The value of developing your business partners

Thank you Gartner for proving the value of strategic HR Business Partnering:

• Employee performance – average increase  +22%
• Profit growth – average increase  +9%.

That’s an impressive reward to the business for investing in HR Business Partners so that they become business-savvy, influential and get themselves involved in the decision-making process earlier.

In fact, you business partner in every HR role. It’s an attitude rather than a job title.

And it doesn’t apply ‘just’ to HR. I’m working with a client to bring Finance people into the same program as HR – and I’m excited about just how powerful that will be. They’ll tackle business projects together.

It’s actually easier to see clearly how Finance can get quantifiable results from partnering. Both HR and Finance are undertaking the same journey, and can learn from each other’s challenges.

• No-one leaves Finance out of key decisions.
• People are every organisation’s biggest cost and greatest potential.
• If HR used terms like ‘risk oversight’ and ‘leverage’ and built stories with numbers they’d be speaking the right language.
• If Finance built more trust and empathy they’d find it easier to get to root causes and reveal potential:

‘The role of Finance is absolutely going beyond the numbers, not just providing actionable insights but also helping the business execute. We are witnessing a shift from business partner to value partner.’ Ash Noah, CPA, FCMA, CGMA, VP at AICPA & CIMA.

There’s business partnering in every role. What does it look like in yours?