waiting on a person. Then I layered in AI. We integrated intelligent case routing and AI-assisted resolution so the system learned where work belonged and handled the predictable volume on its own. Throughout, I built the measurement layer in parallel rather than after the fact—a 13-KPI dashboard and a COE framework so we could see SLA compliance, resolution time, CSAT, and service quality from day one.

• 0141 countries supported by a working HR operations function within 60 days
• 0260% reduction in case volume through ServiceNow AI workflows
• 0391–95% SLA compliance across more than 36,000 annual cases
• 04Resolution time cut by 17.7 hours per case
• 05Escalation volume reduced by 57%
• 065.18 / 6.0 CSAT achieved in a brand-new organization

A 60-day deadline does not reward perfectionism. It rewards judgment about what to build first and the discipline to build it well. I led a team of 25 through a period that could have broken them, and we did not just hit the deadline — we hit it with a measurement layer already running, which meant we could prove the model worked rather than hope it did. The lesson I carry from Ralliant is that speed and rigor are not opposites. Build the architecture first, instrument it from the start, and let the data tell you where to go next.