The OD Quest: Part 6 – In the wonderland of HR Business Partners!

"I don’t have an opening in my OD team now. But, you can join our recruitment team and do recruitment in the OD way”, I heard the Senior HR Leader telling a candidate who was hell-bent on joining the OD team. This was my fifth ‘encounter’ with this gentleman (See 'Passion for work and anasakti ‘, 'Appropriate metaphors for organizational commitment ‘ ,‘To name or not to name, that is the question’ and ‘A Mathematical approach to HR’ for the outcomes of my previous interactions with him).

I was a bit taken aback by what I just heard. I knew that often these kind of ‘solutions’ will end in tears or worse. However, similar to what had happened during my previous encounters with him, this interaction forced me to think a bit more deeply about the underlying issue - the application of OD(Organization Development) to the various functional areas in HR (Human Resource Management). That, in turn, has prompted me to write this series of posts on 'The OD Quest' where we will look at the possibilities  that arise when OD ventures into other parts of the people management terrain.

In the first post in this series (see The OD Quest: Part 1- Mapping the terrain) we did a cartography of the Human Resources (HR) and Organization Development (OD) domains to map out the current world (the terrain) inhabited by HR and OD and also the evolving worldviews in HR and OD (ways of looking at the terrain). In the second post (see The OD Quest Part 2 : Doing Recruitment in the OD way) we made a visit to the land of Recruitment and explored the value OD can add to Recruitment. In the third post (see The OD Quest: Part 3 – Rendezvous with L&D) we covered the Rendezvous with L&D. In the fourth post we saw how OD can sweeten Rewards and make it ‘Total Rewards’ (see The OD Quest: Part 4 – Totally Rewarding). In the fifth post, we explored a domain (Industrial Relations) that has often been considered as the antithesis of OD (see The OD Quest: Part 5 - Face to face with the antithesis?). In this post let’s take our quest to the wonderland of HR Business Partners(HRBPs) and see what are the possibilities for mutual value addition. 

There are a wide range of HR roles that go by the HR Business Partner (HRBP) title. For the purpose of our discussion, let us focus mainly on ‘pure’ HRBPs – HRBPs whose role is that of being a strategic business partner - to the business they are supporting. This would mean that they are supposed to have very little or no transactional /operational HR responsibilities. So these roles (HR roles that don't do 'usual HR work') are some sort of freaks of evolution*- in the evolution of the HR function. As they don't have too many operational responsibilities, the pure strategic HRBPs tend to gravitate towards the business transformation, strategic workforce planning, employee engagement and culture building kind of work. This brings them closer to OD. 

The other kind of HRBPs, who have more operational roles (who focus on employee life cycle management) would  have another kind of overlap with OD. These HRBPs (HR Operations Managers) are closer to action (they are often embedded in the business they are supporting) and hence they are in a great position to know the pulse of the organization which is very essential for the diagnosis, solution design and implementation of OD initiatives.

The traditional distinction between HRBPs and OD has been that the specialists (including OD specialists) are supposed to do the design part and the generalists (HRBPs) are supposed to do the implementation part. In reality, these boundaries are fuzzy. Design can't happen in a vacuum (e.g. only based on underlying theory/principles and external best practices). Design has to be based on an accurate diagnosis of the organization context. HRBPs are closer to the context as compared to OD managers. Business relationship management is a key part of the HRBP role and this also gives them an opportunity to build close working relationships with the business leaders. So the diagnosis for OD initiatives is best done in partnership with the HRBPs. Also the partnership with HRBPs would make the OD designs more implementable. Similarly implementation can’t be done effectively without a deep understanding of the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of what is being implemented. This means that the HRBPs should work closely with the OD managers for carrying out their job effectively.  

I have seen 3 common modes of partnership that HRBPs have with OD Managers: 


1. I will do all interfacing with MY businesses leaders!! I will call you if I need OD help!
2. Do your work directly with the business leaders. Just don't create any trouble or additional work for me or my team!!
3. Let's work jointly on this!

Based on the discussion above, it is clear that the mode 3 is the most effective one. This brings us to the important question of why (if this is such an obvious choice for both the parties involved) mode 3 is not always adopted. To me, the most important issues here are related to trust, perceived value addition and sharing of credit.

For any partnership (including HRBP - OD partnership) to work both the parties should derive net value from the partnership (the benefits should be more than the costs/investment). If the HRBPs perceive that the OD Manager brings in a certain deep expertise that would be beneficial in meeting the HRBP deliverables and that the OD Managers won’t create  unwanted issues for the HRBPs, HRBPs would be keen to partner with OD Managers. A track record of consistent value addition creates trust and credibility. Similarly if the OD Managers perceive that the HRBPs can help in contracting with the business leaders, in  diagnosis, solution design & implementation and in sustaining the results, they would be keen to partner with the HRBPs. Yes, this would also mean that OD Managers should invest time in building/enhancing the OD skills of HRBPs by giving conceptual inputs, training on tools and by working together. Once the net value addition,  trust and credibility is established then it is easier to tackle the issue of sharing of credit. Of course, if HRBPs and OD Managers have different reporting lines both of them can claim ‘full credit’!

Where does this leave us?

In OD, scalability and the organization-wide impact and sustaining the new patterns of working post the OD initiative  are the most difficult challenges. Since OD would always be a small team, building OD skills in the HRBPs (in both the strategic and operational HRBPs, may be at different levels of proficiency depending on the nature of their job/involvement in OD initiatives) can help in scalability and organization-wide impact (beyond doing isolated ‘hit and run’ Interventions). Again, working jointly with the HRBPs would help in better diagnosis, solution design, implementation and sustaining the results of OD initiatives. Similarly, effective partnership with OD Managers can help the HRBPs to  build skills, climb the value chain, created differentiated value for the business they are supporting and develop the credibility to be true strategic business partners (See nature abhors vacuum for what could happen when the transactional responsibilities are removed from HR Managers). Of course, this also means that OD Managers should develop a very deep technical expertise in OD coupled with business understanding so that the HRBPs would have a logical reason to get them involved. Again, OD Managers, being relative outsiders, are in a better position to surface certain difficult issues with the business leaders and to have courageous conversations’’ with  business leaders that the HRBPs, being embedded in the business, might find more difficult to pull off (See OD Managers as Court Jesters for a related discussion)!

In a way, the separation between the OD and  HRBP roles are arbitrary with the strategic/pure HRBP roles gravitating towards the business transformation, strategic workforce planning, employee engagement and culture building kind of work that very much overlaps with the traditional OD domains. In one of my previous companies, people like me who were on OD roles were moved to HRBP roles worldwide as it was felt that the HRBP roles require an OD kind of skill set. Also, I  have seen many senior HR generalists do the kind of great process facilitation/ process consulting work with business leadership teams that would make any OD specialist proud. But usually these HR leaders don't call it OD and they don't talk too much about it - may be because they see it as a very natural part of their job and may be also because they don't want to annoy the 'designated OD specialists' in the organization!

Thus, the HRBP-OD partnership can be highly beneficial for both the parties involved. The key requirement is to address the key issues of perceived value addition, trust and sharing of credit as we have seen earlier! 

Any comments/thoughts before we take our OD quest to the next domain in the HR land?!

*Note: Freaks occur in the course of biological evolution also. But they are unlikely to create much of a problem as they usually don't live long enough to reproduce. However since HRBPs can (and do) survive long enough in organizations to create (hire/develop) more HRBPs, it is worthwhile to take a closer look at them and their world - especially in terms of the intersection with the world of Organization Development.

Paradox of 'business orientation of HR'

This post allows me to come back to one of the key themes for this blog – exploring the paradoxes in the Human Resources (HR) domain. Based on more than a decade of experience in HR, I can confidently say that HR is a field that is rich in paradoxes (Please see 'Paradox of HR systems' , 'Paradox of potential assessment', 'Career planning and the myth of Sisyphus', 'Paradox of hiring good people and letting them decide' and 'Crazy HR for crazy times' - for some examples).

A paradox occurs when there are multiple perspectives/opinions (doxa) that exist alongside (para)- each of which is true - but they appear to contradict/to be in conflict with one another. Going by that definition, ‘business orientation of HR’ qualifies as a paradox.

There is no conflict of opinion on whether HR should be business oriented. HR exists to support the business and hence it should be aligned to the business needs/goals/strategy. ‘HR for HR’ (‘I want to do some HR interventions and I will get the business to agree’) is definitely not a good idea. The paradox occurs when we look at how exactly should HR demonstrate this 'business orientation'.

There are multiple possibilities here - each with its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, HR can agree to whatever the business leaders say on people related issues ('after all, we get paid to support the business'). HR can take this approach to the next level by trying to ‘guess’ what the business leaders will be comfortable with and advocating that ('business leaders are our primary customers and we should be anticipating customer needs'). HR can also avoid surfacing issues (or suggesting solutions) that they think the business leaders will not be comfortable with ('business leaders are already stretched to the limits fighting for the survival of the company, how can we risk annoying them at this point').

This approach might help in reducing the number/intensity of possible arguments/conflicts between HR and business leaders on these issues and the associated investment of time and emotional energy, leading to faster decision making and smoother relationships. In this case, business leaders will ‘like’ HR and hence they will be more likely to cooperate in the roll out of basic HR processes and less likely to come down heavily on HR when HR makes a mistake. Hence conflicts are avoided - making life easier for both the parties involved. However, this can also lead to sub-optimal decisions (see 'Training the victim' for an example).

The other option is to develop and articulate an independent point of view – based on the HR philosophy of the organization (see ‘Towards a philosophy of HR’ for more details), HR functional expertise and an assessment of the context/situation.

This might turn out to be different from what the business leaders have in mind/are comfortable with and hence this can create conflicts and lengthy discussions/arguments and possibly delays in decision making. The business leaders might feel that ‘HR does not understand the problems that the business is facing’, ‘HR is becoming a pain in the neck’ or that ‘HR is being too idealistic’. This might lead to a situation where business leaders become very demanding – questioning the rationale behind each of the initiatives that HR comes up with. Thus this option can make life more difficult for both the parties involved. But if the conflict (of opinions between HR and business leaders) can be managed constructively, this option can lead to superior decisions and also to the development of mutual respect and trust. However, there is no guarantee that this can be achieved in all the situations.

So, which is the ‘better’ option?

It is possible that the business leaders were more open than what the HR professional had guessed. May be, they wanted HR to make an independent recommendation. Again, it is possible that the HR professional’s ‘independent assessment’ of the business needs/constraints was totally off the mark, making his/her point of view completely unrealistic. May be, the context is such that the conflict of opinion can’t be resolved successfully quickly enough for the matter at hand. Thus there are many possibilities here.

It can be said that if we take a long term perspective, if both the parties are competent and sincere and if the conflict can be managed constructively and quickly enough, the second option might give better results. But that is too many ‘ifs’ (3 in the last sentence!). It can also be argued that the two options mentioned above are just two extremes and that reality lies somewhere in between. For example, a particular HR leader might adopt option 1 in the case of some issues and option 2 in the case of other issues – depending on the context/nature of the issues. After all, ‘picking and choosing one’s battles’ is supposed to be a key requirement for survival in the corporate world!

An important factor here is the nature of the relationship between HR and business leaders. Often, HR does not pay sufficient attention to the relationship management aspect (positioning of the HR function appropriately, establishing the relationship, managing/shaping expectations, building capability and consistently meeting commitments/delivering value, enhancing the levels of mutual respect and trust etc.). See 'Nature abhors vacuum' for an example. This can be problematic as effectively managing the relationships with the business leaders can turn out to be the most significant enabler for demonstrating and sustaining 'business orientation'.

Of course, in this discussion about 'business orientation' we should not forget the other customers of HR- like the employees and first-line managers. There is an increasing tendency on the part of HR to give less emphasis to the ‘employee champion’ role because of the increasing importance given to the ‘strategic business partner role’ (see 'In praise of HR generalists' , 'Of specialists and business-alignment', and 'In the wonderland of HR Business Partners'). This can easily lead to situations where there is not enough focus on ‘employee engagement’ (other than the cosmetic efforts/peripheral initiatives – see 'Employee engagement and the story of the Sky maiden’ for details). As it is widely known, employee engagement is a good predictor/lead indicator of business results. Thus, if this 'business orientation' (and being the 'strategic business partner') is achieved at the expense of 'employee' engagement, the result might be 'strategic (long-term) harm' to the business.

It is also interesting to model this situation using the concepts of 'static' and 'dynamic' equilibrium (A chair has static equilibrium. A bicycle in motion has dynamic equilibrium. In a state of static equilibrium there is balance, but no change or movement - that exists in the case of dynamic equilibrium). A 'live and let live' kind of arrangement between HR and business leaders (that avoids conflict) is similar to 'static equilibrium'. But a scenario in which HR and business leaders openly & clearly state their independent opinions, followed by constructive debate/conflict leading to decisions that both the parties are comfortable with is similar to 'dynamic equilibrium'. This does not mean that the parties can't be passionate about their points of view/express 'strong' opinions. The requirement is just that they should not get too much attached to their opinions (see 'Passion for work and anasakti' for a related discussion).

I feel that, in general, dynamic equilibrium provides richer possibilities (sitting on a bicycle allows you to do things that you can't do sitting on a chair). But, establishing dynamic equilibrium might not be required or feasible in all the cases. It requires more time, effort and skill (as the equilibrium needs to be constantly reestablished) . It is also more risky (you are more likely to have a fall from a bicycle as compared to that from a chair - especially when you are learning to ride - which can be compared to the 'establishing the relationship' part/phase of the 'relationship management' that we had discussed earlier!).

Any comments/ideas?

Of deep-specialists and jumping around

This post is on one of my favorite topics : 'deep-specialist' roles in internal HR. Please see here (Specialist roles in internal HR - An endangered species ?) and here (Business alignment of specialists) for previous posts in this domain. The first post explored if these deep-specialist roles are becoming fewer in number. This post is about another related dimension : the average time that these 'deep-specialists' spend in a particular organization.

When we say 'deep-specialist' roles, we are talking about those roles in internal HR that require deep specialist skills/expertise in one of the functional areas in HR (e.g. organization development, reward management, leadership development etc.). It takes many years to develop skills/ expertise to this level. Often, this would also imply that

(A) Very few people can become deep specialists in more than one area

(B) Deep-specialists are high cost resources to hire/ maintain.

If we combine (A) and (B) above; it can lead to some interesting scenarios. (A) would imply that most deep-specialists would find it hard to find another deep-specialist role that they can move into within the organization. (B) would imply that the deep-specialist would have to maintain a very high level of contribution/value addition to justify his/ her cost. For this to happen there has to be a very close match between the the skill/ expertise area of the deep-specialist and the needs of the organization. Now the problem is that in many organizations the 'needs' (that necessitated the hiring of the deep-specialist) change - often quite quickly. This could happen because of many reasons - including those related to the changes in the business and/or those related to the HR strategy/structure/operating model. Now if the the 'original needs' (that necessitated the hiring of the deep-specialist) don't exist any more, that puts our deep-specialist in a peculiar situation : he/she can't maintain the high level of value to justify his/her cost and also he/she can't move into another role in the organization. So this could force the deep-specialist to leave the organization/look for another organization that provides a better fit. However, it could just be a matter of time before the same story gets repeated in the new organization. Again, if we assume that the above changes in business/HR happen frequently, 'logically speaking', this should lead to relatively shorter tenure for deep-specialists.

Since I know that a purely logical approach might not always lead to correct conclusions, I decided to do some sort of a 'reality check'. I spoke to some of my friends (who are deep-specialists) and asked them what is the average tenure they look at when they take up a new job. The answer : about 4-5 years in terms of aspiration and about 2-3 years in terms of the likely result. I feel that these (relatively small) numbers and especially the gap between the 'aspired figure' and the 'likely figure' for tenure, seem to support the inference/line of reasoning regarding the 'relatively short average tenure for deep-specialists'. Of course, this is far from being any sort of conclusive proof ! May be (since I am a 'deep-specialist at heart') I am just looking for excuses to jump around frequently !

What do you think?

Specialist roles in internal HR : An endangered species?

Let me begin by clarifying what I meant by the term 'specialist roles in internal HR'. Here I am taking about those roles in internal HR that require deep specialist skills in one of the functional areas in HR (e.g. organization development, reward management, leadership development etc.). What I have noticed is that the number of these positions is reducing. There could be many factors influencing this. Many organizations feel that these kind of deep specialist skills are not required on a continuous basis as they come into play mainly in special initiatives (or even only in particular phases of special initiatives) that happen once in a while. Thus this could lead to underutilization these costly expert talent which does not make sense either for the organization or for the specialists involved. Instead of this the organization can hire a reputed vendor/consultant (who has great expertise in this area) as and when these skills/inputs are required. Of course someone will be required internally to identify/articulate the business need and to interface with the vendors. But this calls for a somewhat different skill set.

If we look at the HR departments in the in the Indian operations of MNCs (that are headquartered outside India), this reduction in HR specialist positions is more pronounced. This could be because of additional factors that come into play here. Most MNCs are driving standardization of HR service delivery with a view to achieve cost efficiencies. This would also mean that they don't want separate design work to happen in the different countries. Thus it make sense to do most of the design work (that require deep expertise) out of a central location. This location often turns out to be the location of the organization's headquarters as 'proximity to business leadership' is supposed to be an advantage to ensure business alignment of HR systems/initiatives.

Now, I am not saying that I fully agree with the above line of reasoning. Often significant amount of customization is required to make the global design effective in particular geographies. This calls for deep HR specialists who also have a good understanding of the local context. Similar factors (lower degree of understanding of the client context - especially those pertaining to the 'informal organization'/how things really work in the organization) also reduce the effectiveness of external vendors. My point is just that the reduction in the number of specialist HR positions in India is reducing.

Of course there are other trends that could be relevant here like the move to build specialist skills in HR generalists. For example I feel that OD 'function' is moving towards a more 'distributed structure'. This 'distributed structure' would involve developing OD capability in HR generalists and this structure/model is essential for ensuring that OD can make a significant contribution to the business. In order to make a significant impact on a complex (with a high degree of interlinkages) and rapidly evolving organization, multiple OD initiatives have to be carried out simultaneously. Also, the sensing of the business needs and the planning/ implementation of the OD interventions have to be done quickly. A distributed/ embedded OD structure is in a better position (as compared to a centralized OD structure) to meet these twin requirements of bandwidth and speed of response.

All this leads to interesting implications on the career options available to deep HR specialists in India. The obvious one of course is to move to consulting. Another obvious one is to move to large Indian companies (say in corporate HR). Another one (in the case of MNCs) could be to move to the organization's headquarters. This could get difficult in those contexts where headcount reductions are happening in that country (where the organization is headquartered) and hence HR staff in that country might have a greater chance of moving into the few HR specialist positions available. Yet another option is to move to a broader role (which is more like a generalist role) and leverage the 'specialist' skills (say consulting skills, change management skills etc.) to create a greater business impact. Any comments/ideas?

"Nature abhors vacuum" - HR Reengineering efforts hope so !

It was Aristotle who came up with the hypothesis "Nature abhors vacuum". While this hypothesis might not be strictly true in the original sense meant by Aristotle (that nature is full), it seems to work in many situations. For example, if we create a vacuum, air rushes in to fill it.

Now, why am I taking about all this here ? The reason is that this 'hypothesis' seems to inspire a key underlying assumption in many HR reengineering efforts. I have seen this happen in many organizations. The plots are quite similar. HR function decides to reengineer/transform itself. Transactional HR activities are automated or outsourced so that HR generalists are free to focus on strategic HR work. The objective is to become a 'strategic business partner' and add more value to the business. The objective is certainly a worthwhile one. The automation/outsourcing of transactional HR activities also takes place and they are removed from the job description of HR generalists. Now the problem starts. Transformation to the strategic business partner role does not really happen. Some of the transactional activities creep back (often in a slightly modified form) into the de facto job responsibilities of HR generalists . There is confusion and frustration all around.

As you might have suspected, the key issue here is with the assumption that we were taking about. The assumption was that by removing transactional responsibilities and thereby creating 'space' (or shall we say vacuum!!!) for HR generalists, strategic HR work would automatically rush in to fill the space(vacuum) and hence HR would move into the strategic business partner role. However, there are at least two main difficulties here. The capabilities required to perform the strategic business partner role are very different from those required for performing the administrative role.

In addition to this, there is a problem with client expectation mismatch. If the HR generalists have been providing mainly transactional support to the internal customers, it shapes what the internal customers (especially managers) expect from the HR partner in terms of both capability and deliverables. So if on one fine day HR declares itself to be a strategic business partner it might lack credibility. Again it might not be aligned to what internal customers(managers and the employees) expect/want from HR.

The solution lies in handling HR reengineering as an integrated change management initiative(and not mainly as a technology-driven change in the way HR processes work). This should devote adequate attention and time for

(a)discussing the business case for HR reengineeting(with business leadership)
(b)renegotiating the HR deliverables/HR engagement model (with the business leadership)
(c)HR capability building/getting the correct people on the job (to ensure capability to perform the strategic business partner role)and
(d)communicating the business case & new HR deliverables/engagement model (to managers/employees) and repositioning the HR roles/role-holders (to gain credibility and acceptance)

Of course, this would call for a lot of effort over an extended period of time. Some amount of fine-tuning of the new HR model (without compromising the basic nature of the model) would also be required to address new/context specific issues that were not anticipated initially. Difficult? - Yes; Messy? - Yes; Time consuming -Yes ! Any major change like HR reengineering is unlikely to be easy/simple. But it can be made to work.

Now let us come back to Aristotle and his hypothesis. In our context the problem was not with the hypothesis per se. The fact that the transactional activities often creep back back to fill the void created in the job responsibilities of HR generalists is in line with the hypothesis. The problem is actually with the assumption on what exactly would move in to fill the void. The mistake was to assume that strategic activities would move in to fill the void, where as it was more natural/likely for transactional activities to move in (keeping in mind the skill sets of the HR jobholders at that time and the internal customer expectations at that time). So our challenge is not to exorcise the ghost of Aristotle's hypothesis ! Our real challenge is to manage HR reengineering as an integrated change management effort !!