HR: The Wannabe Business Partner

by Chuck Csizmar - Mar 15, 2010

Over the years the Human Resources Department has transitioned through any number of "latest thinking" management concepts and corresponding "buzz phrases" - from "matrix management" to "broadbanding" to "onboarding" and "headwinds". Each new approach seemed the brainchild of management consultants seeking to encourage what they called creative thinking and the latest strategies to improve the human factor.

Lately though a persistent theme has settled in that HR should become a "Business Partner" of the organization, in order to be taken seriously by senior management and enhance the value-added contribution of its programs. This encouragement suggests that HR is not currently a player on the Senior Executive team - but needs to be.

So what exactly is an HR business partner? Several key criteria have been tagged as descriptors:

• Diagnose business needs.
• Develop management's capability to address HR issues.
• Provide advice and a point of view.
• The primary focus is driving the business forward.
• To educate, motivate and influence others.

Does the above describe the HR function at your company? Is HR considered a business partner?

Your Father's Personnel Department

Today most would chuckle at memories of the "old" Personnel department, whose primary responsibilities seem to have been tasks like recruiting, record keeping, arranging the blood drives, the safety shoe program and running the annual picnic / Christmas party. The head of Personnel was rarely considered a "player" at management meetings. Some in management claimed that the department was only a necessary evil.

That Personnel was viewed as the department focused on the interests of the employees. Its management was staffed by employee relations generalists, was sensitized by the needs of employees and left the running of the business to the "businessmen". Personnel dealt with people.

Today, companies expect more. Leadership expects less transactional administration and more strategic thinking. Being labeled a "people person" is now considered a negative, a source of humor among recruiters.

What are the signs that HR is a true business partner at your company?

• Direct report to the President / CEO and listed as a member of the Senior Team.
• Able to speak with credibility and respect at the management table.
• Able to advance the value of HR to those holding negative biases.
• Consulted by senior management on human factor issues.
• Company decisions affecting employees are initiated by the head of HR.

As a newly designated business partner-wannabe, Human Resources in many companies has transitioned away from the traditional role of caring for / representing the employees. It has focused instead on utilizing the human capital to assist management in achieving objectives and driving business success. However, the more successful HR has become as a business partner the greater the danger that employees will lose trust and confidence in HR, exactly because the focus has moved away from employees.

As HR has developed a new stratagem, some might say a new identity, what has been the cost to the original mission? What part of itself has been lost while chasing the role of business partner?

Danger Signs

Have a care that you don't lose the heart and soul of HR - its caring connection about employees. Don't start looking at them as merely numbers on a spreadsheet or boxes on an organization chart. There are other departments who already do that very well.

Is the HR function served or harmed by leadership that is "counting the chairs" on their way up the hierarchy? These are typically fast-trackers who are not HR-trained, but only temporary visitors to the department for a "broadening" of their management experience. Why is that acceptable for the HR function, but wouldn't be tolerated in IT, Finance, Marketing, Engineering or Manufacturing? Is the head of any of these other functions anything less than a seasoned expert in that profession?

Why is HR viewed as different? Why are other functions already presumed to be business partners? Only HR is being challenged, remaining a newbie, on probation at best, at worst one step away from getting the coffee.

Lip service to the people department? Even while sitting at the Senior Management table negative biases from the old days often remain:

• Remember the safety shoe program? It's hard to be taken seriously after so many years focusing on administration. Does HR deal with important issues today?
• If the head of HR has only been appointed to gain experience toward their ultimate loftier goal, how serious can we take a temporary worker who is only passing through?
• HR is still perceived of as offering restrictive advice, what can't be done; they remain the gatekeeper of corporate policies. Being an advocate of policy doesn't win friends.

From the employee's perspective it is important to consider HR as the source and advocate of fair and equitable treatment, compliance with all regulations affecting employees, and their representative among senior management.

What if senior management doesn't feel that way? What if they want HR to become just another "business partner" concerned more about the bottom line - to the exclusion of the human factor?

Have a care that we get what we want - Business Partner - and then our employees choke on it as we lose our way.

Courtesy of CMC Compensation Group