The Roles Of Hr Professionals

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Ulrich (1997) proposed that HR should contain of four important areas of activity that will improve HR position and the ability to overcome the challenges that they may face.(Figure1).

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Companies and organization that will adapt the Ulrich model should apply the functions of the model and link them to the deliverables as explained in the following:

(Ulrich,1997), Identified in the HR model the Functions of human recourses and how they are linked to deliverables:

1. Strategic Partners refers to the management of strategic resources by aligning HR and business strategy in order to execute the strategy.

2. Administrative Experts helps to demonstrate that HR supports the financial goals of the company by focusing on having a professional and high quality service.

3. Employee Champions is to manage firm's infrastructure by re-engineering process that will lead to increasing of employee commitment and capability. Also the establishment of this function will increase the attention to employee relationship and improving employee capability.

4. Change Agenda which allow the function to overcome challenges and difficulties of the changes in the business environment also it develop the business to execute strategy.

Ulrich's model has met been accepted almost in the whole world among the HR profession. It proved a motivating path combined with the comfort of a rather prescriptive and perfunctory description of how to achieve the model.

As for the practical and implementation of the HR Business partner model. It is important to focus on the needs to approach the Ulrich delivery model. Each area should focus on the activities that lead the organization to success."HR professionals must show how businesses can realize the full potential of their workforces. It's a huge responsibility. "(Taylor 2005).

Further, there are certain aspects of the Ulrich model that introduced as a ‘three-legged stool’ or ‘three-box’ model for HR, although there is an ongoing debate over how his theories should be interpreted and put into practice. Ulrich has also reviewed and further developed his own theories on this issue in subsequent work (Ulrich 1997).

The ‘three-legged model’ of HR is based on three key elements - HR business partners, shared HR services and HR centres of excellence - which explained in the following:

HR business partners (or strategic partners): it is the work of senior or key HR professionals with business leaders or line managers' senior and that influence the implementation and the steering of the strategy.

Centres of excellence refers to a small group of experts in HR that have specialist knowledge to solve HR issues. The centres of excellence role are to enhance positive business competitive through HR such as motivating, educating, and engagement.

Shared services defined as a large single unit that responsible for all the common transactional services across the business such as recruitment administration, payroll, absence monitoring and advice on simpler employee relations issues. The most two important functions of shared services are first is to apply an effective HR administration and second is to offer low-cost.

There are some important elements of the HR BP role that Ulrich (1997) suggested first of all developing resource beyond the HR BP it refers to the support of HR BP needs and knowing how and when to deploy this support is a vital skill for the HR BP. Second is the use of business intelligence and the analysis which is the analysis and understanding of business challenges and its impact in how people are managed. Third is learning to manage through others (the relationship management ) it refers to the contact and work with non-HR business cross-functionally to support bossiness and deliver change also it involves the need for clarity about the desired results, which makes the initial requirement of accurate analysis all the more important.

Although of the great success of Ulrich model there have been some issues and challenges that occurred in implementing it. Pitcher (2008) argues that the business partner model has not resulted in strategic thinking, and is little more than superficial ‘spin’. He cites the example of Elizabeth Arden, in which the HR director, Gabriel Arend, disagreed with any model that splits HR professionals into recruiting, training and employee relations experts. Her company is moving towards a traditional structure, where HR employees are trained to develop generalist operational knowledge. The CIPD (2011) recommends exercising caution when adopting the business partner model and suggests that partnering should mean a paradigm shift for most HR functions, resulting in changes to HR’s values, operation and Managing People and Organizations' skills, and not simply represent a good HR practice. Perhaps the key question comes down to HR’s credibility and contribution, summed up succinctly in a Deloitte Report (2009) The business partners’ greatest failing has been their inability to convince senior managers that they have the necessary business acumen to contribute to the strategic debate.

In order to overcome these issues and challenges I think that organizations should understand the business model at depth, generate insight from data and evidence, connect with curiosity, purpose and impact, lead with integrity, consideration and challenge. Also, this approach is suited particularly to large organizations.