© Henley Business School 2011www.henley.reading.ac.uk

Centre for HR excellence

You can’t put in what God left out

Fit the person to the role

The HR business partner role

HRBPBusiness Complexity HR Mix

4

Complexity• ambiguity• time horizons• delivery breadth

Level 5CEO - Where one would typically expect the strategic intent of a large and complex organisation to be positioned

Level 4HRD - Where that strategic intent would be translated into questions that the organisation needs to answer, and aligned HR objectives

Level 3HR Generalist/CoE specialist - Where work happens to find answers to these often difficult questions. The vast majority of mid and senior management work happens in this level

Elliott Jaques – not everyone can be a strategic business partner

Level 7

Level 2Level 1

Level 6Level 5

Level 4

Level 3Ideal

HRBPvalue area

Level 2Service Centre - Where work happens within a process or policy framework

5

Work Levels

Level 7

Level 2Level 1

Level 6Level 5

Level 4

Level 3

Matching people & workAt any point in time, an individual’s capability to deal with complexity is either equal to, above or below that required by their role

This has implications:

•For organisations•For functions•For individuals

% individuals at any point in time with capability at level 4 or more is low versus number of roles requiring work at these levels

6

Level Capabilities

Level 7

Level 2Level 1

Level 6Level 5

Level 4

Level 3

AdvicePartnership

Consistency

Accuracy

Availability

The Ulrich dilemma – What is HR’s capability to actually practice what it preaches? Have we defined elements of our purpose at a level of capability above what many of our people can often deliver?

• When we started we employed an HR admin lady who made sure the pay roll worked but we outgrew her.

• It was a function of the agenda. The individual didn't have the capability to step up again.

• We had taken the game up a notch. We had someone who was successful in the old agenda but not in the new. I would give them a reference. They weren’t a failure it depended what we wanted from them.

• Intellect was the key. They didn't have the ability to make sure my thinking on strategy was matched to their deep knowledge of the capability to deliver it.

• We are dealing with more complexity on a broader scale. Once we got six variables to think about vs four they didn't have the capability to think at that level on a broader scale.

9

Fit the person to the role

Level of work of HRBP Area of business they support

Joanne Finance

Bob Region 1

Mohammed Region 2

Isabella Region 6

Millie R&D

Stig Call Centre

Level of work of HRBP Criticality to bottom line of area of business they support

Joanne Region 6

Bob R&D

Mohammed Call Centre

Isabella Region 1

Millie Region 2

Stig Finance

12

What qualities do CEOs value?

Develop what is developable and what matters

‘And here’s one more slice of telling

SHRM data: when HR professionals

were asked about the worth of various

academic courses toward a

“successful career in HR”, 83% said

that classes in interpersonal

communications skills had “extremely

high value”. Employment law and

business ethics followed, at 71% and

66% respectively. Where was change

management? At 35%. Strategic

management? 32%. Finance? Um,

that was just 2%.’

Hammonds, K H (2005) Why we hate HR. www.fastcompany.com/53319/why-we-hate-hr

How to develop it

CARE

Capability

ChallengeSusta

inable flow

HR?

Throttle back to match

capability?

Increase capability to match desire?

We have a choice as to how we respond

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi