The HRBP myth

Strategic. Close to the business. A sparring partner for managers.

Hardly any HR role carries as many expectations as that of the HR business partner. In many HR target pictures the division of roles therefore seems almost self-evident:

• Services take on the operational business.
• CoEs provide specialist knowledge.
• The HRBP works with the business on the strategic people topics.

In practice, though, a considerable gap often remains between aspiration and reality.

According to Gartner, HR business partners spend almost 19 hours a week on employee issues and more than 16 hours on day-to-day operational work in an average week. That leaves only around nine hours for strategic activities. Further Gartner data from 2024 also shows: 76 per cent of HRBPs see their transactional workload as the biggest obstacle to strategic impact.

So have we created a strategic role without consistently changing the system around it?

A number of assumptions have taken hold around the HR business partner over the years:

• Modern HR necessarily needs HRBPs.
• HRBPs work entirely strategically.
• Whoever has a seat at the table automatically helps to shape decisions.
• Strategic work is more valuable than operational work.

But it is not that simple. We have put together four myths that deserve a closer look.

Myth 1: anyone who wants modern HR needs HR business partners

The role is mostly associated with Dave Ulrich today. It is worth looking back at the original idea, though. In Human Resource Champions, Ulrich described four different contributions from HR:

• Strategic partner
• Administrative expert
• Employee champion
• Change agent

The point was not to replace administrative work with strategic work. The idea was that different HR contributions would together help make the organisation more successful.

Out of this idea grew the three-pillar model known today, made up of HR services, centers of expertise and HR business partners. It became one of the most widely used HR operating models.

What is often not taken into account: there is no single right form of HR business partnering. Context is decisive. A model that works well in one organisation can be completely unsuitable for another. In many places, however, the three-pillar model became almost a blueprint for “modern HR”.

The HRBP is introduced because a modern target operating model simply has HRBPs. In practice, though, an organisational structure that fits the business model and the actual needs should be created first. Only then should it be examined whether an HRBP belongs in it at all.

Myth 2: a strategic role automatically creates strategic room to manoeuvre

Even where the HRBP role makes sense for strategic development, introducing it changes above all one thing at first:

The org chart. But not necessarily everyday work.

For an HRBP to actually work more strategically, the operating model around them has to function. Services have to take on operational tasks reliably. Interfaces with specialist functions have to be clear. And managers, too, have to take on the people responsibility that sits with them.

Otherwise the HRBP very quickly becomes a firefighter: for the special case, for the question with unclear ownership, or simply for everything a manager has always taken to “their HR person”.

Missing strategic work can therefore also be a design problem of the organisation. Because the system has to make that strategic room to manoeuvre possible in the first place.

Myth 3: strategic is more valuable than operational

At this point the discussion quickly turns black and white:

Strategic = work on the future.

Operational = administration.

But that equation falls short. Operational work and strategy do not exclude one another. What matters is the contribution the respective work makes to the goals of the organisation.

A faultless payroll may not be a strategic activity. But an organisation in which payroll, processes and services do not work reliably will hardly be able to talk credibly about forward-looking HR.

Conversely, a new recruiting or employer branding concept is not automatically strategic either. It becomes strategic when it makes a clear contribution to the corporate strategy. Because the HR strategy should always be derived from the corporate strategy.

HR only creates strategically relevant value when it understands the corporate strategy, thinks it through and translates it into relevant people and organisation topics. Where strategic, specialised and operational work is distributed in a structured way within HR, each of them can make its contribution to the company’s goals.

Myth 4: whoever has a seat at the table helps to shape decisions

Even a clearly defined HRBP role is no guarantee of strategic influence.

Because having a seat at the table does not automatically mean being allowed to shape things.

HR business partnering requires two foundations:

• HR business partners have to understand the business, recognise connections, contribute relevant data and perspectives, and be able to challenge managers and the executive board constructively.
• The business has to allow this role as well. Strategic influence only arises where HR is involved early, is genuinely allowed to shape decisions, and where the people perspective is understood as part of the corporate strategy. That starts with top management.

In many companies HR does sit at the table today, but often rather “because that is how it is done now”, without actually being able to influence decisions or without a real mandate to shape them. In that case the HRBP, however good he or she is, cannot support the strategy either.

Good HR business partners recognise early which consequences strategic decisions have for people and for the organisation. They translate the corporate strategy into concrete priorities for organisation, capabilities and workforce, and bring that perspective actively into decision-making.

Only then do HR business partners become the link between a proactive HR strategy and the actual challenges of the business.

What is left of the HRBP myth?

The HR business partner is neither automatically the solution nor fundamentally the problem in an HR function that is developing.

The role can be enormously valuable. Precisely where HR has to understand the corporate strategy, identify needs early and create the connection between business and HR, HRBPs can be important drivers and forward thinkers.

One possible organisational form should just not turn into a universally valid ideal. A good HR operating model is not recognised by the scaffolding of a well-known model, but by whether roles, responsibilities and services match the actual needs of the organisation.

A large corporation can benefit greatly from specialised services, CoEs and dedicated business partners. In a mid-sized company, by contrast, a strong generalist role can make considerably more sense. And in an organisation whose basic processes and responsibilities are not yet working, that may be exactly where to start.

So not every company needs an HR business partner.

Because strategic HR work does not depend on a particular job title, but on strategic people topics being located where they can be dealt with effectively. Depending on company size, maturity, complexity and business model, that may well be an HRBP – or an HR lead, a generalist, specialised teams or a combination of these.

In a good HR operating model, strategic, specialised and operational work happens where it can make the greatest contribution. The HRBP is therefore not a must-have criterion for “modern HR”, but one of many possible answers to the question of how strategic closeness to the business can sensibly be organised.