The HR business partner plays a crucial role in the service delivery of the Human Resource department. In this article, we will explain what the HR business partner is and show the HR business partner model. We will also create an HR business partner job description, list relevant competencies, and show the differences between a business partner and an HR manager.
Contents
What is an HR business partner?
The HR Business partner model
HR business partner competencies
How strategic should the HRBP be?
HR business partner vs. HR manager
HR business partner salary
FAQ
What is an HR business partner?
Let’s start with a definition. The HR business partner is a Human Resource professional who actively integrates the business strategy with people management practices.
This process of integrating business strategy with people management practices is also called ‘business partnering’. Any good HR professional is actively business partnering, however, some more than others.
To make this more complicated, it is not only people with the HR business partner (HRBP) job role who engage in business partnering. Next to those, there are also HR specialists working at different Centers of Excellence (CoE), HR generalists, HR managers, and VPs of HR who actively engage in business partnering.
The following model is an adaption of a paper of Lambert (2009), co-founder of the Corporate Research Forum. It shows three different levels of HR business partners within the HR organization.
| BP Title | Seniority | Title | Strategic role |
| Senior HRBP | Senior | VP HR, HRDs, HR managers (large) | Lead the business conversation |
| HRBP | Mid-level | BPs, HRDs, HR managers (small) | Contribute to business conversation |
| HR Generalist | Junior | Associate BPs, CoE specialists, HR graduates | Follow business conversation |
People with the HR Business Partner job title are not the only business partners in HR. Depending on their seniority, different professionals are expected to either follow, contribute to, or lead the business conversation.
Another level of complexity is that depending on the organization, the job titles in the model above will differ. This makes it a challenge to specify what the role entails. HRBP roles are often also called HR manager roles, and the other way around – even though there should be a difference in the role. We will cover that difference later in this article.
The HR Business partner model
To understand where the HR business partner role comes from, we need to take a trip through memory lane. We could write a book about this but we’ll try to keep it short, only focusing on the highlights.
Our trip starts in the early 1990s with one of the most influential papers in management theory, in which Barney (1991) proposed the resource-based view of the organization.
According to Barney, organizations build a sustainable competitive advantage through resources that should be rare, valuable and hard to imitate and replace. The assumption was that – and I quote – “if a firm obtains valuable and rare resources because of its unique path through history, it will be able to exploit those resources in implementing value-creating strategies that cannot be duplicated by other firms” (Barney, 1991, p. 108).
These resources included social complexity, like interpersonal relations among managers, a firm’s culture (p. 110), or a firm’s unique top management team (p. 111).
Barney’s paper and the earlier research that preceded it, suggested that intangibles play a crucial role in building a competitive advantage – and thus the intangible Human Capital that HR is working on can help a company win in the marketplace.
A year later, in the same Journal of Management, Wright and McMahan (1992) published a paper on Strategic Human Resource Management. They defined strategic HRM as “the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals”.
This was quite a change from the more traditional view of HR as a caretaker of employees. HR was often seen as an administrative expert, focused on efficiency and on maintaining good employee relations – not as a big contributor to the business.
Adding more fuel to the fire of HR as a business partner, was Huselid’s 1995 study. Huselid showed that HR practices have an economic and statistically significant impact on short- and long-term measures of corporate financial performance. Huselid and contemporaries linked HRM practices with turnover, productivity, financial returns, organizational survival, and firm value.
All of this may sound logical now, but at the time it meant a tremendous shift in how HRM was conducted. Where HR originally focused on cost-saving and efficiency, it now shifted towards value creation. Administrative tasks became strategic tasks. Where HR used to be HR’s job, it now meant that the business and HR should work together to maximize the value-creation opportunities originating from human capital.
Around this time, Ulrich published his 1997 book ‘Human Resource Champions’. In this book, he brought all these developments together and proposed a set of new roles for HR. These were strategic roles, in which HR would work together with the line managers to create business value.
Next to being an administrative expert and a champion for employees, HR should also be a change agent and a strategic partner. The HRBP role fits best with what Ulrich called the Strategic Partner.
The goal of a strategic partner of the business is to make HR contribute to business strategy. This includes the design of HR strategies that align with the business, contributing to the organization’s values, mission, and planning, having a seat at the table, and participating in strategic planning.
Effective HR would have three roles: specialized CoEs, with specific HR expertise like global mobility, performance management, compensation and benefits, and more; Shared Service Center, which is the customer-facing part of HR; and business-facing embedded HR, which includes the Business Partner role. This model is referred to as the three-legged stool.
Effective implementation of Ulrich’s approach to HR roles would drive efficiency, standardization, and strategic HR impact.
Its enormous popularity led to the rapid introduction of the business partner role in many organizations. This has had its fair share of challenges. We’ll hit on some of these when we discuss the HRBP competencies. For a more detailed overview, check our online HR Business Partner Certificate Program in which we take a much deeper look at what drove the changing role of the BP.
HR business partner competencies
There are many different competency models for the HRBP. In this article, we will focus on the core competencies required to be a successful HR business partner. Do note that the specifics may differ between organizations. Not every organization has an equally mature HR function, access to reliable data and analytics, and different levels of involvement of HR in the organization. Be aware of this when using this competency framework.
- Deep understanding of HR processes and activities. First of all, the HR business partner should understand HR processes and activities, both in general and in the cultural context of the region the HRBP is operating in. This is a requirement to provide the business with advice and to implement excellent HR services.
- Able to connect business challenges to HR activities. In line with the previous, the HRBP should be able to connect business challenges to HR activities and outcomes. For example, when a factory in Indonesia needs to be opened, the HRBP should be able to identify which people challenges need to be tackled to do this successfully and take action on validating that these indeed can be challenged. Being able to connect business challenges to HR activities is probably one of the hardest competencies to master.
- Able to read dashboards and analyze data. As an HRBP, you should be able to use HR dashboards and reporting, analyze this data and based on this data give advice. This again includes a strong contextual understanding of the business as well as the local and cultural issues relevant to the territories you cover. When the business is looking to open a production facility in Indonesia, you are looking for different data then when you have an attrition problem in your North American facilities.
- A good understanding of the business and business priorities. This is commonly referred to as business acumen, business sense, or business savvy. It represents the keenness and quickness in understanding and dealing with a business risk or opportunity in a way that leads to a good outcome. This includes knowing the business you’re in, including sources of competitive advantage, market value, competitors and their unique selling points, market share, and development, as well as understanding the marketplace, the role of technology, and a deep understanding of all relevant stakeholders.
- Excellent stakeholder management. In order to get things done in business, you need to understand a little bit of the political landscape. You need to be aware of what others are aware of, and the interests and focus area of different business and HR leaders. For example, if there is consensus on challenges, it is much easier to come up with HR interventions that are supported by the business than when there is no consensus.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills. To manage stakeholders effectively and to support the business through value-adding initiatives, the HRBP need excellent communication and presentation skills. The HRBP is the connection between HR and the business, so it is their responsibility to pick up key signals.
- Effective at dealing with resistance. In line with stakeholder management and communication skills, the HRBP should be effective in dealing with resistance. Once opportunities for HR interventions are identified, HR and the business should work closely together to implement these as good as they can.
- Able to operate on a tactical and strategic level. Many of the above competencies require one to operate on a tactical and strategic level. Competencies like stakeholder management, dealing with resistance, and communication skills involve more tactical level skills while understanding the business, connecting business challenges to HR activities, and having a deep understanding of the business and being able to look at problems from multiple perspectives are more strategic skills. Effective assessments of the strategic and tactical aptitude of HRBPs is key for success in their role.
All of these skills are taught in our HR Business Partner Certificate Program. If you are interested in becoming a business partner, or in becoming a more strategic BP, check out this program!
How strategic should the HRBP be?
There’s a lot of talk about the strategic HR business partner. It’s important to realize that the HRBP is not always strategic. As you saw earlier, there are different seniority levels when we talk about HRBP roles, ranging from senior professionals leading the business conversation to more junior business partners who have a less strategic role and who follow the business conversation.
There are also other factors that influence how strategic one’s role is. For example, if you are serving a production unit, their main concerns are usually operational and tactical, focusing on uptime, teamwork, scheduling, time planning, and so on. Especially when it is an established product, there will be very little strategic impact that can be made there.
In addition, regardless of your function, there is only so much strategy you can do in one day. In the end, you need to do the legwork to make it happen. There are always operational and tactical aspects of any job that are required to be successful. This includes stakeholder management, planning, and coordination, which I would categorize as tactical, and running errands, going through your email, writing a report, or logging a meeting. These are mostly operational activities that also need to happen as they are key to being a successful business partner.
The point I’m trying to make is that no one is 100% strategic – if you can be 50% strategic, you’re already very strategic.
HR business partner vs. HR manager
We mentioned earlier that there is a difference between the HR manager and the HR business partner role. What are the main differences between the HR business partner vs. HR manager?
First of all, let’s look at the similarities. Both are active in HR, and both are usually on the senior side of the HR population. Effective HR business partners have 10+ years of experience in the field, and this usually also holds true for the HR manager.
When it comes to day-to-day work, there are differences. The HR manager has management responsibilities. He or she manages an HR CoE and has people working for them, while the HRBP usually has no management responsibility.
There are also differences in terms of role. The HRBP is the connector between line management and the rest of HR and is often in touch with different CoEs. The HR manager only connects with the business to effectively execute their role and has less contact with the different CoEs.
HR business partner salary
Salary ranges for the HR business partner differ based on seniority level, type of organization and location. According to salary.com, a junior HR business partner based in New York (NY) has a median income of $77,520 while one based in Kansas City (MO) has a median salary of $62,900. A senior HRBP has a median salary of $112,140 in New York and $90,990 in Kansas City.
FAQ
An HR business partner is a Human Resource professional who actively integrates the business strategy with people management practices. The business partner is the link between HR and the business, advising and supporting managers on strategic issues and helping them implement high-performing, integrated HR practices.
An HR business partner supports the business managers through the alignment of HR activities with the organizational strategy. The HRBP helps to solve business issues through the people side of the business. Crucial skills are business acumen, strategic aptitude, understanding of HR, analytical skills, and excellent stakeholder management.
For an entry-level junior HR business partner, a degree in business or HRM is required as well as excellent communication, stakeholder management, and data savviness among other things. A senior-level HR business partner requires 10+ years of experience in relevant HR and business roles.
