Business Partner Model - does it work? - The HR Forum

Hi all

Just wanting to pick your brains / experiences of using the Business Partner Model. Do any of you currently use this model in your company? If so, what do you think of it? Good, bad, indifferent...

What could be done better / what works really well about it?

My company is going through a merger & they've released some of the new structure & the HR department has been totally reorganised with a strong focus on Business Partnering & aligning BP's to different areas of the business. So i just want to get a feel of what it's like to work in that sort of structure. I understand what a Business Partner does & what the aim of the model is & i think it could work really well in our company if it's done properly.

Thanks

Jill

Hi Jill,

I worked with a BP extensively for two years when I was at RBS working as a project manager. The Business Partner was a Learning Business Partner in the Sales & Customer Service area and faced off to the various different business areas within the division. His main accountability was to work with operational areas to identify performance gaps and work with the business areas to raise project requests (we had a project opportunity brief template) which got brought to a weekly PIB (project implementation board), these would be discussed in terms of priority, timelines, resource needed and business impact. If approved it would then come to me as a project consultant to go and meet the business area and start getting in to the depth of Learning Needs Analysis or if that had been done to start managing the project from a learning perspective.

The BP would attend L&D leadership meeting (I think they were a M2 role) so not senior management but still on a good wedge. They would also attend S&S Leadership meetings to give progress updates on projects and they would act as my first point of contact for issues, escalations and support. We had a good relationship and worked well together.

At my time of leaving there was a restructure and they were doing away with the BP role but not sure what model they adopted in it's place.

+'s

One point of contact for a business area
Consistency in presence and having clear lines of community / escalation
Great at raising and removing barriers
Develop trust and reputation between in this case L&D and the business

-'s

Very process driven - not proactive enough and very reactive
Jack of all trades and masters of none
Stretched too much depending on size they cover

That's just a few thoughts anyway..anyone else worked with this model?

Mike

Replies

Mike Collins January 14, 2014 at 2:24pm
Hi Jill,

I worked with a BP extensively for two years when I was at RBS working as a project manager. The Business Partner was a Learning Business Partner in the Sales & Customer Service area and faced off to the various different business areas within the division. His main accountability was to work with operational areas to identify performance gaps and work with the business areas to raise project requests (we had a project opportunity brief template) which got brought to a weekly PIB (project implementation board), these would be discussed in terms of priority, timelines, resource needed and business impact. If approved it would then come to me as a project consultant to go and meet the business area and start getting in to the depth of Learning Needs Analysis or if that had been done to start managing the project from a learning perspective.

The BP would attend L&D leadership meeting (I think they were a M2 role) so not senior management but still on a good wedge. They would also attend S&S Leadership meetings to give progress updates on projects and they would act as my first point of contact for issues, escalations and support. We had a good relationship and worked well together.

At my time of leaving there was a restructure and they were doing away with the BP role but not sure what model they adopted in it's place.

+'s
- One point of contact for a business area
- Consistency in presence and having clear lines of community / escalation
- Great at raising and removing barriers
- Develop trust and reputation between in this case L&D and the business
-'s
- Very process driven - not proactive enough and very reactive
- Jack of all trades and masters of none
- Stretched too much depending on size they cover
That's just a few thoughts anyway..anyone else worked with this model?

Mike
- Jillian Tansey > Mike Collins January 14, 2014 at 4:54pm
  
  Thanks for your thoughts on this & sharing your experience :)
  
  The pros & cons helpful!
  
  Jill

This reply was deleted.

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Business Partner Model - does it work?

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