Unlocking the HRBP Performance in the New Work Environment

Dear HREC Member,

In follow up on the recentely announced partnership between HR Executives Connected and CEB we're pleased to confirm that we've agreed on an exciting agenda for 2014 with a specific HR theme every month.

The theme for the month of March is "Unlocking the HRBP Performance in the New Work Environment".

Recent CEB Research shows that three out of four chief human resources officers (CHROs) expect their HR business partners (HRBPs) to be strategic partners to the line, but less than one-fifth of line leaders say that’s happening. Organizations have invested in developing HRBP competencies, but individual attributes are only half the picture. Four organizational barriers inhibit the strategic effectiveness of even the most capable HRBPs:

1) Application barrier - Lack of clarity into how to apply competencies in day - to day work;

2) Partnership barrier - Being tasked to provide transactional support rather then startegic insight;

3) Functional barrier - Tensions among funcional groups that inhibit collaboration within HR;

4) Enterprise barrier - Lack of coordination with functional partners outside HR.

CEB research ( CEB, 2014) shows further that organizations that improve HRBP competencies and minimize or remove these organizational barriers can nearly double the number of HRBPs who are effective at strategic activities—from 19% today to 40% by 2017.

The white paper that CEB shared with us, and which can be found on our site for free downloading, presents summary findings from there HR Business Partner Survey, which shows trends from 2007 to 2013 in the HRBP role and highlights best practices to address each of the four barriers, with case studies demonstrating best practices in action:

1. Standardize and reinforce the expectations of HRBPs with rigorous on-the-job training and certification.
2. Embed data access and analytics into the talent process to enable HRBPs to create insight-driven partnerships with line leaders.
3. Create a forum for HR functions to discuss ways of managing the hand-offs, interdependencies, and conflicts in their roles.
4. Enable HRBPs to reframe their partnership with the line using data and analytics to address key business questions.

Investments in these best practices are worth it. When the organizational barriers come down and HRBPs become more strategic, they can improve employee performance by up to 22%, employee retention by up to 24%, revenue by up to 7%, and profit by up to 9%.

Some groundbreaking insights if you ask me - please comment on this article and give me your views on this topic. How relevant is this theme in the HR organization you lead?

Looking forward to hear from you. Further also look out for our soon to be announced webinar  -which will be hosted in April - where we will elaborate a bit further on HRBP's and the requirements in the new work environment.

Kind regards
Stendert Krommendam

Founder HR Executives Connected.