Running HR as Business Partner

You may have heard it being said that in order to be effective and relevant, those in the HR need to run the HR department like a business. What does this mean? In what kind of business HR is involved?

Running HR like a business concern inevitably brings to mind profit or loss. Being in HR, you are confused because HR normally do not deal with profit and loss. Someone may have even told you that HR is an overhead. It is all about spending and spending. You may never have seen a single dollar coming in.

Running HR like a business does not mean that you must ensure that HR make money in real time. What it actually mean is that HR helps the organization achieve its corporate objectives. If the objective is to make profit, then HR need to help the organization generate revenue. In this way, HR is run as a strategic business partner.

HR can play this particular role in the following areas of corporate concern:

1. Recruiting people who have the right qualities, qualifications, skills and competence;
2. Identifying the training needs that employees need in order to perform their jobs more effectively as well as the training needs of the organization;
3. Motivating employees by way of an effective reward and benefits system;
4. Preparing career development programme for each employee.

To play its role as strategic business partner, HR needs to align what it is doing to what the organization needs to do in accomplishing its business objectives. Doing this will make HR more relevant and may even get invited to sit at the top management planning team.