Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK.
It is my turn to write again and this time I shall be more serious than my last tongue in cheek post!Instead I have focused on why it is so difficult to develop a career in HR. (Ed Scrivener)
Oh, to be a Business Partner
I shall start with a small apology; I wrote a similar post 3 years ago, but as I have had a number of conversations relevant to the post I felt it only pertinent to re-visit the point I was making – and as only a handful of people read it first time round I could get away with writing it again!!
During my career, especially during my time as a recruitment consultant, I have spoken with a plethora of HR professionals. The group I want to focus on are those in their early stages of their career, typically at the Advisor level. There is an almost unhealthy obsession amongst this group of wanting to progress to become an HR Business Partner. I would ask everyone what they thought a Business Partner was and I don’t think I got the same answer twice! – but that is a story for another time. The one common theme was that it was seen as the role where they could progress from a transactional advisory role into a strategic role. This in itself is quite natural; someone at the early stages of their career are quite clearly going to want to progress to the higher echelons of the HR world. However, there is a rather large obstruction put in place to hinder this move and it is one that has been initiated by HR itself.
The obsession of becoming a Business Partner is matched only by the obsession of following the teachings of Ulrich – again now is not the time to get into whether this is a model that should be followed. One of the consequences has been the creation of transactional HR teams that focus purely on operational HR duties whilst others focus on strategic HR. The HR Advisors in question are firmly within the transactional team and thus gain very little or no exposure to strategic initiatives. This is then creating a classic catch 22 situation. In an age where sector and prior experience is so important in the recruitment selection process, it is proving exceptionally difficult for HR Advisors to break into roles of a Business Partner level. They may be keen, enthusiastic and eager to learn, but without that prior experience of operating at a strategic few are being given the opportunity to show their ability at the higher level.
There will always be exceptions to this rule and there are many organisations that don’t have the obsession to split transactional and strategic work. More often than not these are small or medium sized organisations. They can provide the exposure to all aspects of the HR spectrum that is needed to develop an HR professional’s career. Of course, the issue we then encounter here is that the number of senior HR roles are limited within organisations of this size, so people look to move into a Business Partner role more inherent within larger organisations. They then find the other catch 22 where their lack of experience working within large organisations comes to the fore!
All in all, it’s a pretty tough ride for someone wanting to move up the HR ladder! The barriers faced by HR Advisors are invariably placed there by their own profession. Those that have made the move should be heartily congratulated; but you have to ask the question why a profession, which is in charge of succession planning, has placed some many obstacles on its own progression?
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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK. Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.
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