What is an HR Business Partner?

What is an HR Business Partner? You hear this term frequently used, but now many HR people really know what this means? I’ve seen a number of organizations with this title, yet none of their staff have changed how they operated since changing to this title. So what does it mean to be an HR Business Partner? HR Business Partners bring one or more of the following specialities to the organization:

 

Role

Definition

Business Rationale

Strategic Partner

Aligning HR and business strategy: ‘organisational diagnosis’

In many cases, this is the only hr business partner role HR people
think of.The person “at the table.”While important, this is no larger than the
other HR business partner roles.

This HR professional understands business strategy, and that strategy
is about trade-offs, and choices.They
also have a significant understanding of how their organization operates and
how the firm generates value.

They help provide perspective to business changes, and evaluate the
business case for impacts to employees (good and bad).How changes to talent management can help
in achieving business objectives.

Administrative Expert

Reengineering organisation processes: ‘shared services’

McKinsey once wrote that “re-designing and organization is one of the
best uses of a CEO’s time.”

Bain & Co studies 57 restructurings and found that the common
element to successful restructuring was improving the ability to make
decisions.

Having an HR professional with skills in designing organizational
structures, processes, and the jobs within them can greatly improve
productivity giving your organization a competitive advantage.

Employee Champion

Listening and responding to employees: ‘providing resources to
employees’

This isn’t just listening to employees.This is actively working to improve
employee engagement and to develop key talent.

My favourite definition of employee engagement is a measure of
employee’s discretionary effort.
Engaged employees are more productive.
In modern business, this means efficiency and competitiveness.

However, discretionary effort alone won’t help your organization
succeed.This is where talent
development is key.
HR professionals in the employee champion role help maintain employee
engagement, and ensure that the right employees are developing the right
skills that the organization will need to remain competitive.

This can be management and leadership skills in a large organization,
or customer-service skill development, or even instilling a culture of
continuous improvement within your organization.

Productive skilled employees are the backbone to an organizations
success, and this role is critical to accomplishing that.

Change Agent

Managing transformation and change: ‘ensuring capacity for change’

Anywhere from 50-70% of organizational changes fail, and many times
they fail because the people don’t change.
Systems or tools get successfully created, but are never used.

Getting the people to change is one of the most difficult things to accomplish
within an organization (in fact, my employer PwC has an entire group just
called People and Change who support organizations undergoing changes).

Successful change is vital to an organizations ability to adapt and
compete, and having HR professionals who understand this, and are involved in organizational
changes can make a significant difference.

Adapted from ULRICH, D. (1997) Human resource champions: the next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

These roles of course are just the start.  Modern HR professionals also need to have business acumen and to be able to speak the language of business /finance (and build business cases).  They need to be skilled problem solvers, capable of providing an objective opinion on any situation where the business area needs assistance, or a partner to bounce ideas off of.  Lastly, HR professionals still need to offer the exceptional levels of service for transactional elements of our jobs as well as adding these new capabilities.

Resources for HR Business Partners:  A lot of the skills required for business partners come from the giants of business thought, while some are newer.  These are my personal favourites:

  • Business Strategy: Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy is if not the, at least one of, the seminal works in business strategy.  This is a must read for anyone hoping to deliver value from their function of business by aligning their priorities with that of the business.  I also recently purchased The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy after hearing excellent things about their book.
  • Business Acumen: Experience and staying educated on what’s happening in the business world.  McKinsey Quarterly,  Strategy+Business, or the Harvard Business Review are all exceptional sources for the latest business ideas from all areas of business.
  • Management and Leadership: Peter Drucker’s Management.  As the father of management as a discipline, Drucker possesses a unique insight into business and laid the foundation for much of how we approach business today.
  • Problem Solving: Ethan Raisel’s The McKinsey Way.  Ethan takes a closer look at how the worlds more prestigious consulting firm approaches their projects, especially issues based problem solving – a method becoming more common in top consulting firms for its effectiveness in solving complicated business issues quickly and effectively.  My firm, PwC, has an internal process and training that is quite similar to the McKinsey, and other consulting firms, problem solving  methods.  This technique is invaluable for HR professionals looking to add value to their organizations.  Ethan also co-authored follow-up “The McKinsey Mind.”
  • Change Management: For a quick introduction to change management (and resources) why don’t you take a look at one of my earlier articles: Change Management
  • Organizational Design: Check out my past article on organizational design, or look into the McKinsey 7S Framework, or Bain & Co’s Decide and Deliver.  When used in conjunction they offer an exceptional look into what organizations need to do to improve internal alignment for performance.

So after years of fighting to get a spot at the table, it’s up to us to continually prove why we need to be there.  Good luck!
Tyler Totman
PwC People & Change Associate

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