HR Business Partnering - Focus on Reality - Part 1

Working as an HR business Partner can be complex and, at times, frustrating often as a consequence of the ever evolving nature of the role.  One of the key challenges is that theory does not always match up with practice with many HR professionals still operating in non-strategic areas of the business.  The reality of "real" practice will therefore have a significant impact on how the function (and the individuals within it) are perceived by the organisation and on how successfull transformation will be - as I have said before; "HR is in perpetual beta".

Whilst I am sure none of this is especially surprising to any of us working in the profession, it remains important when considering the challenges of HR transformation.  Over the next few weeks I plan to write a number of referenced articles aimed at helping practitioners think through, plan and execute change in their HR department.

As a starter for 10 I have revisited one of the fields "classics",  HR Transformation by Dave Ulrich and others.  This, highly regarded research, defines outcomes of good HR work in terms of organisation capabilities.  It goes on to offer specific guidelines for transforming all elements of HR. These guidelines redesign, re-engineer, and upgrade the HR profession. Finally, it suggests specific roles for line managers, HR professionals, employees, and advisers to deliver on the desired outcomes of transformation.  Ulrich describes his step by step approach in this short video:

Pretty much common sense and, whilst there is an ongoing debate on the focus for developing capability (Jon Ingham's challenge on Ulrich's view is especially eloquent and interesting), this forms a good starting point for thinking through transformation.