Final Word: Andrew Mayo
By Andrew Mayo (December 2005 Issue)
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I recently received in the mail the CIPD Training Directory for 2006, a most impressive collection of about 175 separate courses in HR and Training. Having a particular interest in the subject, my eye was caught by the course ‘HR as a Business Partner’. One of the topics it covered was ‘selling HR partnership to line managers’. Actually, this caught my eye whilst simultaneously watching BBC1’s Bleak House, with Mr Guppy doing his best to sell his suit of partnership to Esther, and being soundly rejected. It provided an opener for a business briefing I ran shortly afterwards, which was entitled ‘HR Business Partnership – a One Way Aspiration?’, for the essence of partnership is creating something that is for mutual benefit. It seems that many HR functions use the term merely for a restructuring and relabelling of themselves. Survey after survey asks how much time is being spent as a ‘strategic partner’ and bewails the fact that too much routine work is still being done, taking away the opportunity of being ‘strategic’.
There are as many potential partnerships for HR and L&D as there are stakeholders in the function. We may see one with employees, in helping them to manage their own learning and careers. There are partnerships with suppliers, particularly with providers who know an organisation well. However, the two most demanding stakeholders will be senior management and the general body of line managers. Our partnerships with them are about the shared aims of building effective organisations, optimising people capability, and maximising learning opportunities.
In an effort to escape from the ‘strategic partner’ mould, my thoughts about the ‘complete business partner’ have led me to divide it into three sets of activities, which I call the ‘SDL’ model. (This model applies to any support function, not just HR).
The first is about providing support, and this will always take the major amount of time available. Support to managers in achieving their own goals, through sound efficient administration; provision of information; advice and consultancy; and designing learning programmes (or other HR initiatives) that meet specific needs that they have. This means spending a lot of time with managers, tuning in to their objectives and problems and drawing on our knowledge and skills to help them and their people.
The second set, more appropriate perhaps for the HR person belonging to a business team, is ‘joint decision making’ of both strategic and operational decisions. That is, as a member of the team they contribute to the business choices that have to be made – bringing their own wisdom, experience and professional perspective. This is where their knowledge of their organisation and its business will be critical.
Thirdly and lastly, there is a time to take leadership in the sense of initiating change - because we can see a more effective organisation as a result. Such initiatives might for example be in OD, in talent management, in leadership development, or in culture change. Here we have a big responsibility to avoid the mere importation of some best practice, or pursuit of a personal interest, but to be very clear about the benefits of such an initiative.
One final point is the diversity of these partnerships, particularly the support element. We are encouraged these days to have templates of the perfect leader, the perfect coach and so on. The truth is that nobody is perfect, and each manager has her or his own need for support in people management and development. We tune our partnership accordingly, just as we do with our kids. Some may even need our personal help in preparing personal development plans for their people – and why not? So there is no way we ‘sell’ a partnership. We create a mutual agreement to work together. We discuss and understand the value each partner adds to the other. We talk about our expectations of each other. We ensure we have the capability to meet those expectations, and we deliver what we promise. In the best of worlds, as in personal life, these things happen without formalisation because the partners trust and respect each other. That, at the end of the day, is the core of success.
References:
ULRICH, D. (1997) Human resource champions: the next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
ULRICH, D. and BROCKBANK, W. (2005) Role call. People Management. 16 June. pp24-28.
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