The managers in Human Resources are expected to be excellent people managers by the other managers in the organization. They understand the human resources issues and they can explain the detail of the real secrets working with the human capital. Generally, they are not that good people managers, they can present the HR Processes excellently.

The HR Managers usually forget to keep the same HR Procedures running for their employees. The employees in Human Resources can have no goals given as they are expected to know, what they should do and how they should develop the organization.

The HR Employees have a dilemma. The managers speak about the right people management, how they should develop their subordinates and how they should plan their careers and they the reality inside Human Resources. The promotions are not programmed, they are a bit chaotic, the managers change the priorities and the long term goals are not followed after the first review of the HR Yearly Plan.

The employees see the difference in the wording and the real actions taken. They see the internal mess and they can start feeling frustrated.

The HR Manager’s Qualities are about the aligning of the words and actions. The HR Manager has to start to work with his or her team. The team has to see the actions based on the words.

Not sure why, but “HR for Idiots” is one of the most common search phrases bringing most volume to my site. I am not lucky as it says a lot about the opinion of the people about Human Resources management. Sorry, HR is not for idiots. It is for clever people, who are skilled in people management skills.

But, it is a sign for the HR Teams, what the employees can think about Human Resources. That is the business function for the idiots. They can easily work over there and they can influence the business hardly.

The HR Professionals have to work on the theoretical background of Human Resources as they can explain the HR theoretical models. The theory behind the business practice is extremely important. It builds the foundation for a discussion about the right decision and the right vision for Human Resources.

The HR Professionals have to be strong in the knowledge of the HR theories as they can proudly discuss about the motivation, compensation and leadership practices in the organization. The arguments have to be based on the theories and the results from different studies, the arguments cannot be emotional and full of “I think” or “I personally believe”. The managers believe to facts, tables and graphs. The emotions are not enough. When you are too emotional, you are the HR idiot.

It is the same as with the measurement of HR contribution to the business, the HR Professionals have to demonstrate their strong knowledge of the HR theories as the people can trust to the HR initiatives and they can understand how they are compliant with the theories, which work.

In other case, you will be seen as the HR idiot. Human Resources is not for idiots, it is not.

The HR Employees suffer from not being recognized by the organization. They feel useless and they can feel that HR is useless in the organization. They see their value added to the organization is not fully recognized and respected by all employees. This is extremely hazardous as the HR Employees have to be motivated to deliver the best results.

The HR is not useless, when it is done the right way. By the way, it has to be promoted correctly and pretty often to managers. HR always forgets about HR Marketing. The HR Employees see their effort and they do not get the right feedback from the business. They have to hear they did a great job. They have to hear it pretty often.

The HR Marketing is the best cure for the useless HR. The HR Marketing promotes the best from Human Resources and it announces to employees the good news from HR. The employees do not feel HR adding value before they lose it. Tell employees, what they can lose.

The HR Management has to be sure, the HR employees know about the accomplishments of Human Resources. The HR Employees have to be proud to work in Human Resources and they have to act as the real HR advocates. The HR Marketing helps to them to know about the accomplishments and how they can use it in the communication with employees. HR is not useless, when it is done correctly.

Each HR Manager should be able to measure the contribution of HR to the business. The organization keeps HR on its payroll, the HR should present the result and its contribution to improving business results. Easily said, it is extremely hard to implement as HR is about the soft part of the business, it is not possible to transfer the results easily to numbers and not provoking the discussions about the methodology for measuring the HR contribution.

The HR Contribution can be generally measure by two main outcomes for the organization:

• cost savings in HR Processes
• cost savings by efficient HR Processes for the organization.

The cost of Human Resources is always allocated to the internal clients and they have to pay for its HR Services. That is the main reason, the internal client is always interested in the contribution of Human Resources to the final results.
The main mistake in the measuring of the HR contribution is not collecting the data, which are the key to show the real HR Results. The methodology for the HR Measurement does not exist and the internal clients do not receive consistent HR Data and they cannot measure any trends in the real job done Human Resources.

The HR Management team has to invest a lot of time into setting the right set of HR Measures, which will be interesting for the internal client. The measures are not about the performance of HR Processes, but they have to translated into the real contribution of HR to the success of the internal client. The HR Contribution Measurement is not about the HR Processes, it is about the value added to the organization.

The managers like when HR is simple. The simple HR means a good orientation in the HR services and the managers like to hear the advice from their HR Business Partner.

The HR has to keep its focus on the simplicity of the provided services and processes. The simple HR brings higher level of the acceptation from the managers as they can easily predict the results of the HR behavior. The managers understand to simple HR processes and they do not expect to spend with Human Resources than needed.

The HR Management has to keep the HR services simple as possible as the communication with all the involved parties can be kept as simple as possible. The simple HR procedures will raise the attention of the managers, as they will understand the simple steps, which have to be followed.

The simple HR is like a dream for many organizations. The HR Professionals try to bring better HR services, but they bring too complicated HR policies, which do not show the direct way to the goal, but they try to solve any potential exception.

The simple HR is about helping the managers to build efficient HR system in the units, the managers have to lead. The managers can be sure about the support provided by Human Resources on the basis of the simple request. The managers like to use simple HR as they can provide a good explanation to employees and the questions from their side can be easily answered.

The simple HR helps to HR Professionals as well. They do not have to spend a lot of time explaining to managers the possibilities of the different HR Policies, but they can purely focus on the real and common target – to increase the quality of the human capital employed in the organization.

The HR employees are focused on the people part of the company, but the HR Professionals have to be focused on the financial part of the organization as well. The organization has its processes, procedures, employees and it has its financials, which allow keeping the organization alive. Without a proper understanding to the financial basics, the HR Professionals are not real participants in the serious business discussions.

The HR Professionals or HR Business Partners have to be the part of the client’s business. Without being the part of the business team, they will be like the external consultants. On the other hand, the HR Professional should watch the external consultant, as the HR Business Partner should observe their approach and how they study the financials and numbers of the internal client.

The HR Business Partner is not just a partner for the HR related issues, the HR Business Partner is co-responsible for the overall business results of the unit. The HR Business Partnering is not just responsible for the People KPIs, the HR Business Partners shares the responsibility with the internal client for all the goals and they have to be met.

The business has its rules about the net profit generated for the owners of the organization and Human Resources has to respect it. HR cannot live in its own world without the focus on the performance of the organization. The performance is the primary focus of HR.

The manager has a key role in the performance and ease of the team. The manager set the emotional environment in the team and by setting the priorities and distributing tasks among the team members the manager makes the team a really performing team. The team well-being is extremely important component of the corporate culture.

The motivating role of the manager is essential, but many managers fail in this motivating role. The companies repeat the same mistake again and again. They do not make the manager the employees with the best managerial potential, but they decide to promote the best expert from the team. The organization does not ask the expert about the managerial potential, about the motivation to be the manager. The organization announces to the expert, he will be the manager.

The expert does not understand the role of the manager for the team. He does not manage the tasks and does not motivate the employees. The expert manages just the knowledge and the approach to the issues coming to the team. The expert does not understand the motivation principles. The team starts to suffer.

The organization speaks about the managerial skills and the leadership development and they repeat the same mistake. They do not promote the high potential to the managerial job positions. They promote the experts as they are widely recognized for the skills and knowledge in their expert area. They do not understand how to manage the team and how to keep the employees motivated.

The role of the HR Business Partner is not easy. The HR Business Partner has to develop the relationship with two different partners – The partnering with the internal client on one side and the partnering with the HR Centers of Excellence and HR Back Office. Unluckily, the partners are different and the relationship can be broken in each moment.

The HR Business Partner has to balance the concerns of both partners of him. The HR Business Partner represents the interests of Human Resources at the internal client and he represents the requests of the internal client in HR Department. Sometimes, it is difficult to find a compromise and to reach common agreement without breaking the relationships.

The role of the HR Business Partner is to find a compromise by taking the evidence and arguments on both sides. Sometimes, the HR Business Partner has to convince the HR Employees about the proposal from the internal client being right. Sometimes, the internal client has to accept the wish of Human Resources. The HR Business Partner has to believe the selected solution is the right.

That is the main role of the HR Business Partner in the HR Business Partnering concept.

Many HR Directors sit in their chair and they are dreaming about better HR Function, more recognized HR employees and being more successful. They are wishing to introduce HR Business Partnering concept, as they believe, it is the main issue.

The HR Business Partnering does not have to be formal. it can be informal easily. The HR Employees does not have to be in the job position of the HR Business Partner, they can be Recruitment Specialist and they can add value to their internal clients.

The HR Employees can always act as a partner, when they understand the needs of the internal client and they are able to provide the client with a useful advice. The goal of each HR Director should HR employees, who understand the needs of their internal client.

The HR Business Partnering model is not about the formal organization of the HR Organizational Structure and HR Jobs. It is more about the approach of HR Employees to their job.

The HR Director has to lead the manager to acquire the knowledge of their internal clients and to advice them on a daily basis. The valuable advice is always welcome.

The HR Departments in organization have a different qualities and their value added to the whole organization differs dramatically. The HR Team can easily focus on the internal processes and the internal excellence and they can completely forget to add value to their internal clients. In such a case, this HR is completely useless for its internal clients and the satisfaction level decreases heavily.

The useless Human Resources is focused on the activities, which are defined as nice-to-have and they forget about the managers saying we-need-this. The HR Management has to find always a good balance between the internal HR development and the development for the internal customers. Both parts are extremely important for the general success of the HR Function.

As the Human Resources is not useless for its internal clients and customers, the HR Business Partnering model should be introduced. As the HR Business Partner co-operates with the internal client and shares the vision and goals, he or she inspires the rest of the HR Team to follow the strategy defined by the internal clients.

When the internal clients see the value added by Human Resources to their departments, they start to value the whole effort of HR and they would never say “Our HR is useless.”