Your previous contributions addressing a variety of important topics outlined in all previous assignments for this course are deemed essential in supporting the business’ overall organizational structure and competitive advantage strategy. It is now time to consider developing your own HR department team to ensure they have the requisite skills and competencies necessary to perform at high levels over time. Effective and motivated HR business partners (HRBP) will be the key to translating HR and business strategy into action. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Body of Competency and Knowledge (BoCK) can be an invaluable resource to help develop and certify HR professionals. You must now explain to the management team the components of this model and how it can be leveraged to achieve operational success for the HR department. A one-hour meeting has been scheduled, and the CEO will be in attendance.
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Create a 20-slide minimum PowerPoint presentation with your script or discussion or commentary in the Notes section of each slide, in which you do the following:
Include cover, presentation agenda, conclusion, and reference list slides, all of which may count toward total slide count.
Provide a slide with an overview on the importance of having a highly-developed staff of HR business partners. Be clear with your position.
Example:The Evolution of the HR Business Partner Role.
Provide 1–4 slides introducing the SHRM BoCK model and its components. Be sure to highlight each of the areas of the model.Note:It is highly recommended to insert an image of the actual SHRM BoCK model into the presentation.
Include in the remaining slides the following required presentation information:
Provide a minimum of three to four bullet points (more if needed) of information or discussion describing the specifics on the SHRM BoCK’s “Behavioral Competencies.”
Provide a minimum of three to four bullet points (more if needed) of information or discussion describing the specifics on the SHRM BoCK’s “HR Expertise: Domains 1 & 2.”
Provide a minimum of three to four bullet points (more if needed) of information or discussion describing the specifics on the SHRM BoCK’s “HR Expertise: Domains 3 & 4.”
Provide a minimum of three to four bullet points (more if needed) of information or discussion describing specifics on certifying your HRBPs.
NOTE: Because of the requirements for the bullet points to have 3-4 full sentences, students are not required to use presentation notes.
5. Use at least four quality academic resources in this assignment. Note:You may only use the resources listed in the Course Guide and those that are specifically provided by the professor.
6. Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
- Select any one of three professional PowerPoint templates provided by the professor (required).
- Have headings for each section with all bulleted information aligned properly and using the same font and size. Use either Arial, Times New Roman, or Calibri as text type. Use 24-28 font size for main headings, 18-20 size for sub-headings, and 16-18 for all other information.
- Images may be used but must be professional and relevant to the topic.
- The source or sources of all images must be credited with both citation and reference. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
- Include citations and references for all information received from other sources.
- All bullet point information must be descriptive and have a minimum of 3–4 full sentences. Note: It is OK to decide what your input will be.
This course requires the use of Strayer Writing Standards. For assistance and information, please refer to the Strayer Writing Standards link in the left-hand menu of your course. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
The specific course outcome associated with this assignment is:
- Convince stakeholders of the value of using the SHRM BoCK model to develop effective and motivated HR business partners.
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Role
A Process for Assessing and
Transforming the HR Business Partner
in a Shared Services Model
June 2012
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved. 1
INTRODUCTION
This white paper published by ScottMadden, Inc., explains the importance of assessing and
transforming the role of the HR business partner when implementing a shared services
delivery model.
The HR business partner is the most critical, yet frequently ignored role in the move to HR
shared services. Much attention is given to new roles created by a shared services model
while little attention is given to how the business partner role must change with the new
model. In this white paper, we discuss the important evolution of the business partner role and
the skills and competencies needed to effectively support the business.
For more information on this and other human resources related topics, please visit
ScottMadden on the web at www.scottmadden.com, or contact us:
Tina Krebs (tinakrebs@scottmadden.com)
Director
Karen Hilton (karenhilton@scottmadden.com)
Director
2626 Glenwood Avenue, Suite 480
Raleigh, NC 27608
919-781-4191
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved. 2
The HR Business Partner Role
Companies typically begin to explore moving to an HR shared services model when HR is
trying to improve quality of service, reduce the cost of delivering service, leverage technology
more effectively, while improving overall employee lifecycle process efficiency.
The leading practice service delivery model for HR (shown in Figure 1 below) has three
components. The first component, centers of expertise, are leveraged for program design
and governance. The second component is an HR service center, which typically processes
transactions and handles employee and manager inquiries. The third component is the HR
business partner, who focuses on providing HR support to the day-to-day business
operations. This role remains embedded within the business, handling employee relations
issues, and delivering programmatic content, therefore becoming more in-tune with
operations’ workforce needs. The migration of the typical HR generalist role to an HR
business partner role results in the HR business partner employing a more consultative
approach, focusing on coaching leaders on a variety of HR programs, such as succession
planning and leadership and career development, as well as being the HR liaison to the
business and the employee when employee relations or union relations situations arise.
Figure 1: Leading Practice HR Shared Services Delivery Model
HR Business Partners
● Act as customer-f acing agent
● Provide consulting and
advisement
● Provide business knowledge f or
HR
● Liaise to Centers of Expertise, as
appropriate
Centers of Expertise
● Design programs
● Develop and govern policies
and processes
● Deliver services to business
units
● Provide Tier 3 support f or
service center
Employees
Line Managers
Assisted Support – HR Contact
Center (Tier 1 and Tier 2)
● Provide basic and routine services,
including answering inquiries
● Provide administrative support
● Conduct transactions
● Develop and maintain inf ormation
and tools, including portal content
Self Service (Tier 0)
● Interactive voice response
● Portal/knowledgebase
Customers
Service Interface/
Service Delivery
Strategies,
Programs,
and Policies
Vendors
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved. 3
This shift to a leading practice HR service delivery model requires a structured approach to
implementing the design, including the overhaul and elevation of the business partner role.
Unfortunately, most companies tend to focus the transformation on the design, build, and
launch of the employee service center or portal, and fail to support the changes made to the
business partner role. Because business partners are typically assumed to have the skills and
competencies required to perform in their new roles, they are often not trained appropriately.
At the same time, communications about the delivery model changes are often targeted at the
recipients of HR services and tend to be written at too high of a level to fundamentally explain
the changing role of the HR business partner to the HR community. In some cases, the entire
HR business partner community may be somewhat forgotten in the transition, with the
assumption that they are hearing about the project and its impacts from their HR leadership,
who may or may not be involved directly with the implementation.
Without training and fundamentally understanding the change to their role, the HR business
partner is being set up to fail. This is regrettable as the transformation of the HR business
partner is one of the key components to the success of the delivery model and for improving
the quality of service.
Recognizing the Change
With the migration to the new HR delivery model, the HR business partner’s related
responsibilities will change with a reduction in the amount of time spent dealing with
administrative or transactional activities. The majority of the administrative burden shifts to the
HR service center in the leading practice delivery model, leaving the HR business partner with
more time to manage talent in the organization, develop business leadership, and help the
business in achieving the desired level of human capital performance, while optimizing
employee time at work.
As illustrated in Figure 2 below, 80 percent of the business partner’s time in the transformed
model should be spent aligning HR strategies with business initiatives, delivering
programmatic content, and supporting operations as opposed to the traditional model where
only 35 percent of the business partner’s time is spent on strategic and programmatic content
delivery. Yet how do we ensure the HR business partner is widely recognized as an integral
player in the future organization’s success?
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved. 4
Figure 2:
Traditional Model
vs. Transformed Model
Unfortunately, embedded or field HR is often looked at as an administrative support function,
a keeper of forms and HR information, or the person responsible for managing people
movement into or out of a business. To help gauge the level of change required for an
organization, it is often helpful to measure and understand the type of work the HR business
partner is currently doing in the business—is it primarily programmatic implementation? Do
they spend significant time coaching managers or supervisors? Or, is their role primarily
transactional in nature—supporting HRIS changes or other administrative work? After
understanding the HR business partner’s current activities and how they are viewed in the
business, we can identify the skills and competencies each HR business partner may need to
attain to ensure a successful transition to the new role.
We believe that there are 10 competencies that are critical for a successful strategic business
partner. These competencies will allow HR business partners to support complex and
unbounded business situations and readily formulate effective responses that managers
understand, support, and value. These competencies should augment a broad knowledge of
HR, which is also essential for an HR business partner to be successful.
The 10 competencies required for a successful strategic partner are:
1. Knowledge of the Business – Does the HR business partner demonstrate they have a
deep understanding of the business and its operations so they can translate HR
concepts and actions to fit the business and its operations?
Transformed/
Outsourced
Re-aligned/Retained
Administration
(20%)
Strategy
and Policies
(20%)
Operations and
Programs
(60%)
Transformed Model
Strategy
and Policies
(5%)
Operations and
Programs
(30%)
Administration
(65%)
Traditional Model
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved. 5
2. Analytical – Can the HR business partner organize, interpret, and present complex sets
of data in a simplified manner or can they easily draw conclusions from large amounts
of data?
3. Problem Solving – Does the HR business partner review problems using critical
thinking skills, methodically breaking down the problems into components to discover
root causes, and then develop data-supported conclusions and a definitive action plan?
4. Communication – Can the HR business partner summarize important points or
messages from documentation, framing the message to the audience, using terms and
examples that are meaningful?
5. Systemic Thinking – Is the HR business partner able to understand the impacts of one
change in the organization on other parts of the organization?
6. Ambiguity – Can the HR business partner work independently and successfully without
having all the desirable information, direction, or instructions; are they able to move the
project forward?
7. Adaptability – Does the HR business partner easily adjust or change their working
style, or course of action, when circumstances require it?
8. Organization – Can the HR business partner handle multiple responsibilities at the
same time?
9. Teamwork – Does the HR business partner develop and use collaborative and
cooperative relationships to facilitate the accomplishment of work?
10. Insight – Is the HR business partner able to think ahead and anticipate potential
implications of what is going on in the business?
Transforming the HR Business Partner
Transformation of the HR business partner can occur at any point in time. It would be ideal to
examine and develop the business partner prior to the new model rollout, but it can also be
done as a secondary phase of the implementation. Either way, the HR business partner
transformation should be viewed as a significant implementation activity, with a detailed plan
and approach.
It is important to help the HR business partner transition to a new mindset. Ensuring that the
business partner understands their new role, as well as has the skills to perform their new
role, will help reduce the HR business partner’s desire to remain involved in all administrative
details, It will also help to reduce the tendency to want to “help out the employee this one
time” behavior, which often leads to failure of the new service delivery model, as employees
learn that they can still go to the business partner for administrative requests.
Integrating the HR business partner transformation activities with the overall implementation
plan will ensure that the population is not ignored or forgotten, both for training and
communication. HR business partner transformation also qualifies as a change management
activity, because it makes HR employees feel valued as they will recognize the investment
your company is making to ensure success of the model.
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved. 6
Lastly, integrating this evaluation and transformation of the business partner community with
the organization’s performance management cycle will ensure that identified gaps in skills and
competencies will be closed as part of a formalized performance plan.
There are three main phases in transforming the role of the HR business partner: define,
assess, and develop.
Define Phase
To be able to transform the business partner into a successful strategic partner, it is important
to understand what “success” means. In the define phase, you will identify the skills and
competencies that are desired for a successful HR business partner in your organization. It is
during this step that you will need to determine if additional competencies are required outside
of your company’s existing competency model and how you would go about defining and
getting approval for new competencies, if needed.
It is also important to ensure the competencies outlined above are well-defined and easily
understood so that when you review the competencies with the business partner community,
an HR business partner can clearly articulate what each competency means and relate it to
their future roles and responsibilities. Likewise, it will be imperative to define what “good
performance” means.
At this point you should also determine whether or not you would like to include customers in
the discussion of what constitutes a successful HR business partner and if so, how you will
include them in the process. It may be helpful to hold focus groups with key stakeholders so
that you can understand their HR needs first hand and identify areas where customers see a
critical need for support from their HR business partner. We believe customer input is
invaluable to this process not only to help define what the business needs from the future HR
business partner role, but to help the customer begin to move along the change management
journey.
Assess Phase
During the assess phase, you should focus on defining the approach, timing, and logistics for
conducting the assessment. Determining the methodology to be used as well as the timing
required for the assessment sounds straightforward, but there are several decisions to be
made. You will decide whether to use surveys, interviews, or some other method to collect
Define Assess Develop
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved. 7
the data, whether to allow for only one rating or multiple ratings, whether or not to include
customers as raters, and whether or not to include a self-assessment.
Timing is also a key decision. Ideally, the assessment process ties into the performance
management process, but you want to avoid having it coincide with the performance review
period since HR has additional responsibilities during this time. With these considerations, it is
preferable to schedule the assessment so it does not impact your resources who may be busy
with other business-as-usual activities.
Once the assessment methodology and timing have been determined, you will need to
identify the resources that will review individual ratings. Consistency of scoring will be
important, so you should determine how to ensure rating consistency across the community.
The use of review panels and weighted scoring are two approaches that are often used.
Lastly, communications to the HR business partner community will be vital. Your goal should
be to have the HR business partner community support the assessment and not feel
threatened. As a first step, it will be necessary to explain why the assessment is being
conducted. By keeping the HR business partner community apprised of the process, what
has been accomplished, and what is upcoming, they will not be surprised by goals and ratings
related to the assessment in their upcoming performance review. These communications also
sends a message to the business partner community that their involvement in the process is
essential.
Develop Phase
The third phase, develop, focuses on analyzing the results of the assessment and determining
how the skill and competency gaps will be closed for each individual business partner. Group
training classes should be designed and scheduled to address common needs identified from
the assessment and individual development plans should be created for each HR business
partner in need of training.
You may also determine that for some business partners, the perceived gap is too extreme to
be able to effectively develop the individual into a successful strategic partner. In this case,
you should consider transitioning these individuals to roles elsewhere in the HR organization
that may better fit their skill set. Another option for addressing gaps is to pair a low-performing
business partner with a coach that excels in the business partner’s areas of deficiency, and
set specific goals for the business partner to achieve within the year. It should not surprise
you if there are some business partners without deficiencies. If this is the case, you should
consider offering supplemental training to strengthen the skill sets they already have.
Finally, in order to maintain a successful transformation, the necessary support tools need to
be created, and policy and process changes resulting from the transformation must be
continually communicated to support the HR business partner on an ongoing basis.
Mechanisms must be established across HR to share key learnings and leading practices
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved. 8
established within the business. Ongoing maintenance responsibilities of the HR business
partner’s methodologies and toolkits should also be defined and communicated.
Potential Issues
There could be some aspects of the new model that may inhibit the transformation of the HR
business partner. First, as the transactional processes are being redesigned, if the HR
business partner’s role is not removed from the process, it will be very difficult for the business
partner to become more strategic, as they are still responsible for significant administrative
activity. By working with the HR community to alleviate some of the approvals typically
required by HR, this administrative responsibility can be drastically reduced.
A second potential issue could result from HR’s reporting structure—do your HR business
partners report to the business or into HR? If they report into the business, the business’s
priorities may differ from the HR organization’s priorities resulting in a disconnect. With strong
change management and an aligned HR vision between the HR organization and the HR
business partners, we believe this second issue can be diminished.
Lastly, as mentioned earlier, the business’s inability to appreciate HR’s strategic value, which
may be colored by the HR generalist’s current administrative role, can hinder immediate
acceptance of the HR business partner acting as a strategic partner. There are multiple ways
to address this issue. Some clients have found that reassigning HR business partners to
different locations have allowed HR business partners a fresh start. We believe combining
this type of approach with focused change management for the business on how to use the
new HR strategic partner, can help alleviate this issue.
SUMMARY
The HR business partner role is one of great value to the organization and should be
supported during the overall transformation of HR. Ensuring that your HR business partner
community has the desired competencies, has an aligned HR vision with all parts of HR, and
is able to align HR strategies with business initiatives and desired outcomes, will result in a
successful implementation of the new HR service delivery model.
The Evolution of the HR Business Partner
Copyright © 2012 by ScottMadden, Inc. All rights reserved. 9
MORE INFORMATION
For more information or to provide comments on this article, please email Tina Krebs
(tinakrebs@scottmadden.com) or Karen Hilton (karenhilton@scottmadden.com).
ScottMadden has been helping clients create greater value for their corporate services
organizations for nearly 30 years. Our highly efficient, collaborative teams employ
measurable, award-winning methods and deep cross-functional expertise to improve
operational performance.
More information about ScottMadden’s corporate & shared services practice can be found at
www.scottmadden.com. Contact ScottMadden at 3495 Piedmont Road, NE, Building 10, Suite
805, Atlanta, Georgia 30305; call 404-814-0020; or email info@scottmadden.com.
ABOUT SCOTTMADDEN, INC.
ScottMadden is a management consulting firm delivering customized, practical solutions for
clients in energy, clean tech and infrastructure, corporate and shared services, and the federal
government. Our collaborative, small-team approach, coupled with deep content knowledge,
experience, and insight, delivers an exceptional consulting experience and superior results.
To learn more, visit www.scottmadden.com | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
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