Time to Jettison the HR Business Partner Role

It was indeed a nice beautiful evening which afforded me an opportunity to meet friends and admirers known to me only online in the social media circle. This event brought us together in flesh and blood.

In all the deliberation of the evening, what stood out to me was the role that HR is expected to play in any organisation. There were lots of SHOULDs in almost every contribution to ensure that HR is relevant at the table or seat. The speaker challenged the notion “HR as a Business Partner” and posited that “it is high time that HR became the business, instead of being a partner to the business.”

The first time I came across the business partner model was in 2007 while reading Dave Ulrich’s book titled Human Resource Champions published in 1997. I do not believe that in 2017, we should still be talking about what HR should do in order to partner the business. I think that we should be analysing the impact of the last 20 years that HR has partnered the business. Our experiences today have shown that HR is the business. No people, no business. For any business to succeed you need people, hence the notion that HR is business is correct. Check out any successful business, you will see that the success is hinged on the kind and type of people in that business. Your people determine how far your business will go. Any successful business leader is a great people manager. People make or mar any business. It is time to highlight businesses that focused on their people and the impact that those businesses derived from this act.

HR is the business of successful organisations. HR should no longer be seen as a business partner. HR should be the business of any organisation that wants to excel and beat the competition. I will like to read stories of how HR transformed your business to what it is today.

Follow me on Twitter @enmichael for my thoughts on HR, employee engagement and people issues.