Critical role of HR business partnering in HR operating models

What factors determine the role of an HRBP?

Besides organisational culture, other factors that determine the role of an HRBP include the following (CIPD members can download Kopertyńska and Dernowska’s peer reviewed article by accessing EBSCO through our journals page): 

• Business strategy alignment. The alignment between HR and business strategy influences the extent to which strategy is a core part of an HRBP’s role. 
• Organisational structure. Where the people team sits within the organisational structure will determine how it interacts and serves the business. For example, where the HR function is integrated into business functions (decentralised), HRBPs are more likely to operate at a strategic level in partnership with the business.
• Capacity. The operational demands of the business, including line manager capacity to prioritise people management, influences the priorities of an HRBP’s role. It’s worth noting that HRBP-to-employee ratios vary significantly across organisations. One report suggested the average is around 1:283, with around 21% saying their ratio is 1:400+.
• Capability. This includes the people team’s current capabilities and talent pipeline into the HRBP role, as well as line managers’ people management capabilities because this determines the type of support needed from the people team. The CIPD People Development Partner, for example, is a status that organisations can work towards to demonstrate their commitment to professionalising and developing their people teams.

Bearing these factors in mind, creating HRBP roles with intent to enhance the people team’s strategic partnering with business leaders may not always be appropriate; a people team needs to be operationally efficient before it can grow its strategic influence across the business. The CIPD’s business partnering factsheet has tips on how to grow your people team’s strategic influence. 

Some organisations that we spoke to undertook extensive research to determine what their HRBPs should do and how the role should evolve within their organisation’s context. They benchmarked their peers, reviewed existing literature, and conducted one-to-ones and focus groups with leaders to understand what’s needed now and in the future from the people teams in different parts of the business. They used these insights to assess skill gaps and development plans for their HRBPs. 

So how can people teams balance line managers’ need for operational people management support while growing their strategic influence through the HRBP role? In the following, we unpick the challenges and explore solutions for people teams.

Reducing transactional or operational work undertaken by HRBPs

HRBPs are often being pulled into operational work, leaving little capacity for strategic HR. In some cases, HRBPs involve themselves in operational work to gain credibility, trust or develop a relationship with a particular stakeholder. Additionally, HRBPs with an employee relations background tend to fall back into their comfort zone, doing disciplinary and grievance casework.

Possible solutions:

1. Build line manager people management capability. This is key to effective HR where some people management responsibilities are devolved to line managers, such as providing training and coaching on dealing with disciplinary and grievances. Pursuing professional accreditation can be a means to get external recognition on the standard of people management across the business.
2. Introduce shared services. This provides support with administrative and transactional work. Depending on the HR operating model shared services could, for example:
   • act as an extension of the people team (sitting outside of the people function);
   • sit within a particular business unit (centralised);
     jointly span across several business units (decentralised); or
   • be a separate unit or infrastructure (see outsourcing below).
3. Outsourcing or automating front-line advice. Outsourcing basic first-level advice can be a more cost effective and efficient way to manage employee relationship casework (see Homebase case study). Alternatively, automating first-line advice may be another option (for example, using a chatbot to perform routine queries around disciplinary and grievance policies).
4. Redefining role profiles. Peabody removed employee relations responsibilities from the business partner role, while Tesco created a dedicated strategic partnering team. This was a key pillar within their new operating model demonstrating a deliberate shift away from operational partnering.
5. Introducing a junior HRBP or operational HRBP role. By creating a role that sits between the strategic HRBP and the HR shared services team this would enable strategic HRBPs to focus on strategic business partnering and help build the internal talent pipeline for this role. Justifying for this role is often difficult but necessary because otherwise the HRBP would be expected to do too many things. “I always find that true HRBPs are quite thin on the ground. I've never met one that hasn't been really stretched and pushed for time and that's where the junior business partner helps if the company can afford it,” said Ulster Business School Research Director Martin McCracken, who has worked with many organisations on HR function and structure. When implementing this role:
   • Clearly define the roles and responsibilities between strategic and junior HRBPs to avoid duplicating efforts. While the two roles need to work in synergy, have clear boundaries between them. Assigned tasks for each role should be carefully considered, documented and communicated.
   • Consider job rotating junior or operational HRBPs to develop their skills and experience. Working alongside different strategic HRBPs would help build a more rounded understanding of business partnering across the business.

Developing effective HRBPs

In some organisations, leaders struggle to recruit HRBPs with strong strategic business partnering skills or have inherited a team that lacked this skill. 

Possible solutions: 

1. Assessing skills gaps to focus development efforts. Where people teams lacked strategic business partnering capability, assessing and identifying skill gaps was an essential exercise. For example, Firstsource developed a competency framework for its new HRBP roles to identify personal development plans for technical and commercial skills and behaviours. This enabled its HRBPs to be more proactive and authoritative at partnering with business leaders on strategic people management issues. Understanding the business model, generating insight, connecting and building relationships and leading and challenging with confidence are four attributes of effective business partnering. The CIPD self-assessment tool is a useful way to assess your people team’s knowledge and behaviours against the Profession Map.
2. Job rotation and shadowing. Building business acumen and commercial understanding are key skills for effective HRBPs. Job rotation and shadowing helps HRBPs grasp the nuances of people challenges across the organisation. “I used to say to my team that I wanted them to go out into a market role, not sit in HR central office because you won’t necessarily speak the language of the business… You want people to be surprised someone’s from HR rather than know from the moment they speak they’re from HR,” said Louise Wilson, global HRD, NED and adviser.
3. Share knowledge through a community of practice. Creating a community of HRBPs to share knowledge, experiences and collective learnings can offer practitioners a supportive network, peer-to-peer learning and mentoring opportunities.

Navigating tensions associated with the HRBP role

Despite the HRBP role being a key component of current HR operating models and strategic HRM, it continues to be fraught with tensions and complexities. Our research found that aligning people objectives and operational priorities proved challenging for many HRBPs.

Common conflicts and tensions included: 

• blurred boundaries and duplication of tasks with people team colleagues
• building strong relationship with managers and a thorough understanding of business operations without undertaking the operational work
• ‘going rogue’ or bypassing colleagues in the Centre of Excellence (CoE) and other teams. Other research found that HRBPs have a stronger relationship with business leaders than their CoE colleagues, and that HRBPs and CoEs don’t always work well together. Three-quarters of respondents (75%) said HRBPs hold the relationship with business leaders vs one in five (18%) for CoEs. Only 56% of people teams believe that their HRBPs and CoE work well together.

Possible solutions: 

1. Coming back to the business case. Navigating complexities means balancing the needs of stakeholder groups. Driving people and business priorities requires strong influencing and negotiation skills as well as a deep understanding of the business. Being evidence-based and having access to reliable people data would undoubtedly support strategic conversations and help build the business case with business leaders and line managers. 
2. Staying on task and being clear with responsibilities. To improve the impact of the HRBP role, accountabilities need to be clear and effectively communicated. Consistent communications with internal customers and giving HRBPs the permission to say no to tasks outside of their remit will keep HRBPs focused on the core purpose of their roles. “Some business areas have been quite resistant to the change. They like having that one person they go to that sits in their office. So taking that out, it was hugely disruptive for them. Our strategic partners have done a lot of work around rebuilding those relationships, resetting the expectations” said Becky Russell, Head of Strategic Partnering, Peabody. 

The HR operating model series builds on the CIPD’s body of work to understand how modern people functions are transforming to be fit for purpose and deliver value to its stakeholders. We hope that the case studies in the series provide useful examples of how transformations, both large and small, can make a difference to the effectiveness of the people function. We also outline other key enablers that organisations cited as being critical to support and embed these transformations, as well as the critical role of business partnering.

This research isn’t limited to large people teams in multinational companies with huge budgets to transform their function. Smaller people teams can also review their operating models to ensure that the function is set up to serve the business and stakeholders. This may require tweaks to the current model, rather than a huge overhaul. Periodic review is needed to remain future fit, with flexibility to allow people teams to respond to external trends and business needs in an agile way. 

If you’re reviewing your HR operating model, please get in touch with the CIPD at research@cipd.co.uk for further research opportunities.

Acknowledgements and key contributors: Martin McCracken, Hayfa Mohdzaini, Becky Russell, Louise Wilson.

Case study organisations: Firstsource, Homebase, Peabody, Tesco and NatWest Group.