Over the years the Human Resources Department (HR) has transitioned itself through any number of “latest thinking” management concepts and corresponding “buzz phrases” – from “matrix management” to “broadbanding” to “onboarding” and “headwinds" to whatever this week brings. Each new approach found its origin as the brainchild of management consultants seeking to encourage so-called creative thinking and to tap into the latest strategies that were sure to improve the human factor.
Lately though a persistent aspirational goal has settled in that HR should become a “Business Partner” of the business/organization, to be taken seriously by senior management and acknowledged as enhancing the value-added contribution of its programs.
What exactly is an HR business partner? Several criteria have been used as descriptors:
- Diagnose business needs
- Develop management’s capability to address HR issues
- Provide advice and a particular point of view
- A focus on driving the business forward
Do these describe your HR function? Is your HR considered a business partner?
Your Father’s Personnel Department
Today most would chuckle at memories of the “old” Personnel department, whose primary responsibilities were recruiting, record keeping, arranging blood drives and safety shoe programs, and running the annual picnic/Christmas party. The Head of Personnel was rarely considered a “player” at management meetings. Some believed that the department was at best a necessary evil.
Personnel was the department focused on the interests of the employees. Its leadership was staffed by employee relations generalists, was sensitized by the needs of employees and they left the running of the business to operations management. Personnel dealt with people.
Today, companies expect less transactional administration and more strategic thinking. Being labeled a “people person” is now considered a negative, a source of humor among recruiters.
Tell-tale signs that HR is a true business partner:
- Direct report to the President/CEO and listed on the website as a member of the Senior Team
- Expected 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
- Initiates major decision-making policies and programs affecting employees
As a newly designated business partner-wannabe, Human Resources in many companies has transitioned away from the traditional role of 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 their interests.
As HR has developed a new stratagem, some might say a new identity, critics ask what part of itself has been lost while chasing to transform itself?
Danger Signs
Have a care that, in your quest for a seat at the table you don’t lose the heart and soul of HR – its caring connection about employees. Avoid looking at employees 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 are other functions already presumed to be business partners? Only HR faces a challenge, remaining a newbie, on probation at best, at worst one step away from getting the coffee.
Even while sitting at the Senior Management table negative biases from the old days often remain:
- Remember the blood drives and Christmas party? It’s hard to be taken seriously after so many years focusing on administration. Does HR manage 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 the gatekeeper of corporate policies. Being an advocate of policy adherence doesn’t win many friends.
From the employee’s perspective it is important to consider HR as the advocate of fair and equitable treatment, compliance with regulations affecting employees, and as their representative among senior management.
What if senior management doesn’t feel that way? What if they want HR to transform into a “business partner” that is focused primarily on the bottom line - to the possible exclusion of the human factor?
Have a care that we end up getting what we want – Business Partner status – but then our employees choke on it as we lose our way as fair broker representatives of the workforce.
Chuck Csizmar CCP is the founder and Principal of CMC Compensation Group, providing global compensation consulting services to a wide variety of industries and non-profit organizations. He is also associated with several HR Consulting firms as a contributing consultant. Chuck is a broad-based subject matter expert with a specialty in international and expatriate compensation. He lives in Central Florida (near The Mouse) and enjoys growing fruit and managing (?) a clowder of cats.
Creative Commons image "Group of men," by mayreejayne
Great article -- appreciate and agree with the perspective. Not everyone has to be "strategizing" all the time -- especially human resources. Many of the blocking and tackling type of duties HR does are just as important as other more exciting pass plays the marketing department is dreaming up. (it's obviously football season) I'm not saying neglect change and value-added work but just take a larger view of how "value" is defined.
Posted by: Kent Oldham | 12/03/2020 at 09:19 AM