In this early phase, HR staff is distributed throughout the enterprise. For instance, individuals may be assigned to different business units or regional offices and responsible for most of the HR-related processes and transactions that occur within the entity. There may be some corporate oversight, but systems and policies may or may not be standardized. While this model creates localized support, it usually comes with significant inefficiencies. In this model, the role of HR business partner typically doesn’t exist since HR staff members are embedded in each business entity.
HRBP Origins
The HRBP notion has originated from several works. However, Ulrich’s book Human Resources Champions (1997) is the most significant contributor to its popularity. In this book, Ulrich focused on the capabilities instead of the abilities of HR. In other words; focusing on the value that HRM could add to the outcomes instead of focusing on what HR is doing.
Conner & Ulrich planted the seed of the Four-Role based HR business partnering model developed by Ulrich. According to Yeung, Woolcock & Sullivan the competency model developed by Ulrich, Brockbank, Yeung & Lake is the most influential HR competency model ever. This competency model itself was the spark for the emergence of Ulrich’s HRBP model proposed in his famous book Human Resources champions.
The model suggested that HR can add value to the business and increase organisational performance if it will implement four roles. The first role is to be a strategic business partner adding to the business value instead of being a cost centre, the second role is to be an administrative expert, the third is to be a change leader instead of being a change follower and the fourth to be an employee champion and advocate.
Several research findings raised the fact that HR competency models are vital to the business performance; however, the effectiveness of those models are limited to the way it will reinvent itself and improve its roles to help in the execution of business strategies. This is no doubt requires more concentration on the barriers and challenges of implementing the HRBP models.
Focus on streamlined service delivery
HR is realigned toward implementing global processes with centers of excellence, service centers and business partners. In this model, HR is redesigned as a service-delivery function, and all HR roles are defined for efficient and effective service delivery. The service-delivery model creates common processes and systems; centers of excellence are staffed with specialists focusing on areas such as recruiting, talent and performance management, and management development. With this model, the focus is on efficiency and low-cost service, but not necessarily high-value consulting. The HRBP role usually is seen as a generalist but can also become strategic. In fact, I believe the HRBP role was invented during the development of this “Ulrich” service-delivery model because of the need for individuals to have face-to-face contact with business stakeholders.
Focus on employee experience
In this phase, HR implements intelligent systems and redesigns the COEs to focus on employee journeys and experiences. Rather than a “talent COE,” there are solution centers or solution teams, such as an employee-onboarding center or a team focused on low employee performance or global talent mobility. Such cross-functional teams design solutions for these integrated multi-disciplinary problems by bringing together IT, HR, finance, facilities and other groups. The big focus is on creating employee experiences, and such solutions often require a tremendous amount of automation. In this model, HRBPs are fewer, but they are more strategic and consultative.
In this iteration, the role was created and funded with talent from overstaffed recruitment and employee relations departments. The roles’ responsibilities included some employee relations, shared with the employee relations team, recruitment of manager-level jobs and general liaison with manager and director level positions.
With lower recruiting volumes, the model worked. However, when the recruitment volumes started to increase, the model was not sustainable. In addition, although there were many alignment meetings with the employee relations center of expertise, the misalignment continued. The gap in consistency and interpretation between the centers of expertise and the HR BP function persisted.
Once the environmental conditions changed, Human Resources had to re-examine the role. In this second iteration in 2012, HR created a sourcing function that assumed responsibility for manager recruitment. The employee relations function remained with the HR BP role. The historical misalignment issues were improved by a weekly case review huddle between the HR BP and employee relations teams. Also, each HR BP partnered with an assigned employee relations expert to ensure appropriate consultation. The HR team also learned about performance consulting as the methodology for operating as consulting partners to the business to solve business problems with people tactics and strategies. Performance consulting tools included:
- Formal project contracts with defined goals, objectives and metrics.
- Quarterly outcome reports to HR colleagues and key business stakeholders.
- Continuous education.
- Regular monthly reports shared with business leaders.
- Data analysis, interpretation and evidence-based work.
Agile and predictive
In this future phase, the teams and infrastructure built at Phase 3 are applied to specifically support and facilitate new business opportunities or challenges, such as mergers and acquisitions, new growth initiatives or sale productivity. These teams will go well beyond the traditional functions of HR and become more steeped in business issues and drivers. In order to move to this level, the company must have established systems and practices in Phase 3 to ensure all core employee experiences are well-designed and managed. In this model, teams will include domain specialists, as well as HRBPs who work directly with the business units involved.
The aim of the business partner model is to help HR professionals integrate more thoroughly into business processes and to align their day-today work with business outcomes.
This iteration came in 2015 with a downsizing that required the Human Resources team to reduce its HR BP team by half. This required a review of all expectations and job responsibilities that yielded decisions to keep, change or delete.
The employee relations function was fully centralized in the employee relations center of expertise. The HR BP no longer attended employee appeal hearings and responded to compliance hotline complaints. The biggest change was a shift from supporting manager-level leaders to vice presidents and higher. By moving support up the chain of command, the HR BP could more easily influence decisions and projects. This change required the HR BPs to evolve and adopt the following qualities:
- Relationship-Based: The most successful HR business partnering is reliant on the positive and productive relationships formed and the collaboration which then becomes possible. HR becomes the driver of an intensely well-networked organization.
- Initiative and Solution Focused: Rather than simply performing the daily functions of the old-school HR department, HR business partnerships work more holistically to translate strategy into action.
- Talent Expert: As talent management becomes recognized as a critical organizational capability, HR BPs must learn how to help identify, develop and act as stalwarts of all-things talent. Business leaders must look to HR BPs as drivers of value via pulling talent levers.
- Sharp Business Acumen: Business acumen means having enough knowledge of a business situation that will lead to a great outcome. HR practitioners must be able to read, understand and analyze financial statements such as profit and loss reports, cash flow statements and balance sheets. They must learn about the business’ key customers and market challenges.
- Coach: Being a trusted business advisor means taking on the role of a coach. The HR BP must understand the business, gain and maintain credibility, and be a thought partner to help find creative solutions to business needs.
HRBP Roles
Being a business partner may be achieved in many HR roles. HR professionals tend to fit into four categories: corporate HR; embedded HR; HR specialists; and service centres.
Corporate HR professionals define corporate-wide initiatives, represent the company to external stakeholders and meet the unique demands of senior leaders.
Embedded HR professionals work as HR generalists within organisation units (business, function, or geographic). They collaborate with line leaders to ensure that their organisations deliver value to stakeholders by defining and delivering competitive strategies. They help shape the business strategy, conduct organisational diagnoses to determine which capabilities is most critical, design and deliver HR practices to accomplish strategy, coach business leaders to behave congruently with strategy, and manage the strategy development process.
HR specialists work in centres of expertise where they provide technical insights on HR issues such as staffing, leadership development, rewards, communication, organisation development, benefits, and so forth. They deliver value when their recommended HR practices are on the forefront of their respective areas of expertise and when they create new practices that add value beyond that of their competitors.
HR professionals who work in service centres add value by building or managing technology-based e-HR systems that enable employees to manage their relationship with the firm. They govern activities such as processing benefit claims and payrolls and by answering employee queries. These individuals may work inside or outside the company. They deliver value to all stakeholders by reducing costs of processing employee information and by providing accurate and timely services.
Sometimes, one of the above roles is uniquely defined as business partnering when, in fact, each of the roles is a partner to the business as they work to create value for employees, customers, shareholders, communities and management.
