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I recall a time when I was running Corp EE Benefits for a major manufacturing firm and was tasked with leading a workstream to identify gaps in HR service delivery, devise a mitigation strategy, and then implement.  One of the mitigation strategies was to design and implement an HR Shared Services unit.  This unit was to offer the organization many benefits, one of which was to take transactions off the desks of the HR Generalists so that they could focus on delivering services that were more business specific.  This was also one of the steps needed in the miraculous transformation of an HR Generalist into an HR Business Parnter.  After one of the transition sessions with the field HR folks, I was called to the side for a one on one meeting with one of the HR Generalist.  In this meeting, I was confronted with thier misunderstanding of what the new role was to be.  She asked “What the h$!! does an HR Business Partner do”?  I was quick to articulate and expound upon the talking points that we had devised and went into the competencies that an HRBP should master.  This was all well and good but it did not answer the question.  I could have went straight into politics because I sounded more like I was testifying before congress than giving a collegue direction.

When I was  an hr specialist, I often wondered just what does an hr generalist/business partner do?  When I became an hr business partner, I often wondered why don’t managers do this themselves?  When I moved on to become a general manager and business development executive, I wondered why would I ever need an hr business partner?  This HRBP role has many shapes and sizes but based on my experience, it is not clearly defined in most organizations.  I would assert that there are very few that have this role defined clearly and even fewer have trained and aligned resources in the organization to deliver on the promise of the “strategic hr business partner”.  To this day, the question remains… is this a “real job”?

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