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Transformations Your role as leader and team manager in the above equation is to see that your team have roles as change agents, continuous improvement geeks as well as doing what it says on the tin, and following the standard operating procedures, call scripts, process map, and policy guides. It's about building "stretch" into jobs. , which taught me to have the mindset that I was a business consultant inside the company. I also attended the excellent three-day workshop by Designed Learning on contracting and consulting skills, where we did deep and intense role play work to build new behaviour, become more assertive, and move from the HR "I want to help/pair of hands" mindset to the SHRBP mindset of being an equal partner with the ability to say no when asked to take on mundane administrative tasks. I have seen company examples where the COE compensation and benefits team still hold on to salary survey administration, job evaluation and job grading, and the annual pay review process administration, even though these processes are all about repeatable transactional excellence. COE, let these go to shared services! I have also seen COE talent acquisition continue to hold on to the A-to-Z of recruitment from posting to sourcing to screening to interviews to offer. I have also seen enlightened COE talent acquisition teams let go of posting, sourcing, screening, interview scheduling, and offer letter generation and dispatch—instead of handing these over to enlightened and skilled transactional specialists in the HR shared services function. It works! This not only develops skills in the HR shared services teams, but also frees up the COE to get involved more in strategic planning, best practice benchmarking, and design of new policy and programmes, with their heads high above the routine. We all know that changing the job title from generalist HR manager to Tier 4 SHRBP doesn't by itself transform the way of working. Organisational savvy, business acumen around balance sheets and forecasting, long range visioning, market intelligence and competitive instinct, contracting and consulting at the senior level where egos and politics need to be managed—these are all skills beyond the standard HR generalist toolkit. They need to be added if Tier 4 is really going to add value in the transformed HR model. Research shows that 50 percent of HR generalists moving into SHRBP roles don't make the grade. It's because the skill set requirements are so different. Ways to overcome this include setting a high bar at the selection stage, where you measure the commercial, strategic, and emotional intelligence competencies as a high ratio of the mix with HR knowledge and skills. I personally was a new HRBP during one of the first HR transformations at SmithKline Beecham back in 1996. There, I had mentors from finance and global marketing helping me to become more applied in my thoughts and deeds, more grounded in business operations. In addition I read the book by Peter Block A radical comment at this point: Don't assume that SHRBPs can only come from the talent pool of transformed HR generalists. I've seen cases where cross–functional moves into HR from commercial management roles including sales and marketing have been successful. Where there is the right competency set and mix of commercial, strategic, and operational experience, folks from other functions can make it big in senior HR roles. The HR process knowledge can be built on if the other skill sets are already there. Take Aways Let's end with a few examples of other top tips and real success stories: • When speaking about career development and progression, do promote the fact that lateral development and rotations are also career enhancing and strong learning opportunities for personal development. Up is not the only way. There are some great examples in HR shared services where individuals have grown after switching from employee relations specialists to talent acquisition specialists, from compensation to benefits, from talent management to global mobility management. • Capable team leaders in a shared services model can readily grow to be shared services directors, and strong Tier 2 consultants can become Tier 3 COE in similar functional areas in a fairly rapid progression. For example, when I worked as HR shared services director at Coca-Cola I saw over a period of three years 20 percent of my original HR shared services team progress from Tier 1 work to Tier 2 work, 80 percent gain a wider role geographically, and a few examples of progression from Tier 2 work to Tier 3 work. I even saw one example of progression from Tier 3 to Tier 4. So, just from that small sample size, it's clear that lateral and vertical progression is alive and well in the transformed HR model. • Share your stories of people who have developed and progressed in the model. These are the real examples, which make success tangible to others who are just about to move into this new way of working. Simon Brown is managing consultant at Simon Brown Associates. He can be reached at simon@simonbrownassociates.com. SUMMER 2011 | www.hroglobal.com [45] Flawless Consulting 4. Get the COEs to let go of T the HR shared services team. ier 2 work—transfer this over time into 5. Upskill SHRBPs to become strategic—to become business partners.

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