business partnering- a new direction for hr
TRANSCRIPT
Chartered Institute Business partneringof Personnel and
Development A new direction for HR
a guide
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Business partnering
A new direction for HR
– a CIPD guide
Written by Duncan Brown
Raymond Caldwell
Kevin White
Helen Atkinson
Tammy Tansley
Peter Goodge
Mike Emmott
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Contents
Introduction
By Duncan Brown Page 3
Part 1 In search of strategic partners
By Raymond Caldwell Page 6
Part 2 Driving change through HR business partners
By Kevin White Page 14
Part 3 Are you passionate about HR, or are you passionate about the business?
By Helen Atkinson and Tammy Tansley Page 25
Part 4 Partnering journeys
By Peter Goodge Page 34
Part 5 Business partnering: a new direction for HR?
By Mike Emmott Page 40
References Page 48
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Introduction
Writing in the Harvard Business Review (January/February 1998), Dave Ulrich, Professor of Business at the
University of Michigan, pointedly asked:
'Should we do away with HR?'
This was somewhat ironic coming from someone who's been described as both a leading prophet and the
potential saviour of the function. However, he went on to suggest that, rather than abolish HR, the answer
was to create a new role and agenda that focuses not on traditional HR specialisms and activities but on the
wider business and outcomes.
The strategic HR movement had for years, of course, been beating the business impact drum, and the CIPD
and other organisations had produced strong evidence for the links between people management practices
and business success. But Ulrich and his colleagues’ genius lay in researching and identifying four key roles
for HR functions to play, along with the requisite competencies and skills. HR should become:
1 a partner with senior and line managers in strategy execution
2 an expert in the way work is organised and executed so as to increase efficiency and reduce costs
3 a champion for employees, representing their views and working to increase their contribution
4 an agent of continuous transformation, shaping processes and culture to improve an organisation’s
capacity for change.
Ulrich’s analysis clearly struck a strong chord with the HR community in the UK, and many have used his Human
Resource Champions as a blueprint for reorganising and reorienting their function. One major UKheadquartered
multinational is currently reorganising its HR function into technical centres of excellence, regional administrative
centres and businessbased business partner and change agent roles. The recruitment pages of our People
Management magazine now contain regular references to the job of 'HR Business Partner'.
The CIPD's HR Survey: Where we are, where we’re heading, with 1,200 respondents from UK and Ireland
based organisations and published in October 2003, confirmed the influence of the concept. We found that
one in three senior HR practitioners see their current role predominantly as that of a strategic business
partner, while more than one in four see themselves as change agents. More than half would like to
become strategic partners in future. According to one respondent:
'HR is having to fully understand both the business agenda and HR practices, delivering effective solutions to
maximise business performance.'
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The benefits for the function, according to another, were that:
'HR is taking on new levels of importance as companies realise shareholder value is an empty goal and not
what gets people out of bed in the morning.'
Yet the survey also highlighted some of the challenges in attempting to achieve and deliver this aspirational
role and position:
• Thirtyfive per cent believe the HR function in their organisation is currently too focused on operational
issues, compared with 27 per cent who describe it as heavily strategic, though the direction of change is
strongly in the latter direction.
• Almost half felt that their strategic input was constrained by the time they were having to devote to
administrative activities, with the direction of change gradually towards greater use of outside providers,
particularly in administration, plus a modest increase in the use of internal shared services.
• Three in five believe line managers have not accepted full responsibility for people management
decisions and actions with respect to their staff.
Some of the questions raised by our survey include:
• Do all those who see themselves as, or would like to become, HR business partners have the same model
in mind?
• People want to be more strategic, but what do they mean by being strategic?
• Have HR managers given up on the sometimes thankless task of working with reluctant line managers,
preferring to concentrate on getting more influence in the boardroom?
• What does HR partnering mean for the HR function as a whole? And what happens to other aspects of
the traditional HR manager’s job?
• Does HR partnering mean a wholly new kind of HR function?
• Does HR partnering work? Does it produce added value for the organisation?
• What do HR partners actually do differently? Is this a new role and set of activities or just the latest name
change?
• How does the different legislative framework in the UK and Ireland affect and possibly reorient and
constrain the role envisaged by Ulrich?
• Has the change agent role defined by Ulrich been underemphasised as a critical requirement to improve
the success rates of the increasingly frequent reorganisations that are occurring?
• Ultimately how do you do and deliver businessimpacting HR strategies and play the business partner role
rather than, as Professor John Purcell puts it, simply creating 'illusions in the boardroom'?
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Is there in fact a single model of the HR business partner? Ulrich offers a number of clues as to what being a
business partner might mean in practice. Some key elements emerge clearly enough. For example, the HR
business partner needs to:
• focus on outcomes not process
• measure results
• help to resolve business problems
• be able to hold their own in discussion with line managers
• ensure that HR strategy is aligned with business strategy.
Ulrich emphasises that the primary responsibility for transforming the role of HR must rest with senior
management, which is also responsible for making strategy. He also says that HR should be a partner in strategy
execution – getting away from the popular concept that being strategic simply means influencing the senior
team – and that being a business partner doesn't mean abandoning many of the traditional personnel and HR
activities, which are critical in establishing the credibility of the function. But many questions and issues remain.
In the end, the Ulrich model can only go so far in helping to clarify what an HR business partner should do
and how to demonstrably add value to the organisation. Organisations need to try it for size and adapt it to
their own circumstances.
At the CIPD, we're committed to providing our members with information, tools and ideas to help them play
a more valueadding and personally fulfilling role. This brings together the experiences of a number of
organisations from both the public and private sectors that have adopted the HR business partner model,
along with some more indepth and rigorous academic analysis of the concept. We aim to help to address
some of the outstanding questions and support organisations and their people management professionals
who are playing, progressing and thinking of moving in a similar direction.
You can let us know what you think of this guide, and your own personal issues and experiences, at
[email protected] You can also refer to our website where you'll find a wealth of other materials from our
longrunning research stream on people management and business performance.
We are very grateful to all the organisations that were willing to have their experiences used as case studies
and to the authors who gave their time to writing them up. We are also grateful to Raymond Caldwell for his
further analysis of the 2003 HR survey, which helpfully clarifies the characteristics of respondents who see
themselves as business partners.
Duncan Brown
Assistant Director General, CIPD
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Part 1 In search of strategic partners
Introduction
HR professionals are increasingly taking on the roles of 'strategic partners' in their ongoing search to integrate
business strategy and people management practices. Recent CIPD (2003) survey data confirms that this
ambition is widely espoused by HR practitioners. Of 1,188 practitioners surveyed, 56 per cent indicated that
they aspired to become strategic partners, although only 33 per cent were currently performing this role.
The most influential formulation of the strategic partner role has been outlined by Ulrich (1997). HR
professionals are exhorted to become strategic partners by executing business strategy, meeting customer
needs and becoming overall champions of competitiveness in 'delivering value'.
Unfortunately, Ulrich’s model tends to be prescriptive and inspirational, rather than empirical and practical.
The model presents a potentially unifying aspiration for the HR professional, but seriously underplays the
multiplicity of HR roles and the diversity of practices in real organisations. In this respect, Ulrich leaves many
questions unanswered (Caldwell 2003). What is the scope and nature of the strategic partner role? How can
it be integrated with other HR roles? What are the current and perceived impediments to the greater uptake
of this role?
One way of partly addressing these questions is to reexamine the recent CIPD survey data, with a new and
sharper focus on what distinguishes strategic partners from other HR roles. This review highlights six
interesting areas of possible differentiation:
• strategic versus reactive role profiles
• involvement and influence in the business strategy process
• management perception of the HR function
• time allocations for HR activities
• key personal competencies
• performance evaluations of HR.
By examining each of these areas, we may be able to throw some light on what makes strategic partners
different.
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Background
The CIPD carried out a major postal survey of HR practitioners in July and August 2003. Some 5,000 questionnaires
were distributed and 1,188 completed forms were returned, making a response rate of 23 per cent. The scale of
the survey and the sample size make it an excellent source of practitioner insights into the current challenges facing
the HR function in the UK. The full report of the findings has been published by the CIPD.
One of the important questions in the survey asked practitioners to classify their current and desired HR roles
using Ulrich’s matrix of roles: strategic partner, change agent, employee champion and administrative expert.
Onethird of respondents, the largest subgroup, saw their current role as strategic partners while well over a
half saw this role as the one they would most like to play in the future. In contrast, less than a quarter of
respondents saw their current role as an administrative expert and only 4 per cent wanted to play this role in
the future.
Here the CIPD survey data is reexamined by splitting the sample into two broad subgroups: those who
characterised their role as strategic partners (323) versus other HR roles (714). Respondents who chose more
than one role have been excluded from the analysis (151) so as to allow a clearer focus on the distinguishing
characteristics of the strategic partner role. In other words, we are interested in what it means in practice if
someone perceives their role as a strategic business partner.
Who are strategic partners?
A third of strategic partners have a seat on the board, compared with less than a fifth of other HR
professionals. But strategic partners are just as likely to work for public as for private sector organisations. Nor
do size, industry sector or whether the organisation is a multinational appear to really matter. This confirms
that the strategic partner role is widely dispersed.
Role profiles
Strategic partner roles are often associated with a more strategic and proactive agenda for the HR function and
this is invariably presented as a counterimage to more reactive and administrative conceptions of oldstyle
personnel management. The CIPD survey data partly helps illuminate these perceived differences. Respondents
were asked to describe the current and future state of the HR function using two key measurement scales:
how far is HR either strategic or operational and how far is it either proactive or reactive?
Strategic partners are more than twice as likely as other HR practitioners to perceive the current HR function in
their organisation as strategic (47 per cent versus 23 per cent). Correspondingly, only 15 per cent of strategic
partners view the current HR function as operational, while 40 per cent of other HR professionals do (Figure 1).
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A similar picture emerges in examining proactive–reactive perceptions of the HR function. Strategic partners
are more than twice as likely as other HR professionals to view the current HR function as proactive, and
correspondingly they are twice as likely not to view HR as reactive.
By combining the strategic–operational and reactive–proactive scales one can plot an interesting picture of the
strategic partner compared with other HR practitioners (Figure 1). Strategic partners occupy a significant portion
of the strategic–proactive segment of the matrix, although they would, in principle, have to occupy much more
if they were to fully embrace the strategic partner role. More disconcertingly, however, other HR professionals
appear to be currently positioned almost exclusively in the reactive–operational segment of the matrix.
Fortunately, this picture shifts significantly when other HR professionals outline where the HR function needs
to be in the future. In a future state, the strategic partner and other HR roles assume almost identical
strategic–proactive mapping positions, although the latter have clearly a much longer journey to reach this
goal. This once again reinforces the inspirational challenges of the strategic partner role.
Figure 1: HR roles and perceptions of the organisation
47%
40%
15%
21%
47%
40%23%
23%
Operational HR
Reactive HR Proactive HR
Strategic HR
Strategic business partners (395)
Administrative experts (395)
Business strategy: HR involvement and influence
The CIPD survey asked respondents to describe how much involvement and influence they had at various
stages in the development and implementation of business strategy. This is an important issue because
involvement in the early stages of planning can make an important difference to how much influence the HR
function exercises.
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Strategic partners are more involved at all stages of the business strategy process, from formulation to
implementation (Table 1). Influence follows a similar pattern. Unlike strategic partners, other HR professionals
have relatively low involvement and influence. What is most striking, however, is that other HR professionals
are more than three times as likely to have low involvement at the outset or planning stages and three times
as likely to have low influence at these stages. This suggests that this is a crucial issue, given that involvement
appears to follow influence at all other stages.
More research needs to be done to unravel this important relationship, because strategic partners appear to
have more involvement in planning and are able to exercise influence, even though only a third of them have
a place on the board. This finding complements earlier research by Budhwar (2000), who found that three
quarters of the HR departments surveyed were involved in business strategy at the outset of the consultation
process, although only half of them had a seat on the board.
Table 1: Business strategy: HR involvement and influence
Strategic partners Other HR roles Significance
(323) (714)
Involvement in strategy High (%) Low (%) High (%) Low (%) 0.01%
Outset of planning 53 7 27 29 0.00
Development 59 5 36 17 0.00
Discussion/agreement 66 3 43 10 0.00
Implementation 74 2 57 7 0.00
Influence on strategy
Outset of planning 43 9 21 31 0.00
Development 50 4 29 19 0.00
Discussion/agreement 60 3 34 13 0.00
Implementation 64 2 46 8 0.00
CEO and management perceptions of HR
Surveys of CEO and general management perceptions of the role and value of HR often make disappointing
reading for HR professionals (Guest et al 2004). While boardlevel executives and senior managers may be
convinced of the value of effective people management, at least in principle, they are often unaware of the
links between HR and performance. More disturbingly, they often remain unconvinced that there are clear
guidelines, strategies or welltested methods for translating HR practices into performance improvements
(Guest and King 2004).
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Although one would no doubt expect HR professionals to present a betterinformed and positive assessment
of opinions about HR held by boardlevel executives or managers, what is interesting is that this assessment
tends to differ between the different HR roles. Strategic partners are generally more optimistic about
management perceptions of HR in their organisation. For example, they are much more likely to believe that
the chief executive views HR as playing a key role in achieving business outcomes. In addition, they are twice
as likely to believe that HR issues are fully taken into account in the business planning process (Table 2). This
once again highlights the way in which 'involvement' and 'influence' may be mutually reinforcing, especially
if overall management perceptions of HR are positive.
Table 2: Perceptions of the importance of the HR function (% saying strongly agree)
Strategic partners Other HR roles Significance
(323) (714) 0.01%
59 41 0.004
The CEO believes the HR function has a key 64 43 0.000
35 17 0.000
issues 47 35 0.002
The executive board frequently discusses HR issues
role to play in achieving business outcomes
HR issues are fully taken into account in the business planning process
HR managers are comfortable discussing business
How do strategic partners use their time?
Despite the overall aspiration of most HR professionals to be strategic partners, the CIPD survey evidence
indicated that this ambition is being frustrated. Practitioners appeared to 'spend nearly three times as much
time on administration as on business strategy', and this was reinforced by the high percentage of time (70
per cent) spent on various implementationrelated support activities for line managers (CIPD 2003, p12).
What is interesting, however, is that this picture begins to take on a different significance when strategic
partners are contrasted with other HR professionals (Table 3). Strategic partners spend much more time on
strategy and much less time on implementation or line support activities. In addition, while half of other HR
professionals spend over half their time on HR administration, less than a third of strategic partners do.
The lessons of this evidence for those aspiring to be strategic partners appear to be twofold:
• Less time on administration means more time on strategy.
• Developing and influencing HR strategy is ultimately more important than handson implementation
related activities.
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Table 3: Time Spent on HR Activities
Strategic partners Other HR roles Significance
(%) (%) 0.01%
Business strategy 31 10 0.000
Implementing HR policy 39 54 0.000
Developing HR strategy 52 42 0.001
56 44 0.000
63 74 0.000
HR administration 31 52 0.000
Providing specialist input
Providing support to line
Strategic partner competencies
The CIPD (2003) survey asked HR practitioners about the most important competencies for establishing their
personal effectiveness, and which of these represented the biggest challenge. Not unexpectedly, influence
and political skills were considered central by 61 per cent of the respondents.
The three factors, however, that appear most important in distinguishing strategic partners from other HR
professionals are: strategic thinking, business knowledge and leadership abilities (Table 4). This focus fits well
with strategyoriented models of the HR function, which emphasise knowledge of the business and the
exercise of leadership skills (Ulrich 1997). Certainly, without knowledge of the business, the HR function may
have limited scope to exercise leadership.
Table 4: Perceptions of most important competencies/capabilities (%)
Strategic partners Other HR roles Significance
(323) (714) 0.01%
Strategic thinking 51 43 0.012
Business knowledge 40 30 0.001
Leadership abilities 40 31 0.004
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Performance matters
Measuring the impact of HR has always been controversial (Paauwe 2004). The root of the problem is not just
a measurement issue, it also relates to the intrinsic difficulties of linking HR administrative efficiency with
goals of strategic effectiveness. This is partly summedup by the increasing emphasis on moving HR from
'what is done' to 'what is delivered'.
There is growing evidence that this message is widely accepted by HR professionals (CIPD 2003). Strategic
partners, however, are more likely to perceive themselves as working for organisations in which line
managers' views, business outcomes and employee feedback are central to performance (Table 5). Similarly,
while most HR professionals say they work for organisations in which the HR function is assessed, strategic
partners appear less likely to work for organisations in which HR performance is not assessed. In this respect,
strategic partner roles and the assessment of performance outcomes appear more closely aligned.
Table 5: Assessment of the HR function
Other HR roles
(%) (%) 0.01%
Line managers' views 77 67 0.000
Business outcomes 76 52 0.000
Employee surveys 59 47 0.000
Cost–benefit analysis 32 24 0.006
HR not assessed 5 15 0.000
Strategic partners Significance
Are strategic partners different?
The survey evidence broadly suggests that strategic partners are different in six main areas:
• Their current role profile for the HR function is perceived to be more strategic–proactive, rather than
operational–reactive.
• They believe they have more involvement and influence in the business strategy process.
• They are generally more positive about CEO and management perceptions of the HR function.
• They spend more time on strategy and less time on implementation or HR administration.
• They place greater emphasis on the HR competencies of strategic thinking, business knowledge and
leadership abilities.
• They perceive themselves as working for organisations in which HR performance outcomes are measured.
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If these findings suggest some distinguishing aspects of strategic partners relative to other HR professionals,
they must also be treated with caution. The differences are matters of degree, rather than absolute contrasts.
The strategic partner role is part of a multiple role set and so it overlaps with other HR roles (Ulrich 1997, p38).
In addition, the survey evidence is based on selfperceptions, and perception mapping can be misleading
(Wright et al 2001). The major dangers are that strategic partners may inflate or overrate the effectiveness of
the HR function, perhaps not deliberately, but as a form of pragmatic selfbelief in the value of their role and
the strategic mission of HRM.
Nonetheless, the consistency of the survey findings suggests that there may be some useful lessons here for
other HR professionals who aspire to become strategic partners. If strategic partners currently occupy a more
strategic–proactive HR role, have more perceived involvement and influence on business strategy and are
generally more positive about CEO and management perceptions of HR and its performance, how can other
HR professionals learn from this? As a whole the survey evidence suggests that if HR professionals want to
become strategic partners, they need to spend less time on HR administration and implementation issues and
more time on developing their strategic thinking, business knowledge and leadership abilities. Only in this
way can they perhaps fully embrace the performance implications of the strategic partner role.
While such a recipe may, in principle, make perfectly good sense, the real challenge is creating the contexts
and practices through which the strategic partner role can be realised. This is no easy task as the HR function
seeks to balance a panoply of often conflicting priorities: enhanced professional expertise, greater
administrative efficiency, increasing cost savings and constant performance improvements. If, however, HR
practitioners can discover the contexts and practices through which the strategic partner role thrives, they
may be well on the way to translating a widely espoused professional aspiration into a reality.
Raymond Caldwell
Birkbeck College, University of London 13
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Part 2 Driving change through HR business partners
This part sets out why we introduced HR business partners into the Department for Work and Pensions
(DWP), outlines the wider context of modernisation for the DWP as a whole as well as for the HR function
and assesses the effectiveness of the new arrangements and future developments. The views expressed are
my own. I would like to thank not just those business partners and managers who helped with the survey but
also all the staff working in HR within the DWP for their huge contribution to the Department's success.
The Department for Work and Pensions
The DWP came into being in 2001. It was formed from the Department for Social Security and the labour
market policy elements of the Department for Education and Employment, including the Employment Service.
The DWP brings together welfare policy functions and delivers welfare services for children, workingage
adults, and pensioners. It was formed to engineer a fundamental reform in the modernisation of welfare
policy and delivery and is at the forefront of modernising government.
The DWP is a very large department with currently 130,000 staff (wholetime equivalents). We touch the lives
of most citizens of this country. Each day, for example, we conduct 10 million transactions involving welfare
support for our customers. We comprise more than a quarter of the home Civil Service. We spend about
£120 billion a year and our annual administration costs are over £7 billion.
The DWP is not just large but complex. We have Group and 'Department of State' functions and deliver our
services through large executive agencies: Jobcentre Plus, The Pension Service, the Child Support Agency
(CSA), and the Disability and Carers Service. The very great majority of our staff carry out administrative and
junior executive functions. About 120,000 of them are personal adviser or frontline supervisor level
(Executive Officer or below). Conversely, we face a huge management challenge in delivering consistent
internal or external services, with 10,000 managers at Higher Executive Officer level or above.
The DWP was formed to create change in welfare delivery but has a significant programme of internal reform
and modernisation covering HR, finance, IT and other support services. This article is about how we have
been making change in the HR function, particularly through the introduction of HR business partners, and
how successful that change has been.
Modernising HR
Right from the start, the senior HR team, including the HR directors of the main delivery 'businesses' (which is
the term we use to describe the Department's agencies), was clear that we needed to bring about a
fundamental transformation of the HR function. The DWP was a merger between different departments and
the HR function itself was an amalgam of those different departments and functions.
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Looking at the people in the function, it was clear that we had a lot of talent to work with. The Civil Service
as a whole, as well as the HR function in particular, attracts and retains a large number of talented, interested
and very hardworking people. Our HR staff had a dedication to their job, a very strong sense of fairness and
quality standards and, above all, a desire to do things better.
We felt nevertheless that our HR function exemplified many of the areas for improvement we associate with
an oldfashioned bureaucracy. To make the point through an element of caricature, it was a rulebased
function with a primary focus on the development of effective and exemplar policies. HR was seen as a
service provider, but all too often as a factor linemanagers and businesses needed to adjust to or work
around rather than as a partner. We had virtually no effective IT and had cumbersome systems with poor,
slow or nonexistent management information. We tended to be inwardlooking. Best practice was doing
what we did best rather than looking at how we might do better by learning from others. The culture of
disengagement between HR and line management meant that we tended not to see HR from the line
manager's point of view and the line manager tended to regard HR as our function rather than theirs. This
confirmation of our traditional role was often comforting for HR and managers alike.
We also knew that our current systems and operations were extremely inefficient. We estimated there were
about 5,500 staff working on HR (including learning and development). A significant number of them were
not on HR's 'books' but were in management lines, often in dispersed units, providing administration and
localised support.
That meant, overall, we had one person working on HR for every 24 employees in the DWP. Given the overall
programme of efficiency in the DWP, and the investment in new resource management systems underway,
that level of staffing was just unsustainable. Dispersed and localised teams also meant that standardisation of
service and a coherent change focus was much more difficult to achieve. The HR leadership team therefore
committed to doubling that ratio to 1:50 in the years to April 2006, with the knowledge that we would need
to be looking for significant further efficiencies beyond that.
It was clear that what we needed to drive forward the change was a new vision and a renewed change focus
from the top. Investment in new information systems, targets for the modernisation of service delivery and
efficiency, and the stimulus of a significant programme of external recruitment at HR director level and below
were all vital ingredients for that.
Our vision
The top team formed a new vision for HR within the DWP. We formed a vision for a smaller, more expert and
professional service with smart information systems supporting centralised shared services, the engagement
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of HR as a support to business operations and, alongside this, the full acceptance by line managers that their
accountability for delivering results embraces the accountability for developing, managing and leading their
people to achieve those results.
Our HR modernisation programme had, therefore, a very broad and ambitious focus, encompassing:
• developing the expertise and professionalism of the HR function and delivering significant staffing
reductions
• introducing effective shared services based on a new integrated information system with an employee and
line manager 'selfservice' front end
• introducing a new technologically enabled blended learning environment
• simplifying the HR policy framework and enabling line managers to use it
• aligning HR with the businesses, helping and supporting line managers to deliver results through their
people rather than doing it on their behalf.
This represented a huge cultural change for people working in HR as well as for the DWP line managers. But
there was a significant appetite for this change. We all knew instinctively that we couldn't continue with the
old ways and all of us in support functions could envisage the transformations and improvements in service
delivery across the DWP as a whole and were keen to be part of that.
To help focus that change, we consolidated the message for all HR staff:
Meeting the challenge: HR design criteria
•
•
•
– Expert advice ‘at the shoulder’
– Policy frameworks to help line managers
–
•
• HR work should only be done once
•
–
HR is only there to support the delivery of services
Line managers are the ‘front line’ of HR
HR services must support managers:
Minimising the bureaucracy
We will maximise the role of intelligent IT
We must meet both business and corporate needs
We must be exemplars of the values
Source: Department for Work and Pensions
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The HR model how HR will operate
• administrators
• taking sole ownership of HR issues
•
• only functionally focused
•
• change agents
• business focused
• technical experts
• customer focused
•
•
We will not be:
surrogate managers
inward looking.
Source: Department for Work and Pensions
We will be:
championing Values
fair.
HR business partners
The introduction of HR business partners was a fundamental part of the new HR model. They were an
integral part of the service delivery model, building alignment between the HR function and business goals
and requirements and supporting and commissioning HR services to meet business needs. But they were also
a key driver to help make the change by supporting line managers through the introduction of new HR
systems, supporting the implementation of the new HR arrangements and improving the development of HR
policies and systems through 'frontline' feedback. We saw them as agents for change as well as embodying
the change themselves.
The key to modernising the HR function, we believed, was establishing a positive and mutually reinforcing
relationship between HR and line management through which HR would be seen as a part of business
delivery, supporting business strategies. Line managers would increasingly take over accountability for the
people dimension of their role, helped and supported by expert HR systems and advice. The comprehensive
introduction of business partners across the DWP was designed to focus the energy of our change on the line
managers/HR nexus which was always going to be either the engine for positive growth or a significant
inhibitor to the development of a modern HR function.
Our expectations for our new business partners were, accordingly, high. We wanted them to:
• Demonstrate that HR was focused on business goals, both of a strategic as well as local and specific nature.
• Be an agent for change both in respect of changing HR functions but also in respect of the significant
change and modernisation programmes DWP businesses are going through at the same time.
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• Be the figurehead for a more expert and professional HR function, adding value to business discussions.
• Improve HR service delivery, helping managers meet their goals.
• Help HR to implement its change programme and provide feedback to improve implementation strategies
and policy developments for the future.
• Coach and skill line managers helping them to deliver their own objectives and to understand how they
can get the best from this new HR service.
• Play an increasing role in the identification and delivery of skills training as we sought to refocus the
energy of learning and development down the business line.
• Help to make sure that we put people at the heart of our change agenda, for example, by leading on
actions rising from our staff surveys and playing a key role in managing employee relations.
The simple way of presenting these expectations is to show how they map against the Ulrich HR capability model.
Future
• being part of the business team
• having valueadded strategic input
• developing planning and resourcing
strategies
• achieving effective service commissioning
and delivery
• implementing strategies for new HR
policies
• giving feedback to service and policy
development
• upskilling the HR function.
• being a change agent and role model
• upskilling line managers
• meeting the capability growth of the
organisation.
• putting people at the heart of the change
• championing DWP values
• having good communications
• having sound employee relations.
Day to day
Processes People
Resourcing and developing the function
We had a lot riding on the investment in business partners and wanted to get it right. We undertook detailed
internal studies to identify the different levels and characteristics of HR business partner roles, with support
from external advisers (PA Consulting to start, then Capgemini). We made clear from that start that HR in the
DWP encompassed learning and development. HR business partners are accountable for learning and
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development strategies for their businesses as well as resourcing or other areas of employee policy. They are
supported by staff with specific functional responsibilities but their remit covers the whole patch.
We knew we had a significant degree of 'homegrown' talent. But we also knew that much of that talent
had been developed within the context of a historical service delivery model and that, however talented those
individuals were, it was essential that we didn't simply rebadge existing HR roles as business partners. We
drew up very clear job descriptions and competency profiles and went to the external market as well as to
our internal market to fill them. That was a departure from previous exercises and, unsurprisingly at a time of
overall staff reductions, this was not a universally popular thing to do. But it was the right thing to do.
We are a large and complex organisation and we have a large HR business partner structure. We identified
140 business partner roles at a senior level, as follows:
• 4 at Grade 6 eg lead business partner for a large Jobcentre Plus region of up to 10,000 staff (3 filled by
external appointment)
• 52 at Grade 7 eg a Pension Service or CSA 'regional lead' for a large Jobcentre Plus district or central
department policy directorate (17 filled by external appointment)
• 84 at Senior Executive Officer eg smaller Jobcentre Plus district role (15 filled by external appointment).
Of our 140 senior business partners, 35 were new entrants to the Civil Service, bringing a variety of different
experience and expertise from the broader public and commercial sectors. Those 'new entrant' business
partners have been vital for us, not just in bringing new knowledge and experience but also in being able to
rolemodel for other business partners how we would like to see the role performed. Even though many of
our talented people knew there was something missing, they couldn't know what they didn't know and it is
impossible I believe to overestimate the contribution that new people modelling the right kinds of skills and
behaviours can make in helping to develop internal capability.
Although we were very keen to make rapid progress, inevitably the role development and recruitment of
business partners took longer than we'd hoped. We were clear about this direction from early 2002. Design
work had taken place during the summer of 2002, although the final sizing and identification of the numbers
of different posts at different levels was not complete until the start of 2003. We went into the internal and
external markets between September and November 2002, with interviews held and appointments made from
January 2003 onwards. The pace at which we were successful in completing the establishment of business
partner teams varied from area to area and, indeed, some posts remained unfilled until later that year.
Given the strategic importance of the HR business partner community to the DWP and the importance of
enabling an exchange of information between business partners from different backgrounds, from the start
we were keen to establish a capability framework and clear opportunities for business partners to develop
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capability and exchange experience. Our capability framework was developed during the first half of 2003
and is based on the Ulrich model. It provides a selfassessment and planning toolkit1 against which business
partners can review and identify their development needs, along with information about relevant CIPD and
Centre for Management and Policy Studies (CMPS) development programmes.
The toolkit has been well received and is currently being reviewed. It's also being used as the model for
capability work elsewhere across the HR function. Across the DWP there has been an increasing focus on
growing and developing the business partner community, for example, through networking and bestpractice
meetings, and we bring together all the senior business partners for an annual awards conference.
How was it for us? (Or, did the organisation move!)
We placed a great deal of hope and expectation in our new business partners. They were key agents for
change as well as representing the key change itself, being introduced at a time of transition for the DWP as
a whole and when the other elements of the HR modernisation programme were also in development. We
haven't yet, for example, introduced our new information system that will enable employee selfserve and
improve the effectiveness of our shared service delivery. Our blended learning programme is still in
development, and we're making fundamental changes in our performance and development (appraisal)
systems and our reward strategies.
None of this is easy. So, 18 months on, and in the context of this wider background, I asked a random
sample of 30 business partners and line managers what they thought of the changes business partners had
brought. I asked them for comments in five areas:
• What are the main benefits of delivering HR through a business partner structure as opposed to more
traditional structures?
• What role do business partners have in the achievement of business targets?
• What changes to the way HR is perceived have there been since the introduction of business partners?
• How should the role develop in the future?
• How could we have introduced business partner arrangements better?
The responses to the survey are summarised in the box on pages 22–24. They are in many ways reassuring in
that business partners and line managers see these new arrangements as delivering the changed relationship
between HR and the business that we wanted to see. HR has become and is seen as being more aligned to
business requirements and more accessible and more expert. This is hugely important and very encouraging.
1 The toolkit can be accessed at www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/dwp2004/hrtoolkits.pdf
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The findings also show that we have a long way to go to complete the effective delivery of our modernised
HR function. The fact that we don't yet have employee or line manager selfserve, that the shared services
centres are not yet operating as well as they should be or that our blended learning environment is only in its
infancy all prevent business partners from operating at the right level and inevitably influence business
perceptions of HR. The findings also show that we have more to do to ensure that line managers across the
DWP understand what business partners are there to do, how they can help them and what their role is in
people management.
Looking ahead, there is a very strong desire that business partners should be able to play a more strategic
role (spending less time firefighting and supporting specific service delivery activities). There is also a strong
consensus that, looking ahead, business partners would want to be more influential in bringing their business
alignment to bear on the development of HR policy and that they can add increasing value as organisational
change consultants.
Would I do it again? Yes, I would. The business partner 'revolution' in the DWP has been one of the main
successes of our HR modernisation programme. It lays the groundwork for so much of what we are doing
and is a key to the effective engagement of HR with business objectives and the development of the best
possible HR function – to all of which the senior HR team in the DWP is firmly committed.
Kevin White
DWP Group HR Director
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Summary of findings
1 What do you consider are the main benefits of delivering HR through a business partner structure as opposed to the more traditional style of HR structures?
All respondents identified understanding and alignment with business goals and objectives as the
primary benefits of the new structure. Specific factors drawn out, in order of frequency of mention,
were:
• clarifying accountabilities between HR and line managers (with business partners providing
advice and expertise and line managers taking accountability for their people decisions)
• the opportunity to have a more strategic input
• understanding of the local business context
• a more consistent and effective deployment of HR policies
• support with the upskilling of line managers
• accessibility of HR expertise
• increasing expertise and professionalism of HR
• HR acting more as a change agent
• HR as a help, not a hindrance.
Within the overall findings, the particular emphasis from line managers in the survey was on the
provision of more expert, accessible and professional services with clear accountabilities, support for
upskilling line managers and the prospect of better HR provision through business partner
feedback.
2 What role do you feel HR business partners have to play in the achievement of the organisation's business targets?
A number of factors were drawn out, with little differentiation between the business partner and
line manager views. The factors, again listed in order of frequency of mention, were:
• support for line managers in delivering organisational performance
• effective support and delivery, as appropriate, of key 'HR' activities driving performance eg
discipline or attendance management
• putting people at the heart of business planning and decisionmaking
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• ensuring the right people are recruited at the right time
• growing the capability of our people
• delivering culture change
• skilling line managers.
Perhaps not surprisingly, respondents at more senior levels of business or HR structures laid more
emphasis on the role of HR business partners acting as people champions and organisational
change catalysts, putting people at the heart of the business agenda, as opposed to their role in
helping line managers tackle specific performance issues (such as attendance).
3 What changes have you seen in the way in which the organisation views HR since the introduction of business partners?
There was almost universal recognition that HR is now seen much more as part of the business
rather than as a remote function developing policies that, likely as not, hindered rather than helped
business operations. The key factors drawn out to evidence this were:
• HR working in partnership with the businesses
• the provision of a human face, expert and accountable, and able to explain the purpose
behind HR policies
• the opportunity to influence HR policy through business partner feedback
• support for line managers, including coaching around skills transfer
• more effective support for specific 'HR' activities eg resourcing and performance
management exercises.
The responses to this question also show clearly, as we knew, that we have further progress to
make in delivering the full elements of the modernised HR model system on which the effectiveness
of business partners in part depends. There is also a worry that some line managers see the change
in accountabilities as being 'dumped on' as we ask them to undertake a further task without the
skills or support they need. And there's a corresponding concern that the new service is increasing
the expectations line managers have of HR which the HR community may struggle to meet.
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4 How would you like to see the role of the business partner develop in the future?
There was a considerable consensus on the areas of futures development, which were:
• a more strategic role with less handholding and administrative support offering greater
added value to the business, as line managers need less daytoday support and as the HR
systems come on line
• greater influence in policymaking, enabling greater operational knowledge to be brought
to bear on HR policy development
• greater expertise and professionalism for the function, with a greater emphasis particularly
on the roles of organisational change agent and internal consultant
• more external recruitment and benchmarking of services against external organisations.
5 What would you have changed about the way in which the organisation introduced business partners?
There was, again, a very strong consensus here. The two key things we should have done better
were:
• Inform and communicate the new structures and accountabilities of business partners so
that line managers understood from the start what the role provided and how best to work
with business partners.
• Ensure the emergent function was staffed up and skilled from the start.
There was also a consensus that there was too much variety in the deployment and support of
business partners across the various DWP 'businesses' (ie this model should operate to common
corporate standards) and that we didn't sufficiently pool and share the expertise of new external
recruits across the organisation.
NB The survey was a freeform questionnaire and received 30 responses, 23 of which were from current business partners
and 7 from line managers.
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Part 3 Are you passionate about HR? Or are you
passionate about the business?
This is a story about how an HR department operating on broadly traditional lines has used the business
partner model to move towards adopting a strategic rather than operational focus.
Who are we?
For over 360 years, Royal Mail has been servicing the homes and businesses of the United Kingdom. It has a
proud history of brand and tradition. Royal Mail became a plc on 26 March 2001 and is wholly owned by the
UK Government. The framework for change was the Postal Services Act 2000 that created a commercially
focused company with a more strategic relationship with the Government.
Royal Mail provides an essential public service. Notwithstanding the introduction of email and other electronic
messaging, and the continuing use of faxes, the volume of mail delivered each day is some 82 million items
and continues to grow. There is a statutory duty to provide a letter delivery service to each of the 27 million
addresses in the UK at a uniform price, irrespective of the distance travelled. The duty also includes an
obligation to carry out at least one collection daily from each of the Royal Mail letterboxes.
In the UK, Royal Mail operates under the brands Royal Mail, Post Office™ and Parcelforce Worldwide. Post
Office Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail Group plc and operates under the Post Office™ brand.
Managing a nationwide network of around 16,000 Post Office branches, it is the largest post office network
in Europe and the largest retail branch network in the UK, handling more cash than any other business.
Parcelforce Worldwide is focused on the growing express market for UK timeguaranteed and nextday
services and international parcels. It provides access to the world's largest delivery network, covering more
than 99.6 per cent of the global population.
Royal Mail Group plc has over 220,000 employees at over 2,000 sites all over the UK. In addition, a number of
franchises and owner/operators operate through the Post Office and Parcelforce Worldwide network. Without
putting too fine a point on it, Royal Mail is big business – in terms of size, geography and complexity.
The case for the change: the business context
The transformation of the HR function within Royal Mail took place in the context of a business in crisis. After
years of success as a business, Royal Mail found itself with increasing costs and declining contribution and
quality of service. The business had a negative cash flow and needed some radical changes to transform a
monolith into a commercially aware and viable organisation.
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The commercial environment that Royal Mail operated in was also changing, as the industry began to
deregulate and markets began to open up. Customers began to have greater choice and increased buying
power. But the business found itself having to balance commercial imperatives against the Universal Service
Obligation (USO), a legal requirement of the business to deliver mail to every address in Great Britain.
In 2002, the Renewal Plan was developed – a threeyear plan that sought to arrest the decline of the
business, and produce a turnaround with a £400 million profit by 2004/05. This was a challenge of enormous
proportions requiring a dramatic change effort in an industry that was in the process of deregulating.
Cultural context
In the delivery offices, postmen and women were committed to serving the communities in which they
worked, but had a limited concept of the ‘commercial buying customer’. In mail centres, the factory
environment and culture prevailed and in many mail centres there was limited pride in being a Royal Mail
employee. The culture manifested itself in a high incidence of bullying and harassment and high levels of
unplanned absence. There was low investment in both capital and people. The organisation seemed to retain
all the negative elements of a traditional public sector culture – wastefulness and a lack of commercial focus.
In addition, despite generous HR policies and practices, employees didn't perceive that they worked for a
generous employer. Rather, there was a paternalistic expectation of care. The psychological contract was similar
to that in the public sector – employees expected a job for life with little or no change to their ways of working.
The personnel function
Personnel managers were proud of the service that they and their teams provided and managers generally
received quality advice and support on people issues. The personnel department was comprehensive, with
each operational area allocated a personnel manager and personnel team, and a shared ‘transactional
services’ that looked after payroll and other routine operations.
But due to the lack of linkage between business goals and HR, HR activity largely took place in a vacuum,
removed from the strategy of the business. Transaction and strategy were mixed up and lacked clarity. What
strategy there was was traditional and functional, more like action plans than strategy and dealing with the
transactional elements of issues such as absence, reporting and industrial relations.
By and large, operators simply didn't see themselves as responsible for people issues. Consequently, there was
little ownership of issues such as attendance and resourcing. Operational managers didn't see their people as
delivering the results for them, and they certainly didn’t see themselves as leaders and coaches. Rather, the
model exacerbated the operational view that managers looked after the mail, and personnel owned the
people problems.
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If people were the business’s fundamental competitive advantage, then the HR strategy was a key element of
moving the business forward. With a business in crisis, it was clear that it was not only the operations that
needed to change. HR had to reinvent itself – quickly and fundamentally.
The vision
In January 2003, Tony McCarthy became Group Director for People and Organisational Development (P&OD).
Inheriting a committed personnel function, but one that was overstaffed, traditional and lacking in focus,
Tony needed to find a way to make better use of its talent, while providing an innovative and forward
thinking HR function that supported the business and moved it forward. In addition, Tony was charged with
reducing personnel overheads by at least 40 per cent by March 2005.
The vision was:
• People will be at the heart of all our major business decisions. The function will facilitate and support our
people by delivering worldclass solutions and services.
• The P&OD function will be professionalised, with key capabilities underpinning every role, in addition to
the key capabilities identified as core to the business.
The threebox model
In his previous role as Group HR Director for BAE systems, Tony had used a version of the HR business partner
model developed by Dave Ulrich, and had seen its benefits. He sought to introduce this model at Royal Mail
to help make the vision a reality and provide a framework for the HR strategy. Figure 2 demonstrates the
relationship between the renewal plan and the HR strategy.
Figure 2: HR strategy in Royal Mail
Year 1renewal plan
Year 2renewal plan
Year 3renewal plan
Post-renewal plan
HR
stra
tegy
Fix
Grow
Focus
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The Royal Mail model is based on three boxes (Figure 3). The move demonstrated a fundamental shift from
traditional personnel to the new approach of 'people and organisational development'. The change in
functional title was the first step in signalling that change was on its way.
Figure 3: The Royal Mail threebox model of people and organisational development
Business partner
People and OrganisationalServices (P&OS)
Transaction
Experts
The roles for each component of the model are described in the appendix on pages 32–33. As an example of
the new structure, within the Letters business (which is by far the bulk of the business, with over 160,000
employees), 31 business partners were created, one for each area. Areas vary in geographical size and have
between 3,000 and 6,000 employees and are split between three territories – East, West and North.
Business partners are referred to as people and organisational development advisers (PODAs) and they
'partner' the most senior manager in each area, the area general manager. The PODAs are senior managers in
their own right and sit on the Area Management Team. Each PODA reports to the head of P&OD for that
territory. Each of the heads of P&OD (East, West and North) 'partner' their respective territory directors, who
are the most senior operational managers within the Letters business, reporting to the UK operations director.
Are you passionate about HR, or are you passionate about the business?
Royal Mail was attempting the biggest turnaround in British industry – and the personnel structure,
passionate though it was about the HR services that it provided, simply couldn't enable the organisation to
move forward to meet and exceed the renewal plan and to be competitionready. The new model provided
HR with a structure that would, in theory, help them do all that and more.
First, however, the board had to be convinced that the new model would help deliver the renewal plan.
Second, approval had to be sought for the investment that would help facilitate the new structure. Third, the
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changes had to be managed in an environment of extreme operational turbulence and change. And finally,
ongoing HR support for the business was still required while the changes were taking place.
One only need scan the HR job advertisements to see that many organisations overlay the business partner
model on their existing structures – changing titles in the apparent belief that this will reflect a business
partner approach. However, in order to deliver the vision described above, Royal Mail had to completely
disassemble the personnel function and reassemble a new vision, structure and strategy. This was never going
to be done without some pain.
The 3,150 employees within the personnel function had to apply for 2,250 new positions within the new
structure. And, for the first time, Royal Mail was actively going out to the open market to recruit. That meant
fewer jobs, and more people in the pot. For example, a Royal Mail area that previously had 20 personnel
employees servicing the population of 5,000–6,000 operational employees was reduced to having one visible
business partner in the area, supported by a centralised and drastically reduced shared service.
There was a challenge in drawing on the talent among existing employees and creating an environment
where the change was welcomed, while at the same time creating a compelling vision for those external
recruits. In addition, for the 18 months that the resourcing process was being completed and the new
structures bedded down, the organisation was going through some difficult operational changes – reducing
its headcount by up to 30,000 employees and introducing some radical changes to the network.
While the new transactional People and Organisational Services (P&OS) division undertook its own
transformation by dramatically reducing its staff and completely overhauling its processes, the newly
appointed business partners had to live with dual roles. On the one hand, they were told to be ‘strategic’ but,
on the other, there was still the transactional work to be done and no one to do it. The operations needed
help to effect and manage the changes they were going through, and didn’t much care for the fact that
there was a new HR model that changed the way that things were done.
Without courage and resilience, the changes might never have happened. And there was certainly initial
resistance. Operations mourned the loss of their personal personnel managers, while the personnel managers
mourned the loss of their teams, and struggled to come to terms with what the new roles meant.
Step one of the journey
Business partnering was off to a shaky start. However, two key elements have helped to shape a much more
positive approach to business partnering:
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1 The progress of P&OS in their transformational processes. As transactional work has been removed from
the business partners, they have been able to start the true work of understanding the role of partnering
the operations.
2 The introduction of the new P&OD capability model (Figure 4) and the associated development programme:
• The development programme consists of three mandatory programmes covering consulting skills, business
knowledge and strategy, and organisational capability.
• In addition, every business partner has been given a development budget and can choose electives within
the programme (or, if appropriate, from external sources). Electives include facilitation/action learning
skills, managing change, coaching, and measuring P&OD value.
• Programmes have been run by leadingedge providers such as Professor Wayne Brockbank (University of
Michigan).
• An annual P&OD conference brought together recognised leadingedge experts in industry and HR, and
best practice from within the business was demonstrated and recognised.
Figure 4: The Royal Mail capabilities
Business knowledge
Deliveringresults
Personalcredibility
Consulting
P&ODknowledge OD&D
ConsultingUses a consultancy approach and techniques to challenge,
solve problems, facilitate and coach others to improve
current and future organisational performance
P&OD knowledgeUnderstands leading-edge
P&OD thinking and is able
to decide what P&OD
process/ interventions
could be used to improve
current and future
business performance
Delivering resultsEffectively achieves results
through their ability to
build strong relationships
in a more fluid
environment
Business knowledgeUnderstands and utilises commercial acumen and awareness of external
environment to enhance Royal Mail’s current and future business performance
Personal credibilityRole-models leading and
influencing behaviours. Is
intellectually and
emotionally intelligent
Organisation design and developmentUtilises organisational
development tools and
processes, to build a
structure and culture which
delivers the current and
future business strategy;
meets and, where
appropriate, challenges
assumptions
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So, what is a business partner?
The P&OD function is only just beginning the journey of understanding what potential a true business
partnering model can bring. This is critical if the P&OD function is to support the business in meeting renewal
plan targets, improving the current level of quality of service and tackling the cultural issues pervasive within
the business. The role needs to demonstrate value and be differentiated from the previous personnel
manager role.
Business partners need to be able to demonstrate to operational colleagues that they understand the
customer, the business and the competitive environment within which all this fits. Business partners need to
contract with the operations to analyse a problem in the light of these inputs, work with the experts to
develop an appropriate solution/product/strategy or response, and then work with P&OS to deploy such a
response. Equally, the business partner needs to be a coach to their operational partner.
The business partner needs to be able to create an environment to be able to focus on longerterm strategic
issues: a challenge when faced with operational partners that focus on a daily repeatable task. The
organisation will continue to face changes, and so the role of the business partner must be to help
operations face those changes head on, develop an appropriate response and then evaluate the deployment.
What we’ve learned
Making the change under the circumstances detailed above meant that the implementation wasn't perfect,
but the first step of the journey is always the hardest and there is never an ‘ideal’ time to implement such a
magnitude of change – if you don’t start, you'll never get where you want to be.
There has been a dichotomy between shortterm business requirements resulting in processes that didn’t let
the model work properly, and which gave people permission to return to their comfort zones, and the fact
that the business so desperately needed the model to work, to get out of daytoday tactics, and to look at
the longerterm cultural and strategic issues.
There has been a body of work necessary to communicate and educate the operations on the new model,
how it operated in practice and what this meant for their role in managing their people. There is still not
perfect understanding of the model, nor of the role of the business partner.
It's the responsibility of all the parties within the threebox model to make the shared services (P&OS) a
success. Without a strong, efficient transactional component, it's hard to build true credibility as a business
partner.
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In a sense, we've taken three steps forward, one step back. Some business partners have found the role too
isolated, or have missed managing their teams. Some have just not been up to the challenge. So the team
that started is not the team that remains.
Why the business partner approach is a good thing
So, there have been some challenges along the way, and we still have a very long way to go, but it is clear
that the courage in moving to the new model is starting to pay dividends.
The investment in capability within the P&OD function is starting to pay off. There is energy and excitement
about the business partners as they seek to apply the new models to their everyday roles, and the development
programme has provided a shared platform of learning, a shared language and a shared experience.
Royal Mail posted its first aftertax profit in the financial year 2003/04 and is well on its way to meeting
renewal plan targets. There have been small wins that grow larger every day. The challenge now is to build
on the successes of the model while learning from the challenges we’ve faced.
Helen Atkinson
Head of People and Organisational Development, East Territory, and
Tammy Tansley
Employee Relations Manager, Royal Mail Letters
Appendix
Business partners
being:
•
•
• developers of talent
•
•
Business partners are the P&OD directors for each business unit and the area P&OD advisers identified
within the units. The teams within this structure are very small and business partners are identified as
users of experts to design P&OD interventions needed in their business units or areas
responsible for overseeing transactions, but not managing them other than contractually
development and performance coaches, facilitators and counsellors
at the forefront of business strategy
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• encouragers of risk (particularly with people)
• decisionmakers and performance improvers
• behavioural rolemodels
• deliverers, not managers of deliverers
• responsible for measuring service quality and business impact
• innovators for people and business improvement.
Shared services (P&OS)
Shared services are People and Organisation Services. P&OS is responsible for the delivery of excellent
people services in a consistent way and they provide a worldclass standard of services and costs.
Experts
We have small professional teams of experts in:
• talent management
• chief learning officer
• diversity
• corporate social responsibility
• employee relations
• recognition and reward
• involvement and communication.
Our experts are recognised in their own fields and their role identifies them as:
• worldclass specialists, aligned with or ahead of their field
• understanding business
• educating the business by pushing and coaching
• owners of policies
• deliverers and doers
• advisers on new and innovative ideas
• owners of key mandated activities.
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Part 4 Partnering journeys
We're all new to HR partnering. The books and gurus certainly don't have all the answers, and those of us
engaged in seeking to move HR forward have had our fair share of successes and setbacks.
In addition, everyone has their own version of what partnering is – no two organisations see it in precisely the
same way. Almost no one adheres to the Ulrich model closely; quite a few HR functions have adopted very
different approaches yet believe they're operating a partnering model. Perhaps that's a good thing –
interpretations of what partnering is need to reflect differing business circumstances and objectives.
Many organisations have embarked on explorations into partnering in different directions, in different ways
and at different paces. Perhaps, in ten years’ time, there'll be a consensus on when and how to partner, but
for now we have to draw on the experiences of those who have embarked on an assortment of journeys.
This part describes a few of those journeys, considers what went well, and offers some lessons for those seeking to
learn from others' experiences. As it happens, all the organisations whose experiences are outlined here are in the
private sector and medium to large in scale, employing between them some tens of thousands of people.
1 The detour
Often a company will embark on partnering with new HR roles, new customer interfaces, new IT and a bold,
professional launch. But, within a surprisingly short time, it may become apparent that, although HR
continues to provide helpful expert services, the partnering role is too costly, or is failing to add real strategic
value to the business.
This is the story of one organisation's mistaken detour, and how it found a much more effective route to
partnering. The key lessons from the case (about the number of strategic partners, operational infrastructure
and cost pressures) are significant and other organisations seem to have learned similar lessons. I will call the
organisation simply company 'X'.
As part of its first foray into partnering, X:
• appointed a partner to each of several businesses
• created centres of expertise staffed by HR specialists that developed HR policies and tools
• outsourced much of the routine transactional HR (such as recruitment)
• developed an intranet resource of HR information and advice for line managers.
All the new partners – there were several of them – had been HR managers. The businesses typically had
between 1,000 and 1,500 employees each.
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Initially, this partnering model proved very successful. Senior managers loved having 'their own' dedicated HR
professional and partners prized the close engagement with 'their' businesses. Partners devoted much of their
time to meetings with line managers discussing minor operational issues. They reworked materials from the
centres of expertise, tailoring resources and policies to their own businesses. In addition, partners became
helpfully involved in local issues, such as cases involving individual employees.
However, all of that was very expensive and much of it was of questionable value. Perhaps it was inevitable
that cost pressures demanded a dramatic rethink of HR and a new organisation, with:
• the creation of delivery centres providing both polices/tools and case management on a regional basis.
Staffed largely by expartners, the new centres were line managers' single source of HR expertise. There
was just one phone number to call, and 'cases' were allocated to HR professionals on a workload basis.
• greater emphasis on the use and development of HR's intranetbased resources for line managers.
Centres of expertise shrank dramatically, and just a few strategic HR partners were created – one for each of
the major divisions. These people were closely aligned to the executives and were expected to have little or
no operational HR involvement.
The thrust of these changes was to focus HR effort where it was most needed and reduce HR numbers very
significantly. There were problems, however.
Not surprisingly, many line managers strenuously objected to the new HR. They missed their personal HR
professionals and needed more training to become more selfsufficient.
HR itself doubted if the new organisation would work – a few weeks into the change and senior HR
professionals privately asked themselves if they had 'wrecked HR'. The few genuinely strategic HR partners
also realised that their new role was significantly more challenging, both interpersonally and intellectually,
than anything they had encountered before.
Today, HR is successfully enabling the implementation of business strategy and delivering lowcost operational
services – the two central objectives of most partnering initiatives (Goodge 2004a). X's journey to get there
was something of an odd detour, yet its lessons have similarities with routes taken by others:
• Some organisations have also discovered that only a few HR partners can be truly strategic. Appoint lots of
partners and they all will get sucked into operational work, in which case probably no one will be strategic.
• Operational HR can be very expensive, although managers and HR professionals will love the personal
service. Lowcost HR needs good IT, trained and able line managers and a radical approach to HR delivery.
• Cost pressures will get the better of any HR function that is merely expert and professional. Helpful best
practice is no longer enough. HR has to be inexpensive too.
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How will you know if you've taken a detour? Well, business decline or stagnation may eventually tell you.
HR's failure to add strategic value is magnified when a business is in trouble – longstanding human resource
problems weaken competitiveness, while opponents seize tactical opportunities by making smarter use of
their people. Alternatively, make a list of HR's outstanding contributions to the business over the last three
years – you ought to be able to name about ten very significant achievements.
2 Getting there
Organisations in trouble sometimes take huge leaps into HR partnering. Cost pressures, falling share prices
and diminishing market share force fast, radical changes within HR. However, organisations are rarely in such
difficult circumstances, and most journeys into HR partnering are taken with measured, cautious steps. Most
of the organisations I see have already progressed towards partnering but still have some way to go.
Organisation 'Y' is typical of those that have taken incremental journeys towards partnering. Y's story illustrates
important lessons about the incremental approach: (a) the need to formally review where HR is, what the next
step is, and how to take it, plus (b) the importance of raising HR partners' capabilities ahead of the next step.
Y's first step towards partnering was to elevate selected HR managers to be HR partners – it was more than a
change of job title. The six partners, one for each geographical region, were given new, more strategic roles,
which had been agreed with senior managers. Nothing else changed: no new IT, no centres of HR excellence,
no servicecentre type of operation.
But that first step was successful in some ways. The more able HR partners with good relationships with
regional managing directors contributed to, and shaped, current strategic debates. There were several good
examples of HR adding real value to the business in ways it hadn't done before. However, that was true only
for some partners some of the time. Even the most able of partners had limited influence and scope. Some
partners, especially those with difficult managing directors, had much less impact and were essentially
operational HR managers.
Individuals within the HR team wondered where they were and what the next step was. These questions are
asked by almost all organisations that have chosen to progress to partnering incrementally. Failure to address
the questions, and to do so every year or two, leaves HR stuck somewhere between what it was and what it
ought to be. Incremental progress is fine, and is easier and safer than largescale, radical change, but
organisations have to keep it going.
After some months of being stuck, Y's HR team used a oneday workshop to define a series of steps to
partnering from basic 'mopping up' to advanced 'initiating strategic issues' (see Goodge 2004b). Most of Y's
HR partners were at the steps they described as 'tooling up' and 'coaching'.
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Figure 5: An incremental approch to partnering
Proactively initiating strategic issues
Coaching and advising executives
Mopping up – solving daily problems (created by line managers)
Contributing to today’s strategic debates
Tooling up – providing managers with helpful processes
The workshop enabled the HR team to define the skills they needed to develop, and the process by which they
would take the next step for them: 'contributing to today's strategic debates'. They also decided on changes
needed within HR eg learning and development activities would report to HR, not directly to line managers.
Y's story illustrates an important aspect of the incremental route to partnering – ie individual skills and
circumstances cause partners to progress at different paces. And that shows in partners' varying performance.
HR directors in such organisations often contrast successful and less successful HR partners: something those
who have taken different routes to partnering tend not to do.
Developing partners' abilities ahead of the next step seems crucially important. It's the only way of ensuring
every partner succeeds. It's also the only way of ensuring line managers continue to support the journey to
partnering. It's important to appreciate that the abilities required of partners are not those of traditional HR.
Partners need to learn the business insideout, build great relationships, be at the leading edge of HR, and
build their personal credibility (see page 39, and Goodge 2004c).
3 Arriving somewhere different
Not all journeys to partnering arrive at the same place. Sometimes the intended destination is dramatically
different from that implied by other models of partnering, but is highly successful nevertheless.
Organisation 'Z' is one such dramatically different organisation. In some ways, it's oldfashioned, even to the
point of calling HR 'personnel'. They never changed the name. Yet, in other ways, Z is strikingly modern, such as
in its uncompromising focus on HR delivery and performance. Z is a great example of the need to fit partnering
to your business and its culture. It also highlights the crucial importance of measuring HR's real contribution.
A very few of the old personnel departments were surprisingly businessfocused. Z's approach to partnering is
not in the least new or modern, but is in fact decades old.
HR partnering in Z means:
• clearly defining HR's contribution to the business strategy (eg lower costs, great customer service, talented
innovators etc)
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• putting measures in place to assess that contribution (absence costs, profit per employee, customer
satisfaction etc)
• responding to problems highlighted by the measures (eg managers or parts of the business with poorer
measures)
• constantly seeking out and taking opportunities to improve measured performance.
HR partnering isn't about using a model (eg Ulrich's) or cutting HR costs. It's about achieving strategically
significant targets. Inevitably, Z's executives question HR's costs but they recognise that HR provides a net benefit.
Credible, accurate measures are vital. HR needs to be able to say exactly how well it's doing. It has to report
on its performance just as sales, service and production do. In addition, HR has to continually publicise how
it's doing. Z's personnel department produces monthly reports on its performance which are discussed at
every board meeting.
Any HR department has significant responsibilities, but also great freedoms. In Z, HR operates as an
entrepreneurial, internal consultancy, developing the business while developing its own agenda and resources.
The HR director described it as a business within a business.
This rather different approach seems to require two things:
• A wellrun, stable company – one with a clear, unchanging strategy and able line managers. Without those,
HR's measures would be constantly changing and line managers would entangle HR in daytoday problems.
• Talented HR people – HR has to recruit able people and stretch them with business projects that add
measured value, while giving them time for personal development.
It is interesting to note that Z's approach fits the company's numbers and measuresorientated culture, and
perhaps highlights the importance of finding a partnering model that fits how your business does things (for
an overview of partnering's organisational requirements, see Goodge 2004a).
4 Key points
The cases of X, Y and Z contain several important lessons.:
Assess the readiness of your organisation, and of HR, to embark on partnering or to take the next step.
Find out where HR is now, assess your customers' abilities and expectations, think creatively about your
options, then plan things in detail (even if it's just a small next step in an incremental process). Articles and
conferences are good, but they can only provide ideas. You will need to design something that is right for you.
Develop the people ie both HR professionals and line managers. The biggest reason why partnering fails is
lack of competencies. Your first practical step towards partnering will probably be to assess potential partners
in ways they understand and support.
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Measure, and publicise, how well you are doing. But don't rely on soft measures, use some facts too.
I've encountered HR partners who thought they were doing really well, while line managers said
something very different!
These examples underline that there is no single model of successful HR partnering and no single route to
success. But all partnering journeys focus attention on key challenges for HR and can be a stimulus to more
effective organisational performance.
5 How to be an HR business partner
The one thing many HR directors agree on is that their HR business partners are 'not strategic enough'.
This seems to be the single obstacle to becoming an effective HR partner. The 2003 CIPD's HR Survey: Where
we are, where we're heading found that, although large numbers of senior HR professionals were engaged
in developing strategy, many felt poorly equipped for their roles. This underlines the difference between being
a business partner and traditional HR jobs.
People aspiring to be a successful HR partner need to take the following steps (Goodge 2004c):
• Learn the business insideout. Only an indepth knowledge of your business will equip you to contribute
to strategic debates and initiatives. Without it, you will be on the sidelines of the big business decisions
and have little influence on their implementation.
• Build great relationships. Very few business partners have any formal authority: in order to get things
changed, they need to rely on diplomacy, persuasion and political skills. Many HR partners have no formal
reporting lines: relationships are the means by which they get things done.
• Be at the leading edge of HR. Your ability to add value depends on the ideas and changes you come up
with. Adding value means offering something genuinely new. You'll need to be an expert in what is
promising, and possible, in people management.
• Build credibility. Without credibility, HR partners are more or less impotent. Credibility is not a competency.
There is no training course and it can't be taught. Credibility has to be won and built over time. If your
ideas add real value to the business, people will want to hear about them, so tell them.
And finally, in order to get started, you may need to sell the idea of business partnering to top management.
You can't be a business partner on the quiet.
Peter Goodge
www.develop.uk.com
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Part 5 Business partnering: a new direction for HR?
The case histories in this Guide illustrate the richness and diversity of the organisations, and their HR
functions, that are moving, explicitly or implicitly, towards a more HR business partnering approach, as well as
some of the ups and the downs along the way. A criticism of current HR literature is sometimes that it's too
'glossy' and divorced from organisational reality, so we're particularly grateful to our contributors for their
frank and honest accounts of their experience of business partnering.
Our contributors also emphasise the importance of learning and knowledge in moving towards the business
partner ideal, and one of the learning points for us has been to follow up this publication with further web
based case studies and publications.
One obvious message emerging from this guide is that you need to work out and progress on your own
individual journey towards business partnering. Business partnering isn't about implementing a fixed textbook
model but about crafting an approach for your HR function that, as Peter Goodge explains, makes a strategic
contribution towards the achievement of your organisation's key objectives. That is the only universal and
essential ingredient.
But in this concluding part, we return to consider some of our opening questions on the nature, character
and value of business partnering.
Is there a single HR business partner model and what makes for success?
More jobs are being advertised as 'HR business partners'. In some cases this is simply a change of title while
the incumbent carries on doing a traditional reactive and functional HR job. This kind of rebadging is unlikely
to lead to HR adding more value to the business.
It's interesting that our contributors were well aware of this danger, and some didn't use the business
partnering title. Business partnering has to be more than simply a change of title. The organisations in this
report have clearly adopted a more considered approach. But the way they have tackled it differs substantially
from case to case. As Ray Caldwell says, context is key, but our senior practitioners demonstrate that HR can
do a lot to help create the right context for the model to work in.
It's difficult to define what a strategic business partner is because it's impossible to supply an allpurpose
definition of what he or she actually does. The concept is applied in different ways, even where Ulrich's
model has been a direct influence, with the DWP, for example, seeing the business partner encompassing all
four of Ulrich's roles, but other organisations focusing more exclusively on his top left 'box'. Business partners
do a whole range of different things, depending on what is required and where their organisation is at.
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So the model clearly doesn't offer a onesizefitsall template that can be taken off the shelf and applied
across organisations of all shapes and sizes.
It does, however, map out a clear direction of travel from a function historically focused on rules,
administration and service provision to a function focused on business issues and working with line managers
to deliver performance targets.
The nature of the HR partnering role, and the likelihood of success, will be influenced by many factors,
including:
• the level, structure, numbers and talents of business partners – either because of the advanced
competencies required and/or the level of strategic input, the message from our contributors' experiences
seems to be that you generally need fewer but 'biggerhitting' business partners
• line managers' understanding of and capabilities in people management and the quality of relationships
between HR and line managers
• the existing roles and credibility of the HR function and the ability to rapidly develop internally and/or to
import the competencies required for business partnering
• the state of development in the other activities of the HR function – our contributors demonstrate that if,
for example, the administrative and daytoday activities are not being handled well, in practice it's
difficult for the business partners to take enough of a longterm and strategic perspective on how people
can best add to competitive advantage in the organisation.
The requirements for business partners themselves to succeed are very clear from the experiences described
above, if seeming somewhat superhuman at times. They must have excellent business knowledge but also
topnotch interpersonal skills and high personal credibility. They are not 'HR techies' but need to have
knowledge in respect of leadingedge approaches in HR and organisational development. They must be able
to diagnose and analyse situations well, to measure the 'hard' outcomes, their own results and those of the
HR initiatives they create. They need high levels of freedom and autonomy and they need to be able to
publicise and 'sell' themselves and the function effectively. And they seem to require a good dose also of
Ulrich's 'HR with attitude', or, as Goodge puts it, 'you can't be a business partner on the quiet.'
One problem with HR partnering is that we don't generally talk about 'finance partners' or 'IT partners', for
example, although, like HR, these functions are also off line. In some ways, partnering can be like a form of
internal consultancy, but without the degree of contractual formality that generally characterises external
consultancy relationships. Support from colleagues' expertise in HR technical areas and administration is vital.
If the HR partner role fails to offer scope for personal influence and direct organisational impact, the job is
unlikely to attract competent and ambitious people. Care is needed in defining and communicating the
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content of the partner role if expectations on both sides are not to be disappointed, and a number of the cases
refer to this danger of overexpectation on the part of both HR and the rest of the organisation. The partner
concept needs to be well explained, but is more effectively demonstrated in the doing than the selling.
Why are organisations moving towards creating HR business partners?
HR partnering doesn't take place in a vacuum. It only makes sense in the context of a wider look at the
structure of the HR function and the organisation as a whole. But in many ways the time is ripe for partnering
to take off. Many HR people who have read or heard Dave Ulrich will be enthusiastic to develop their role as a
partner in order to raise their influence and credibility. In order to make room for a bigger strategic
contribution by HR, process activities need to be computerised and/or brigaded in an HR 'service centre'.
We know that this is happening in a big way. Line managers will also need to take more of the strain in terms
of managing their own people. This is one of the key targets underpinning HR reorganisation in the DWP.
Chief executives looking to achieve financial savings may also see the HR partnering role as an opportunity to
reduce the numbers in their HR departments while hopefully adding value to the business. However, such
savings will only be achieved if the implications of moving to HR partnering are thoroughly worked through
and understood.
If business partnering is just pursued as a costreducing exercise, the indications are that it will fail.
Competitive and cost pressures may be a major driver and some would say 'nail in the coffin' of the
traditional reactive model of personnel management, but business partnering can only work if the partners
can play a demonstrable valueadding and strategic role, which can't be done on the cheap. It's about higher
added value rather than HR costcutting. If the Department of Trade and Industry is right and the way for UK
companies to succeed in the future is not to compete on cost alone but by high valueadding activities,
business partnering is the HR component of that competitive strategy and approach.
Ray Caldwell's analysis clearly defines this HR agenda. Partners are more strategic and proactive. They have
high involvement and influence on the strategy of the business. They are viewed positively by the chief
executive and line managers. They spend less time on implementation and administration, focusing on the HR
competencies of strategic thinking, business knowledge and leadership. And they're more focused on
measurable HR outcomes. This clearly sounds attractive if you can hack it and deliver.
Should all organisations go for the business partner model?
For business partners generally, tackling the partnering agenda is a change management issue in its own
right. HR managers can only make a success of partnering roles if the rest of the organisation changes to
accommodate them.
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Peter Goodge emphasises that some organisations may not be ready for business partnering, possibly
because they don't see the potential for HR to be more strategic or because the HR function currently lacks
credibility. The organisation may need to be educated in what it can expect to receive by way of support from
the HR function, since this is going to look substantially different from what it has received in the past.
Business partnering is obviously not a magic bullet, but it is a journey that many HR departments feel they
have little option but to embark on. As the cases of the Post Office and the DWP illustrate, it's a tough
journey. But what is the alternative?
And despite the radical changes implied by a shift to business partnering, in many respects these can be seen
as meeting longstanding aspirations of the HR function:
• to align HR and business strategies
• to transfer people management responsibilities on a daytoday basis from HR to the line
• to achieve greater credibility and influence in the organisation by being able to demonstrate that it is
adding value.
Goodge's company Z may never have heard of the business partnering concept or read Ulrich, yet they
appear to be doing a pretty good job at delivering on it. Goodge also sets out a nice model of progress on
the journey, akin to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, from HR 'mopping up' at the most basic level to proactively
influencing strategy at the top.
The detailed analysis of the CIPD survey results by Caldwell highlights a strong divide between those pursuing
the business partnering route and the rest of the participants. Whatever the problems of changing, and our
cases illustrate the 'courage' required, as referred to by Atkinson and Tansley, the prospects for the latter
group who have not started on the transition journey, and with the costcutting and outsourcing agenda on
the ascendancy, look pretty bleak.
Is HR partnering about strategy or delivery?
Contributing to business strategy doesn't necessarily mean having a seat on the board. Strategy is not a set
of topdown decisions but a process of continuous review of how policies are to be delivered. As the
Financial Times noted (19 August 2004), 'strategy is the art of the possible and needs to take account of time
and resources available.' There is major scope for HR to contribute to and influence the strategy process in
organisations, particularly by ensuring that the direction of policy takes full account of organisational
capabilities, including the existing talent base, opportunities for extending this through recruitment, and
implications for learning and development.
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Many organisations are focusing HR partnering jobs on support for senior line managers. Developing the
relationship between HR and the line is clearly a key task for organisations. It's not an area, though, where
Ulrich offers a great deal of practical advice or guidance and there is little evidence to hand about the positive
impact that HR partnering has had so far. This is likely to be an area where organisations will need to make
significant ongoing efforts to develop a mutual understanding of roles and expectations.
The CIPD's research on the links between people and performance would suggest that business partners
need to focus at least as much on firstline management and the delivery of business and HR strategies as
they do on the board, although, as at the DWP, this does hold out the risk of getting too drawn in to dayto
day issues. As Tansley and Atkinson say, unless HR partnering encompasses vision, strategy and delivery, then
it's 'just talk'.
A significant aspect of strategy is choice, deciding what a company should do and, often as important, what
it is not going to do. Overambition and loss of strategic focus is a charge levelled at a number of wellknown
British companies today, and the business partnering journey appears to need regular doses of reality
checking and focusing if it is to continue successfully.
Measurement also comes out strongly from our contributors as being a key component of the partnering
role, gauging and assessing the views of line managers and staff, assessing the impact of strategic initiatives
and adjusting them accordingly.
Are business partners still doing 'HR jobs'?
The short answer is that business partners are responsible for embedding the people dimension more securely
into the way the business is run. Business partners are fully engaged in the processes of people management
and development. But they won't be preoccupied with traditional HR processes. The reason for this is two
fold: many of the processes will have been computerised and/or outsourced, and daytoday people
management activities are now undertaken by line managers. HR business partnering can only flourish if line
managers are willing and able to discharge their people management role: the two processes should be
mutually supportive and need to go hand in hand.
However, our contributors' experiences would seem to reinforce John Boudreau's contention that increasing
HR influence depends both on strategic input and strong technical expertise. Business partners themselves
need, and they need colleagues with, high levels of expertise in the main HR disciplines to develop and apply
effective HR solutions to business issues. And as well as this knowledge, the delivery of effective HR
administration services, inhouse or outsourced, appears to be a critical underpinning of enabling and freeing
up the business partners to perform.
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Are there particular issues in the public sector?
The creation of senior business partner roles in Whitehall can be seen as part of a programme of
modernisation affecting both the HR function and the delivery of public services. This confirms that it would
be wrong to see business partnering as something to be done on its own, or as something that will produce
dividends without reference to what is happening elsewhere in the organisation.
Research for the CIPD by John Purcell at Bath University has underlined the importance of line managers in
getting people management practices right. The only way the 'say/do' gap of attractive and productive 'great
places to work', in the private as well as the public sector, is going to be remedied is by changing the
behaviour of line managers. The strength of the HR business partner model is its focus on the critical
relationship between HR and the line.
In many organisations in both the public and the private sectors, the issue of accountability for people
management remains largely unresolved. The HR function wants to focus on strategy and support, while line
managers see people management as an unwelcome distraction from meeting business targets and one for
which they feel they have little affinity or competence. Our contributors illustrate not only the opposition to
changing the status quo that can come from line managers – who can find the 'comfort blanket' of HR
support extremely attractive, at least when it is threatened – but also the potential benefits that can result
from change on both sides, and more importantly for the organisation as a whole.
The DWP has recognised that the only way to provide effective support for the reform of frontline services
while shrinking numbers in HR is through ensuring that line managers accept and deliver on their people
management responsibilities. This will require major change in the culture, along with ongoing coaching and
support. Many HR partners will need to become specialists in change management.
Historically, departments and agencies have tended to buy in expertise on a contract basis to support change
management activity. This will be increasingly unnecessary as central government grows its own specialists in
organisational development and change management. Many HR business partners are being recruited from
outside, bringing with them valuable experience in the processes involved. But cultural acclimatisation and
understanding will be the key to them delivering results in practice.
How do organisations set about developing the business partner role?
Development, education and knowledge, our contributors emphasise, are perhaps the most critical
determinants of success when attempting to deliver the business partner role in practice and reality.
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The business partner model is recognised in the current CIPD Advanced Practitioner Standard on strategic
personnel and development. Indicators include 'carry out a strategic appraisal of an organisation's strengths
and weaknesses, paying particular attention to its human resources.' The indicative content of the Standards
includes the relationship between the personnel and development practitioner and the strategic management
process, or the business partner in context, and developing the relationship between the practitioner and
functional management. The emphasis is on strengthening the HR connection to business strategy by
ensuring that HR strategies complement the overall 'strategic intent' of the organisation.
The CIPD Professional Development Scheme's Core Standards include a strong business element in the
Leadership and Management component, and the concept of the thinking performer that underpins them, has
many facets of business partnering included. But the Standards do not attempt to define partnering as such.
Respondents to the CIPD HR survey in 2003 agreed that HR needed to acquire new knowledge and skills.
This underlines the need for training for both HR partners and line managers. The business knowledge
required to be an effective HR partner will often be significant, as will the need to acquire new personal skills.
The focus on business partnering will lead some organisations to conclude that they need to look outside for
people with the right personal qualities and experience.
In order to support the transition to HR partnering, the DWP has produced a detailed 'capability toolkit'.
In essence, this is a competency framework listing 14 capabilities of HR business partners. These cover
between them the four HR roles identified by Ulrich and make clear that 'strategic' HR is only one element in
the mix. The toolkit underlines the scale of the challenge facing HR partners but helpfully suggests that
individuals should select a small number of development priorities and use them as the basis for a personal
development plan. 'Capability' is defined as 'competency plus will plus successful application!'
The Post Office is similarly putting a great deal of effort into developing and delivering their P&OD capability
model. In our information and knowledgebased economy, learning assumes a key role in delivering and
sustaining competitive advantage. What has become clear from the experiences of these organisations in our
Guide is that business partnering not only depends on continuous learning and leadingedge thinking, but is
actually defined and evolves through a process of interaction and learning between HR professionals and
their partners.
So what does it all mean?
HR business partnering is a concept that is being increasingly seized on by organisations as a way of
redefining both their structures and their agenda on people management and development. Partnering can't
be a purely internal matter for HR. It goes with the grain of what is already happening to HR services and
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structures but it needs the wholehearted support of senior and line management. It doesn't answer all the
questions about how HR can add value but it restates them in a form that gives HR people new opportunities.
It doesn't entirely resolve the ambiguities about HR's role but it faces the function directly with the need to
tackle business issues. It doesn't tell HR managers what they should be doing, but it gets them away from
an unhealthy preoccupation with either administrative process or regulatory compliance. It reinforces ways
for HR to engage with the strategic processes that relate to both the direction and the delivery of business
objectives.
In short, business partnering is a challenge that HR can't afford to duck. Reform is not a surefire route to
earning business credibility but retrenchment is still less attractive. The message in this Guide is that many
HR departments are determined to rise to the challenge. And the question remains: what is the alternative?
Mike Emmott
Adviser, Employee Relations, CIPD
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References
Part 1 In search of strategic partners
CALDWELL, R. (2003). The changing roles of personnel managers: old ambiguities, new uncertainties. Journal
of Management Studies. Vol. 40, No. 4. pp983–1004.
BUDHWAR, P. (2000) Evaluating levels of strategic integration and devolvement of human resource
management in the UK. Personnel Review. Vol. 36, No. 3. pp441–470.
CIPD. (2003) HR survey: Where we are, where we’re heading.
GUEST, D., CONWAY, N., MICHIE, J., SHEEHAN, M. and KING, Z. London: CIPD. (2004) Voices from the
boardroom. London: CIPD.
GUEST, D. and KING, Z. (2004). Power, innovation and problem solving: the personnel managers’ three steps
to heaven? Journal of Management Studies. Vol. 41, No. 3. pp401–423.
PAAUWE, P. (2004) HRM and performance: unique approaches for achieving longterm viability. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
ULRICH, D. (1997) Human resource champions. Boston: Harvard University Press.
WRIGHT, P., MCMAHAN, G., SNELL, S. and GERHART, B. (2001) Comparing line and HR executives
perceptions of HR effectiveness: services, roles and contributions. Human Resource Management. Vol. 40,
No. 2. pp111–123.
Part 4 Partnering journeys
GOODGE, P. (2004a) Ready for HR partnering? Strategic HR Review. Summer.
GOODGE, P. (2004b) Tools for strategic HR partners. Competency Journal. Vol. 11, No. 3. Spring. pp17–20.
GOODGE, P. (2004c) How to build a career as an HR partner. People Management. 30 June.
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management and development issues at a
The CIPD explores leadingedge people
strategic level. Our aim is to share knowledge
and to increase learning and understanding
to improve practice. We produce surveys,
thinkpieces, research summaries and
introductory guidance that all are available
to download from our website.
Issu
ed:
Oct
ober
200
4 Re
fere
nce:
312
9
Chartered Institute CIPD House Camp Road London SW19 4UX of Personnel and Tel: 020 8971 9000 Fax: 020 8263 3333
Development Email: [email protected] Website: www.cipd.co.uk Incorporated by Royal Charter Registered charity no.1079797
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