As the role of the HR Business partner continues to evolve the need to build a develop new skills to support your organisation win in the marketplace is imperative. Being able to use analytics in HR to have data driven conversations with the business that drive actionable outcomes has never been more important. In this blog we explore three ways HRBP’s can drive greater business impact.

How do HR Business Partners impact the business?

Since companies began realising that the people who work for them are a large factor in whether the business succeeds or fails, more attention was put in place on how to recruit top talent, best steps for retaining that top talent, and means for giving them everything they need to be top performers.

Because of this, the human resources business partner emerged in the 1990s and developed to bring more insight and influence on the decisions made by business leaders regarding HR practices. By branching away from tactical/operational duties they performed in the past, HRBP’s focus more on HR strategies that help organisations win in today’s market.

To do this, the HR business partner of today needs to be sitting at the table with business leaders as a strategic advisor and credible contributor with quality HR data collected from reliable sources such as employee surveys, reports and field studies to present to the decision makers, supporting them to make decisions that are grounded in data. The HRBP then presents the information with the collected goal of creating strategic HR decisions that improve work and employee experience and drive actionable business outcomes.

Three top tips to becoming the most impactful HRBP

The purpose of the HR business partner is to create value for the employee and the organisation so that everyone wins in the marketplace. This basically means that if employees fail, there is no growth for organisations and if the organisation fails, then there are no opportunities for employees.

As Dave Ulrich highlights in Becoming a Data Driven HR Business Partner,

“One of the things we found is that what wins in the marketplace more is not the individual talent, but the organisational systems. So, we think HR people need to be increasingly competent at building the systems, or the culture, or the capabilities. Not just the workforce, but the workplace. Not just the people, but the process. So, it's managing those systems that we're going to start exploring this year.”

Because of this, successful HR business partners approach their duties with the “big picture” in mind and understand that there are many people effected by the decisions made. To do this and be impactful, HRBPs should focus to:

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Become a Strategic Partner to the Business

The HRBP will offer more impact in their role by observing the company goals and developing means that HR can assist business transformations. To do this, the HRBP’s need to focus on building their organisational acumen or in other words draw their conclusions from the knowledge they have with HR overall practices and the business industry the are in.

They will then in turn implement skills in stakeholder management, such as consulting with business leaders in why a policy is worth the initial investment to retain more employees. Or persuading employees to try the new tech with the desire that work will become easier.

Here, the ability to be a good storyteller helps the HRBP get people to take action. Just presenting grafts and charts is not enough. By describing the problem effectively and showing how the solution will make work better, the HRBP can impacted how HR strategy is drawn and delivered.

Focus on the Becoming more Data Driven

For HRBP’s to impact how HR strategy is implemented in business decisions, they need to be data driven with the information they collected and interpret. They make the most impact by observing what is and what isn’t collected vs going with their gut instinct or what has been done in the past.

For the HRBP to be data driven, they will first know what information should be collected to assist solving a problem or answering a hypothesis. Such as, if the company is wondering why so many employees in a department have left in a short amount of time, the HR business partner will turn to exit interviews to collect and record the results.

Once the HRBP has concrete numbers to a problem, using analytical thinking, the HRBP is able to gain insight into the reasons for a program failure or bad management performance.

From there, they then can help the business determine whether their hypotheses and the business questions they’d framed are correct and provide them with actionable recommendations that are grounded in data that have the potential of saving the company turnover and money by deciphering better hiring processes or developing training programs to boost employee engagement. To understand how to use data drive greater business value take a look at Jonathan Ferrar & David Green’s model: The Eight Steps to Excellence in People Analytics

Build your Digital Literacy, Human Centred Design & EX Implementations Skills

With employee experience coming to the front of business HR focus, an HRBP can contribute to business success by creating human centred design programs and policies. If systems are too complicated or create unnecessary work for employees, this will defeat the purpose of the new strategies.

So, to understand what will work for employees, HRBP need to have a good grounding in digital literacy. The HR business partner will want to grasp technology as it is and how it is changing. They will need to be open to technology and understand how it helps with work.

It’s important that HRBP’s focus on delivering user-centric end-to-end experiences through innovative HR technology and design thinking principles

How can an HRBP’s Improve their Impact on the Business

Many HR business partners do not believe they are delivering their best performance for their organisations. Insight222 People Analytics Trends 2021 Report found that only 41% of HR businesses partners believe they are capable of having a conversation with business leaders over HR data collected. And only 23% are comfortable using the analytics without guidance.

The good news is that even with the hesitation that many HRBPs are feeling, every step toward improvement will see results. The first step is to be courageous and curious and begin asking the right questions and seeking the right answers through data driven people analytics.

The second is to grow confidence by communicating what is discovered to the right people. It is one thing to acquire and understand information, it is another to have the ability to relay that information effectively to business leaders that need pursued and employees that need support.

And most importantly, the HRBP should never stop learning. The face of HR is changing rapidly, and the smart HRBP stays on top of data driven strategies and new technology that keep their companies and themselves competitive. There is always something new to learn regarding HR strategies, how to incorporate those data driven strategies, and how to embrace experience led HR in the digital transformation of human resources today.

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We help individuals and organisations reinvent learning. Our learning programs support HR Business Partners to build the skills they need to effectively use analytics in HR to have data driven conversations with the business that drive actionable outcomes. The Data Driven HR Fundamentals certification is a collection of 6 on-demand, video based training courses that can be completed within a 12 month period, at your own pace. This certification program is designed to support you and your team build their skills in analytical thinking, data analytics and storytelling. By completing this learning program you will learn how to better interpret HR data and be confident in having data driven conversations with the business, that drive actionable outcomes.

Three Top Tips to Increase your Business Impact as a HR Business Partner