Many of today’s and tomorrow’s biggest business challenges can be met head-on with a great HRBP in place.
Great HRBPs can align HR practice with business needs making sure efforts all line up.
In fact, HR business partnership done right can boost perception of HR whilst have a noticeable impact on the bottom line.
Yet, the role of an HRBP is often ill defined so companies need to know what their options are.
Business leaders, undeniably, have a lot on their plate right now.
There’s economic uncertainty, struggles with accessing and retaining talent, and unresolved tensions around working structures — not to mention incoming 2023 people-centered issues such as how to get better managerial effectiveness, where to improve the employee experience, and how to create a good future of work.
As such, alignment between business priorities, people management on the ground, and HR strategy and practice is going to be key for both survival and success. This is exactly where an HR business partner (HRBP) can be worth their proverbial weight in gold.
HRBPs can often be the glue of the business: by linking strategic organizational objectives to what teams, managers, and important stakeholders focus on.
A good HRBP will be super effective at helping form and implement a business strategy from a people practice perspective — as well as having a great in-house network (to link key players together), and a great operational and strategic mind, depending on what type of organization they work in.
At a time when the business landscape is in flux, and everything can seem a little more fractured, it seems that an HRBP is exactly what is needed.
Below, we take a deeper look at exactly why that is.
What is the greatest business leader worry right now? Well, according to countless news reports, it’s incoming economic difficulties, with CEOs and other executives worried about declining investment and sales and how that will impact their people plans.
Yet, according to Gartner, if an organization has a high-performing HRBP in place they can improve employee performance by up to 22%, boost retention by almost a quarter (24%), and will also drive better revenue (7% uptick) and increase profit (9% increase), too. Fixing everything business leaders are kept up by at night!
Of course, it’s never as simple as simply creating the HRBP role and letting the incumbent get on with it. For ultimate HRBP success, Gartner advises that the role needs freeing from operational and capability foci and for business leaders to allow their HRBPs to become strategic talent leaders, who are closely aligned with a strategic business focus or function.
They also advise picking an HRBP who is influential, has good people partnership skills, and is adept at problem-solving, business diagnosing, and analyzing data. Nothing much then!
If HR can get an effective BP in place, then, according to the CIPD (chartered institute of personnel and development), they can “move away from being a traditional back-office function to becoming a business enabler or driver.”
During the pandemic, many HR departments did this, showcasing their importance to the business. As John Bremen, managing Director of Willis Towers Watson said: “That [HR’s pandemic operations] really ended any debate over the value of HR to the enterprise.”
Yet, to really hammer home that HR is a business-central function here to stay, the next step is about creating the role of HRBP. As the CIPD state, this can “shape positive change, translating organisational goals into people-based solutions”. It will also improve perception of HR in the process.
This is because an HRBP, when their role is performed correctly, can enable the business by focusing on linking strategy, practice and high-performance, deliver cost-effectiveness by focusing solutions and expertise where they are actually needed.
They can also underpin connectedness by breaking down siloes and catalyzing better networking, and ensure the business is strategy-focused by aligning leadership structures with the overarching HR strategy.
Whilst some leaders might worry that the HRBP has no set definition, this means it can be a people-focused tool that flexes to an individual business’ context.
For SMEs, the business partner can offer additional operational capacity, both offering the business people insights to inform strategy and dealing with employee relations and policy issues.
For large organizations, an HRBP might work alongside business function specialists and the leadership to deliver strategic gains that makes sense within the context of people management.
Furthermore, businesses can choose whether they go down the standalone business partner model — where a business partner aligns to a specific business unit to give specialist consultation and insight — or use Dave Ulrich’s famous three-legged stool model.
The latter would mean splitting HR service into three parts, with one focusing on transactional and administration, one focusing on delivering HR expertise in key areas such as reward and recruitment, and another that partners with the business giving people insights to inform strategy.
Whilst each of these models has pros and cons many believe there are great examples where HR business partnershipping, in a way that makes sense to the business, delivers time and time again if the right model and business partner is chosen.
It’s impossible to deny: accessing talent is a massive business concern. In fact, according to one study of executives, it will continue to be the biggest leadership concern going forward over the next decade.
Yet, a HRBP can be a differentiating factor in achieving good talent outcomes. In a tight and changeable talent market, data-savvy and strategy-minded business partners can be the difference in making sure talent is deployed in an effective, timely and cost-effective manner — whilst also working to ensure that EX and EVP work to become a great engagement, attraction and retainment tool. All via a strategic HR and business partnership.
Yet, as described above, getting the right HR business partner model can be a difficult task. Here, a focus on the benefits can be the lodestar.
If HR business partners are used to deliver great talent and EX insights, the return on investment can rocket by almost 400% and productivity gains can hit eight figures. That’s worth bearing in mind when making the HRBP transition.
Whilst a world class HRBP will have great leadership skills themselves — able to influence, network, understand, diagnose, and analyze — they should also be able to identify and develop future leaders.
In fact, according to insight from one academic HR institution, HRBPs should have their ear to the ground on where next-gen internal and external leadership talent can come from.
Of course, this requires the business to give HRBPs the latitude to focus on leadership acquisition and development in a strategic manner, so no reactive moves are made, and they can create an effective program which aligns to long-term business goals.
However, do this right and businesses could get ahead. With over eight in ten believing its crucial to to develop leaders to get a good outcome and, according to 2019 stats, 77% of companies struggling with leadership gaps getting started on this agenda could be the HRBP-backed safety net organizations need in uncertain times.
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Multiple award-winning journalist, editor and content strategist
Dan is an award-winning HR journalist and editor with over five years experience in the HR space.
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