Prove to your CEO what your HRBPs do for the bottom line

CEOs don’t understand what HRBPs do – and certainly not what they CAN do.

The reality of the CEO’s role is hitting their numbers – sales, profit, growth. They’re usually from a background in finance or sales, so they don’t know how HR works at the front line.

They probably think the HRBP’s role is about admin, processes, governance.

They don’t understand how the HRBP can drive margin. Why should they?

‘Your HRBPs can help you to drive value’, I said to a CEO.

‘I’ve never heard that before,’ he said.

‘Would you like to understand how?’ I said.

‘Yes’, he said.

In the conversation that followed the CEO took on board two routes – the ‘gritty stuff’ like managing absence and performance to reduce costs – and the ‘growth stuff’ like developing talent. He was concerned about ‘bench strength’ and so that’s what the CPO subsequently called succession planning.

Another outcome was his agreement to fund more HRBPs. He accepted my argument that the HRBP whose workload is too high can only do the maintenance stuff and loses their ability to drive margin.

Do contact me to hear more about this, and I’d love to hear about your own situation.

My webinar ‘How to make business partnering deliver value’ will include the strategic positioning of the HRBP.