Business organizations with a healthy human resources budget and a large team to coordinate between will reap the myriad of benefits of having an HR team member who is responsible for large-scale planning and communicating with the leadership team.
If you want to become an HR business partner, there are a few things you must do to be qualified and able to fulfill the job description.
However, you cannot become an HRBP in one night; becoming a good and strong human resource business partner requires some skills, benefits, and the right attitude. The following are some things you must have to be a successful and strong HR business partner.
Business Acumen
Business acumen is a crucial skill that every HR business partner must have. It represents the enthusiasm and swiftness in understanding and handling business opportunities and risks in a manner that ensures a good outcome.
As an HRBP, you must be able to connect business difficulties to HR activities and outcomes to help a company tackle every challenge it faces. Also, you must be well aware of your company’s market value, unique selling point, sources of competitive advantage, development, and market share.
Besides, you should understand the strategic role of technology and have a good knowledge of all the relevant stakeholders. Also, business acumen means understanding the effects of the recent economic and financial news on a company.
HR Metrics Experience
As an HR professional, you will be asked to show your HR department’s worth using metrics. Therefore, it is essential to have HR metric experience.
It is crucial to keep in mind that the metrics are what will differentiate you. They could be the main factor that pushes you to critical talent status or helps connect the company to your human resources activities.
So, do you know the metrics that you should be tracking? Here are some examples to get you started:
- Employee engagement
- Employee performance
- Human resource-related goals
- Inventory or breakdown of your strategic inventiveness
- Retention rates for your support areas
- Attrition and turnover rates
In addition, it is essential to remember that, unlike the talent acquisition metrics, the above metrics might take some time to group or even track. The good news is, however, that setting them up will not be a continuous pain point.
Excellent Communication Skills
Communication plays a significant role in business and our daily lives. And communication skills are crucial for every HR business partner.
You must be able to communicate your ideas clearly. Besides, what is the use of having excellent ideas if you cannot sell them?
The primary role of an HR business partner is to facilitate communication between a company and its employees. This means that you will heavily depend on both oral and written communications skills to get your message delivered through all levels.
The communication process will partly involve convincing, negotiating, and, more significantly, listening.
Proven Experience
Experience is a vital aspect in all HR business partner jobs. However, this will highly depend on the organization and its wants; the experience level required can sometimes differ.
Most companies require an individual to have the experience of about four years working in a human resources role to be considered manager material.
But, the best way to determine whether you can be a good HR business partner is by reviewing the job description and the list of responsibilities. You may be able to substitute some experience for additional training or certifications.
The familiarity of human resources is critical when it comes to earning the confidence and respect of business leaders, particularly in places where significant changes are expected.
People Management Skills
This skill is part of human resources management that involves acquiring, optimizing, and employee retention. It entails training, directing, and motivating a team to increase their productivity and enhance general specialized growth.
As an HR business partner, you must be able to oversee the flow of responsibilities and increase the workers' performance on an everyday basis. Performance management looks into how employees do their jobs, behave, engage and achieve their growth in the organization.
As the HR business partner, it will be your job to offer continuous support and show how employees can succeed.
An effective people management skill involves the following practices:
- Compensation
- Recruitment
- Communication
- Training
- Employee engagement
- Performance management
- Wellness and safety
- Employee benefits
Ability to maintain confidentiality
Leaders need to trust HR business partners with sensitive information, just like other workers can trust human resources professionals and department managers with their sensitive data.
Business managers should be able to trust you with sensitive information about all the business operations or even the company's economic performance.
The leaders have to be comfortable enough to share confidential data for strategic planning purposes while, on the other hand, knowing they won’t adversely affect their job performance.
Strategic planning
This is the most vital element that an HR business partner must have. This is because they can sit on a board of directors meeting or even connect with C-level officials in one way or another.
And because HRBPs are experts in the HR field, they are usually responsible for pushing the notion that business success starts with individuals to the administrators.
What is the difference between an HR Business Partner and an HR Manager?
Now, more than ever, the role of the HR business partner is significant, and there is a need for HR to add more value.
It is also important to note that although they are all vital positions for a company’s requirement of human resources services, an HR manager and HR business partner are two different roles and show two diverse models of accomplishing HR services within a company.
Also, the lack of a governing body to police human resource titles has led many companies to use these titles interchangeably. So, let’s first look at the comparisons between the HRBP and HR manager.
First, they are both on the senior side of the human resource populace. Effective HRBP and HR managers have ten or more years of experience in the human resource field.
Also, there are some significant differences when it comes to daily work. An HR manager has managerial responsibilities since they manage an HR department and have people functioning for them. An HR manager also has the role of recruiting, payroll administration, and management reports.
On the other hand, a Human resources business partner has zero management responsibilities. Instead, they are people providers that directly support the company or company roles. HRBPs operate as advisors and should never be hooked on managerial functions or strategic roles.
Sometimes, however, the two roles can overlap. For example, some small companies might have one or two HR individuals that manage all HR elements, from strategic to administrative tasks; in short, they can be HR generalists.
An HRBP works closely with senior leaders rather than employees. And on the other hand, an HR manager works closely with employees. HRBPs are likely to train senior leadership on working or interacting with their team in one piece.
HR Business Partner’s 5 Core Tasks
A human resource business partner is an experienced HR professional who functions directly with a business’s senior leadership to establish and apply an HR plan that matches the company’s goals.
Knowing the responsibilities of a role and the core tasks that this person will be responsible for is a crucial step to understanding and qualifying for this position.
HR business partners have various tasks, but we narrowed it down to the five core tasks you can expect to be responsible for if you fill this role in your department: Succession planning, diversity, community development, HR management, and communications with business leaders.
Succession planning
Also known as replacement planning, succession planning is the business strategy for handing over management roles, usually the ownership of an organization, to a single worker or even a group of employees.
This process makes sure that the business functions are still run efficiently even after a company’s most influential people move on to new workplaces, pass away or retire.
This is crucial to ensuring that there are no major gaps in the internal workflow despite inevitable changes and employee turnover. A certain level of employee turnover is normal, but you should keep an eye on your attrition rate to find and avoid any major structural issues.