What does it mean when we say HR Business Partner?

We’ve all heard of HR Business Partners (HRBPs), but I think there’s something fundamentally misunderstood about the business partner model.

As an HRBP, I come across this misunderstanding frequently.

We’re “strategic”, sure, and “embedded” with the management more than others on the HR team, OK, but HR’s partnership with the business doesn’t begin and end with an HRBP.

To gain a better understanding of the business partner model, we need go back to Human Resource Champions (1996) by influential HR thinker and academic, Dave Ulrich.

He wasn’t so much coining the term HRBP but shining a light on the HR models utilized by top companies that were most successful at adding value and providing a competitive advantage to their respective businesses, i.e. those that aligned with the business to ultimately fulfill the business’ objectives in light of an ever-increasing competitive landscape due to myriad threats at the time that could be discovered through a STEEPLE analysis, e.g. globalization, retirement of Baby Boomers, tech changes, global conflict, etc.

He described the HRBP model as encapsulating four key elements: 1. Strategic partnership, 2. Administrative expert, 3. Employee champion, 4. Change agent. (Ibid, p.37)

What we tend to get wrong (and it’s far from just being my opinion) is what Ulrich describes as that model being invested only in one aspect of HR, sometimes only or primarily in the HRBP role.

Instead, it should be that “the entire ensemble contributes to success”, i.e. that everyone wearing an HR hat whether it’s talent acquisition, ops, benefits, or HRIS management, etc. should be pulling together under the business partner model to add value and contribute towards competitive advantage for the organization. (Ibid, p.38)

In a 2016 white paper written for ELMO (the Australian HR software firm), he re-emphasized that it’s not just HRBPs (which he refers to as “embedded HR”) who should be considered business partners.

It’s the entire team and it’s the entire HR function which should be guided by the model, with a focus on “deliverables” not just “doables” – an example he provides is gauging not just how many hours of training HR provided to management, but “the impact of training on business performance.”

In the same ELMO white paper, Ulrich points out that the business partner model is not limited to HR and that other departments frequently adopt a similar attitude and approach, e.g. marketing, IT/IS, R&D, etc., but he does make it clear that “HR professionals as business professionals have unique information, insights, and recommendations to deliver competitive advantage,” – we are after all the department primarily focused on the company’s great asset, it’s people.

In a 2018 revamp published on HRD Connect which Ulrich called “Business Partner 2.0”, he described the model’s evolution from one of not just focusing on strategic issues, but extending this logic into providing value to “multiple stakeholders”, including employees, line managers, the organization as well as customers, investors, and communities (an “outside-in” reframing).

Where I see the model failing in my experience is not in its intended purpose – which I think is in fact only becoming more relevant for HR – but where there is a fundamental misalignment between the model and the organization’s needs, e.g. the HRBPs are thought to be the sole practitioners of the business partner model, employee relations issues are too numerous to ever facilitate anything but reactive responses, HR shared services are siloed and task-focused, and there’s a fundamental lack of leadership understanding or buy-in to the model.

Why is it only more relevant today? Not only is the business partner the most robust means of focusing on the business’ needs to create competitive advantage, but in an increasingly volatile world and competitive landscape, those threats I mentioned earlier are only accelerating.

A STEEPLE analysis today would tell us that, for example, that we’ll soon start to see rapid change brought on by AI (manual and basic-skill level jobs disappearing, while higher-cognitive and social/emotional jobs increasing), the retirement of Gen Xers and the entry into the workforce of Gen Alpha is coming, there is a great likelihood of another pandemic, and global geopolitical instability is here to stay.

All of these changes and threats touch upon HR’s traditional people domain and the business partner model in its truest sense is needed now more than ever.