Are HR Business Partners a Dying Breed?

Two decades ago David Ulrich published his book Human Resource Champions outlining his ideas on how Human Resources could realign itself to meet the needs of the business it supported.

In it's core the HR Business Partner model is pretty straight forward, a centralized or out sourced HR Services function focusses on the transactional stuff, subject matter experts e.g. benefits, policy etc provide the knowledge and business minded HR partners embeded into business units, add bottom line value.

To what degree this has actually happened is up for debate and to be fair the three dimensional approach to HR wasn't necessarily Ulrich's design, he was concerned with framing HR in a way that would free the more business savvy, strategically minded to focus on adding value to the customer.

One prominent view is that despite a change of title the reality is that many HR business partners remain part of a function that is reactive rather than proactive, focussed on procedure and transaction orientated. From my experience the HR business partner approach has worked better in larger organizations where transactional work can be outsourced (not always popular in itself) or undertaken by shared services, elsewhere where HR either can't articulate its transformation to operational units or where line managers are unwilling or unable to take on additional responsibilities that were the work of HR the idea can become a non-starter.

So what can be done?

One consideration is to match the model for HR in a business with the structure of the company itself i.e. if the company is centralized and functional then HR should follow the same model, this would be a view shared by Ulrich who seems frustrated that the people have not evolved the idea rather than taking a cookie cutter approach.

Linked to this is being realistic, what does the company want & need from its HR function, in many cases, as mentioned earlier, line managers don't want or aren't able to take on the more transactional nature of the HR role. In my experience corporately in HR this would translate itself into line managers happy to take on the responsibilities they wanted, hiring and firing for example, but not wanting the rest i.e. payroll & benefits, complaints, trade union negotiations.

Some commentators have suggested that HR managers can be upskilled, re-tooled and rebadged, so that they are highly articulate influencers, with commercial and business savvy, an extensive knowledge of HR best practice, well qualified with a sound experience of both HR and Operations. No mention of these people having a "S" emblazoned on their chest! 

Are we being too unrealistic in our desire for the HR business partner? I'd love to hear from HR business partners and their Operations colleagues, how do you see it?

I am Canada’s “Champion of Great Leadership” I work with companies developing leaders to optimize the performance of their teams. 

Check out our range of Leadership Training programs at Bluegem Learning - Leadership Programs.

Men paid 29% more than women?

In my earlier post "Women work for free ...", I highlighted the recent Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) 2015 National Management Salary Survey that revealed that women earn 22% less than men, meaning that they’re unpaid for 1h 40m a day.

I've had a few people ask me for further details i.e. was this the same in every industry and if not how much of a differential was there. I've delved a little deeper into the report and here is a breakdown by key industries.

29%   Accountancy - average male salary £47,034, average female salary £36,432

22%   Banking - average male salary £25,377, average female salary £20,800

21%   Energy - average male salary £27,452, average female salary £22,674

19%   Purchasing - average male salary £29,555, average female salary £24,796

18%   Sales - average male salary £23,562, average female salary £19,898

18%   Education - average male salary £21,216, average female salary £17,922

18%   Hospitality - average male salary £18,497, average female salary £15,665

13%   Retail - average male salary £16,851, average female salary £14,951

Source: Reed

One of the difficulties the report highlighted in conducting pay audits was the ability to compare 'equal value work', especially in the private sector. Using job roles as a basis wasn't enough and full job evaluation would be required first.

10 Ways to Celebrate Learning @ Work

September is Learning @ Work Month here in Canada.

Learning @ Work Month offers an opportunity to reinforce your commitment to employee development by promoting learning activities that can range from non-work related and interest-led activities through award ceremonies to business focused sessions.

 I have experienced some great sessions as part of Learning @ Work, however one of the biggest challenges organizations can face is thinking of ideas that are affordable and relatively easy to organize. With this in mind I’ve listed below some great ideas that I’ve used myself and won’t break the bank. Feel free to adapt these ideas to your own organization.

1. Educate another department about your work area
2. Run a short session on a particular topic e.g. how to cope with disruptive customers
3. Ask the CEO to talk about their experiences as a leader
4. Shadow a colleague from a different department

1. Create a short competition to engage staff, e.g. a quiz
2. Learn a new skill, either work or non-work related e.g watercolour painting
3. Run a teambuilding exercise
4. Hold a lunch event to celebrate a notable success in your organization
5. Show a selected TED talk and have a discussion about the talk
6. Invite an external speaker to give a talk to your team

 Whatever you choose to do, get together with your work colleagues and help each other out, this way it will also be more fun and social!

If you are looking for a speaker for your Learning @ Work event, check out my Fall Lunch & Learn Leadership series 

WOMEN WORK FOR FREE 1H 40M A DAY

The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) in the UK have just released the details from their analysis of the 2015 National Management Salary Survey of 72,000 UK managers reveals that women working in equivalent full-time roles earn 22% less than men, meaning that they’re unpaid for 1h 40m a day – a total of 57 working days every year.

The CIPD have produced the following infographic - below which explains their findings.

New regulations coming into force in 2016 will require large organizations to report how they pay men and women. 

How does your company compare here in Alberta? Is gender equality in terms a reality or not? I'd love to hear your views.

Check out our range of Leadership Training programs at Bluegem Learning - Leadership Programs

Is the conflict you need to resolve hot or cold?

Mark Gerzon drew on 20 years of experience of conflict management in his article in Harvard Business Review back in June 2014, in which he explored the concept that before you can start to resolve a conflict you need to first establish whether to conflict is Hot or Cold.

Mark defines "Hot" as "when one or more parties are highly emotional and doing one or more of the following: speaking loudly or shouting; being physically aggressive, wild or threatening; using language that is incendiary; appearing out of control and potentially explosive."

"Cold" he defines as "when one or more parties seem to be suppressing emotions, or actually appear “unemotional,” and are doing one or more of the following: muttering under their breath or pursing their lips; being physically withdrawn or controlled; turning away or otherwise deflecting contact; remaining silent or speaking in a tone that is passively aggressive; appearing shut down or somehow frozen."

He goes on to explore specific strategies for dealing effectively with each possibility. To read the full article visit:

https://hbr.org/2014/06/to-resolve-a-conflict-first-decide-is-it-hot-or-cold&cm_sp=Article-_-Links-_-Top%20of%20Page%20Recirculation