by Amy Armitage, Chair HR Business Partner Council
The good news for Strategic HR Business Partners: You’ve got a seat at the table. The bad news: it’s a very hot seat.
The HR Business Partner is one of the toughest jobs in HR today. The pressure to perform is high, yet so is turnover, burnout, restructuring, and overall lack of clarity on the HRBP’s most important strategic requirements, in the face of increasing tactical and operational demands.
“While the value of a great HRBP remains unquestioned, the structure of the HRBP role requires reengineering,” asserts recent McKinsey research. Among the top recommendations: the off-loading of operational and tactical activities and a redirect of the role to strategic long-term value building.
Similarly, Deloitte has focused on a “Business Impact HR” model and the need to upgrade HRBP capabilities in such areas as business fluency and agile business consulting, CEB, likewise, has suggested a range of new competencies and tools.
KPMG reported that 43% of companies undertaking major HR initiatives last year had refocused HR Business partner roles. This, along with improving line capabilities (63%) and re-engineering HR processes (50%), suggests that defining the business value created by HR is a hot topic. Unfortunately, 43% of companies also had no major business case for their new HR initiatives, the study found.
New Strategies Emerging to Drive Business Value
Members of our Strategic HR Business Partner Council, a group of leading companies who meet regularly to discuss practical strategies to enhance the Strategic HR Business Partner function, are exploring how high performing organizations and top HRBP’s are reinventing the function. (To participate in our recent survey, see here.)
“There continues to be a big gap between HR and the business,” explained one Fortune 500 Council member in a meeting last fall. “The problem is in the gaps. We try to transfer knowledge but there is a sucking sound into the gap.”
Top HR leaders say that HR is simply not evolving fast enough to meet the needs of fast changing business markets. “We need to bring the future forward fast,” explains John Boudreau, along with fellow authors, in a new (free) book that details findings of the open source CHREATE project on the future of work and HR.
So just what is the “future forward” for the HR Business Partner? It’s been more than 20 years since David Ulrich popularized the HR Business Partner model. In a recent reflectionon the HRBP’s evolution, Ulrich explains that the HR Business Partner is less a role than a business model and systematic approach to building three areas: individual talent, organizational capability, and leadership. “HR is not about HR. It’s about the business,” explains Ulrich.
Our own Council research and a review of additional research suggest seven practical strategies that can facilitate a future forward HR Business Partner model – one that moves the HRBP from the hot seat of fire fighting to the driver’s seat of impacting strategy execution.
1. Business first, HR second
Top performing HR Business Partners are business partners first, HR people second, Council members said our Fall meeting. “Success is when they don’t think you’re the HR guy,” explained one Council member.
“Being a business person first means digging into your client’s operational and financial data (not just HR data) and asking the questions that resonate with the business,” explained another Council member from a well known technology company. “Finance is the universal language that connects and resonates with the business.”
Beyond mere business acumen, Business Partners at our Fall meeting discussed the use of financial models and "what if" story boards that detailed the future cost and revenue implications of talent decisions. Members shared ways to define, scope, and monetize talent related business challenges as a first step in a business first approach.
2. Know your business model (how do you make money?)
Knowing your business goals is not enough. The real issue is understanding how your organization makes money – and, the unique and differentiating capabilities driving your business strategy and its execution. Top HRBP’s understand and explore the key areas of leverage that enhance revenues, reduce talent risks, and drive new business growth and innovation in the future.
HR execs regularly move between strategic, tactical and operational activity, Council members said. Yet the best ask more “why” and “what if” questions. They identify work priorities and goals based on anticipated value of their activities. They ask key questions such as:
- What are the must wins of my business unit?
- What are the most critical needs and roles in our strategy execution?
- What are the financial impacts of not achieving the strategy?
- How do our financial ratios compare to our competitors?
- What are the key trends in our labor expense and total cost of workforce?
High performing HRBP's learn how to say “hell yes” to the critical work of strategic problem solving and “no” to the not so critical work.
3. Know your stakeholders – both internal and external
Saying “no” has its risks. But saying yes to critical projects has even higher returns. Top HRBP’s manage that risk and return by knowing their key stakeholder’s issues and building partnerships with them through shared business outcomes. They participate on senior operational teams with C suite stakeholders and build relationships with customers. The best become an integral, essential part of the business.
Top HRBP’s also function as advocates for talent – especially the critical roles needed to execute on the business strategy. That top talent may be inside the organization – or increasingly it may be sourced from outside – in a variety of contracts and arrangements that serve customers. With an estimated 50% of work moving to the gig economy in the next five years, talent planning will evolve into sourcing talent in creative new combinations, potentially managed by the HRBP.
4. Start with the work – and the teams who do the work
At the center of a successful HR business partnership is focus on the work that needs to get done – increasingly in diverse and multi-functional teams from both inside and outside the organization.
“If you want to unlock effective teamwork, figure out what specific work requires collective effort, agree who needs to be a part of that effort, and create accountable commitments for executing it,” explains Carlos Valdes-Dapena who shared with the Council a preview of his new book about building high performing collaboration at Mars, Inc.
Leading companies are eliminating layers of hierarchy and pushing toward a more flexible, team-centric model, members said. The HRBP must lead the change whether through organizational design of new team based networks or team based performance coaching.
5. Market and sell the future business strategy
“As organizations become more digital, they face a growing imperative to redesign themselves to move faster, adapt more quickly, facilitate rapid learning, and embrace the dynamic career demands of their people,” suggests Josh Bersin at Deloitte.
HRBP’s play a key role in managing this transformation. Change management means many things to many people. But most simply, it can be understood as the alignment of the companies culture, values, people and behaviors to the emerging business strategy and opportunity – no simple task.
“I don’t think of myself as a change manager,” explained one Council member. “I am in a sales and marketing role selling the future business vision and strategy.”
“It’s all about selling…and building your story to sell it to your leadership,” explained another Council Advisor.
6. Use data to analyze and build a good story line for decision-makers
In addition to business challenges associated with digital transformation of business, data analytics is another major front for advancing the HRBP capability.
“The business value of workforce analytics is defined and determined by the HRBP’s,” asserted one Council member. “Without HRBPs there is no workforce analytics value.”
Today’s top HRBP’s are fast moving into roles that require top consulting skills and an ability to solve critical talent related business problems with data. HRBP consulting skills require a new toolkit of agile consulting and analytical problem solving.
Clear levels of expertise and consulting skill vary depending upon the maturity of COE’s, the needs of the business, and HRBP level. (See for example, Talent Strategy Group’s HR Business Partner Benchmarking Report). But on any level, HRBP’s have a North Star in clear focus on the future talent needs of the business strategy and coming armed with data and problem solving tools.
7. Develop trust through frequent interaction, transparency, and reliability
Given the often risky role of the HR Business Partner and emerging HRBP business models, frequent partnering activities to build trust relationships may be the most critical thing that HR professionals actually do to succeed. Business acumen, a common top capability sited for HR Business Partners, holds little sway if trust is not established with a solid relationship foundation built on frequent communication, disclosure and doing what you say you are going to do.
As such, the Trusted Advisor role is one that is constantly adapting to meet the emerging needs of the business. The HRBP Trusted Advisor is not just a support role. It is a true partnership to share ideas, work together, build solutions and make decisions that grow the business and maximize people potential.
Amy Armitage chairs the Strategic HR Business Partner Council. This article was based upon a winter meeting of the Strategic HR Partner Exchange, a group dedicated to upskilling HR Business Partners.
For information about our next Strategic HR Business Council meeting, our members and services, contact amy@nexuspeergroups.com. Please note that we protect the confidentiality of all Council members and their comments. Only senior level HR Business Partners are eligible for membership.