The HRD: A business partner!

April 7, 2020

In essence, a Business Partner is characterized as a stakeholder in the definition of the company’s business strategy. For him, it is a question of being as close as possible to the zone of value creation for the customers. Thus, two important concepts emerge: Strategy and value creation. In recent years, the HR function has positioned itself more than ever in this logic.

Nowadays, they often come up with the same themes when we talk about HR Business Partners. The HR function contributes to the definition of the company’s strategy and decision-making. It is committed to understanding the business challenges and translating them into HR impacts and direct actions on the company’s performance, without forgetting support for managers’ actions. Only good human capital management enables the HR function to be a full-fledged Business Partner.

At the service of human capital!

Nevertheless, all these missions require tools, procedures, methods and reports that are concerned with the problems in the field. The HR function then enters the dematerialized world of management and delegates its responsibilities to the local manager.

It was in 1961 that the American economist Theodore Schultz created the concept of “Human Capital”, highlighting employees who were more productive, capable of innovation, aware of the company’s business challenges and attentive to customers. The challenge was to implement tools capable of managing this human capital on several fronts.

In terms of job and skills planning, employability and talent management. Then performance management, including classification and compensation policy. Finally, at the level of motivation and commitment of each individual, the company’s employer brand or even internal communication and the work environment. The employee thus becomes a means and not an end.

Do HR tools really contribute to the expected recognition of HR professionals?

In recent years, HR directors have made a place for themselves at executives committees. They now occupy a seat on company management committees in more than 90% of cases. (Source: https://www.em-lyon.com/fr). By adopting the notion of “business first”, the HR function has positioned itself as the right-hand man of managers on decisions to be taken in the field. This has also resulted in managers being more involved in the implementation of HR tools and acting as ambassadors to their teams.

The HRD takes power in the organization

IT tools and software enable the HR function to collect, analyse and apply this information and, ultimately, to play a central role by publishing, like the CFOs, meaningful tables, reports and computer graphics based on concrete and verified data. All this information can be used to support decision making, so that the management of the company can be more effectively anticipated. In a world dominated by Data and the analysis it requires, HR missions are no longer limited to administrative management or recruitment. New technologies have enabled the function to have a very broad vision of the company’s activity and to be able to anticipate and resolve future difficulties. From now on, this reality contributes to perpetuating their place as key players in structures with increasing levels of responsibility.