In his new monthly column, Andrew Mayo offers his thoughts on HR business partnership, and how HR professionals must stop spending all their time trying to be ‘strategic’.

Like most people in HR, I am a great admirer of Dave Ulrich. He has given HR a new sense of confidence, set out clear ways of integrating HR with the business, and provided models for understanding the roles that HR should play and the contributions it can make.

Unfortunately, many people, the CIPD included, have seized on one of his original roles – the ‘strategic partner’ (he changed the model in 2005 but still kept this), and elevated it on a pedestal of aspiration. So much so, that some evangelists would suggest that you are only a true HR professional if you have managed to dump your administrative work on someone else and can spend all your time being ‘strategic’.

This is such a balloon of nonsense that it must be punctured, and the original intent reframed. Nobody spends all their time being ‘strategic’ – strategy is something you review from time to time. Most days are spent solving problems and implementing projects. Ulrich never indicated that this role was more important than the other three.

Surveys that compare time spent being ‘strategic’ to being ‘administrative’ only encourage the folly; if time spent on the four (original) roles – including the currently neglected ’employee champion/advocate’ – was surveyed, we would have a more balanced picture.

The ‘strategic’ label

And to classify all administration as not worthy of the professional is absurd for a support function. It is, in addition, totally unrealistic. Worst of all, it can appear pretentious and subtracts from, rather than adds to, the credibility of the function. Here is what Keith Hammond, deputy editor of Fast Company magazine, wrote in 2005:

“Well, here’s a rockin’ party: a gathering of several hundred midlevel human-resources executives in Las Vegas. They are here, ensconced for two days at faux-glam Caesars Palace, to confer on ‘strategic HR leadership’, a conceit that sounds, to the lay observer, at once frightening and self-contradictory. If not plain laughable.”

Please do not misinterpret me. There is no way I am advocating going backwards to the opposite extreme, namely being solely an administrative department. The opportunities for HR people to provide and add value to their stakeholders is immense.

This is a form of expression that is preferable, I think, to the ‘strategic’ label, because value can be measured and monitored. “You’re only effective if you add value,” Ulrich says. “That means you’re not measured by what you do but by what you deliver.”

The ‘partnership’ element

What about the ‘partnership’ element of the label? ‘HR partner’ is a very common term today for professionals whose main role is to work with managers rather than administrate.

In practice, many have struggled to reach the ideal, since somehow managers (how stupid they can be) seem to think that if you are in HR, you should sort things out about individuals. And they do not take kindly to being told to go do it themselves on the intranet, or to call ‘the shared services centre’.

You cannot just unilaterally declare yourself a ‘partner’. ‘Partnership’ implies goal sharing. I often ask HR students to describe what makes a great partnership in personal life – and then to match them up with what they see in HR. Ouch! A successful partnership requires as much interest in what my partner wants as in what I want.

If we are doing a ‘time spent’ survey – an excellent and revelatory thing to do – we should include time spent ‘in and with my business talking about their issues and objectives’.

The SDL model

I have devised my own model for what a ‘support function’ business partnership should be like, and I call it the ‘SDL’ partnership model. It first assumes that you are a bonafide member of a business team, where you can truly partner with the line operations and the senior manager of the team.

‘S’ stands for ‘supporting’. This includes all we do in providing solid, reliable, timely administration, plus advice, consultancy, and initiatives aimed at supporting business goals. It will always be the bulk of the role.

The second – which Ulrich misses – is participating in team ‘decisions’. In other words, I wear the business hat of the team as well as my HR role, and contribute wherever possible to a wide range of discussions and decisions the team has to make.

The ‘L’ is about ‘leading’ – suggesting ways of making the organisation and its people more effective. It includes building a people strategy to support the business, but is not merely bringing in the latest best practice in HR. Mostly, and with care, it is using professional knowledge to suggest ways of solving problems or providing opportunities. If accepted, the projects would be owned not just by HR but by the team collectively. This prevents HR from creating its own agenda within its own department and then trying to sell it.

So here is my plea – lets drop the epithet ‘strategic’. At the same time re-examine the nature of positive partnerships that can be made. And see what happens when we start with what our ‘partners’ are trying to achieve and how we can support them, rather than persuading them to adopt our ready made solutions and projects. This is the path to credibility.

Andrew Mayo is president of the HR Society. The society runs a number of events and learning opportunities, focusing on the HR-business space. He can be contacted at andrew.mayo@mayolearning.com and is also a director of consultancy Mayo Learning International.