BECOMING A

STRATEGIC HRBP

KEY SUCCESS CRITERIA

FOR THE HRBP

1. Being strategic

2. Business acumen

3. No one size fits all

4. HRBP as a job and as a role

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 1. THE STRATEGIC HRBP

• A new name ≠ a new role

• Believe in your strategic role
• Strategic skills have to be learned
and selected
• Misalignment of HR leadership
expectations and actual practices

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BECOMING MORE STRATEGIC

• Anticipate – Detecting ambiguous threats and opportunities on the periphery of their
business
• Challenge – Challenge your own and others’ assumptions and encourage divergent
points of view
• Interpret – Being able to interpret complex and conflicting information
• Decide – Making tough calls quickly with incomplete information without getting locked
into simplistic go/no-go choices
• Align – Adept at finding common ground and achieving buy-in among stakeholders who
have disparate views and agendas
• Learn – Constantly search for the lessons in both successful and unsuccessful outcomes

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 2. BUILDING BUSINESS ACUMEN
• Business acumen
• Knows the business, including sources of competitive advantage
• Understands the marketplace, including trends & developments
• Intimately familiair with stakeholders
• Leverage this knoweldge to create a future and transform
the organization to capitalize on these opportunities

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“It is no longer enough for HR to merely

implement strategy created by others; HR
must help co-create it by understanding
emerging market opportunities”

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 CREATING MORE
BUSINESS ACUMEN
• Deepen understanding through
rotating people within HR, into HR,
and out of HR
• Business courses & assignments
• HR and business collaboration with
joint accountability for achieving
business goals
• Without business acument HR will
never be taken seriously

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3. NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL

Decentralized
HR Strategy for
Each Business

HR Strategy for Each

Business Strategy Business and Overall
Corporate HR Strategy

One HR Strategy
for Entire Business
Centralized
Centralized Human Resources Decentralized

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 4. BUSINESS PARTNERING
AS AN ACTIVITY
• The HRBP as a job
• The HRBP as a role
• The HR manager is often also a BP
• HR managers have staff, BPs have to
deal with CoEs

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4. BUSINESS PARTNERING
AS AN ACTIVITY

Title Seniority Title Role

Senior HRBP Senior VP HR, HRDs, HR managers (large) Lead business conversation
HRPB Mid-level BPs, HRDs, HR managers (small) Contribute to business conversation
HR Generalist Junior Associate BPs, CoE specialists, HR graduates Follow business conversation

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 BECOMING A
STRATEGIC HRBP

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