By Beverly Crowell
Managing Partner, Designed Learning
As a Human Resource Business Partner (HRBP), you have expertise that is critical for the survival and growth of the organization. Unfortunately, many HRBPs find themselves being underutilized, overworked with transactional tasks, and being asked to “fix” things and people.
If you are an HRBP, do you find yourself frustrated when:
HRBPs want to have their expertise utilized and be treated as trusted advisors, but internal clients or key stakeholders don’t know how to utilize them or worse, they don’t want to utilize them in this way. The good news is that HRBPs can adjust their own approach and behavior to be better utilized.
Many times, with the best intentions, they have trained their leaders to treat them the way they do. In the spirit of customer satisfaction and “the customer is always right”, HRBPs end up agreeing to do what clients ask, even when it’s not the best thing for them or the organization. In fact, many leaders inside organizations don’t even know they can partner with their HR Business Partners in any other way.
What is this other way? HRBPs play a critical role in shaping the workforce and driving organizational success. With the increasing complexity of today’s business environment, they must possess not only a deep understanding of HR practices but also strong consulting skills to effectively address and resolve organizational challenges. It is learning to influence where they have no direct control.
Here are eight ways to stop being an order-taker for your clients and instead a trusted advisor where you work in collaboration to create solutions that work the first time.
For HRBPs, establishing a solid foundation of trust is essential in gaining the confidence of both business leaders and employees. As such, they must be authentic, transparent, and reliable in their interactions. By adopting these principles, HRBPs can foster stronger relationships with their clients, leading to more open and honest communication. This, in turn, enables HRBPs to better understand the underlying issues within the organization and provide more effective solutions. As noted by Peter Block in Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used, “Consulting isn’t just about offering expertise – it’s about building authentic relationships and fostering trust.”
Creating effective agreements, or contracting, is a crucial step in the partnering process with internal clients, as it sets the expectations and boundaries for the engagement. For HRBPs, mastering the art of contracting can help ensure that their consulting engagements are structured and goal oriented. This not only helps in managing client expectations but also provides a clear roadmap for achieving desired outcomes. By establishing clear agreements, HRBPs can enhance their ability to deliver impactful results.
A key aspect of partnering with internal clients is the ability to accurately diagnose organizational issues. For HRBPs, this diagnostic process is invaluable in uncovering the underlying factors contributing to workplace challenges. By being curious and using various methods of discovery, HRBPs can conduct thorough assessments that go beyond surface-level symptoms, enabling them to develop targeted interventions.
Providing constructive feedback and actionable recommendations is a critical component of the consulting process. HRBPs must be skilled in delivering feedback in a manner that is both respectful and impactful. This means effectively communicating their findings and proposed solutions by being clear and specific with a focus on positive outcomes. By leveraging these principles, HRBPs can present their recommendations in a way that resonates with clients and motivates them to act.
Resistance is a common challenge in consulting engagements, as clients may be hesitant to embrace change. For HRBPs, understanding the sources of resistance and addressing them proactively is crucial in ensuring the success of their initiatives. HRBPs should work to manage this resistance by building rapport, demonstrating empathy, and involving clients in the change process. By adopting these strategies instead of ignoring what’s causing the resistance, HRBPs can navigate it more effectively and create a collaborative environment for implementing solutions.
The ultimate goal of consulting is to implement solutions that drive positive organizational outcomes. For HRBPs, this means following a consistent process or framework to help ensure that their solutions are executed effectively and achieve the desired results. By emphasizing the importance of continuous improvement, regularly assessing the impact of their interventions, HRBPs can enhance the sustainability and effectiveness of their solutions.
To help create self-sufficient and high-performing organizations, HRBPs should work to develop their client competence. Rather than creating dependency, advocate for empowering clients to address their own challenges in the future. Provide clients with the tools, knowledge, and skills needed to sustain improvements over the long term. By fostering a culture of continuous learning and development, HRBPs can help build organizational resilience and capability. They can also help ensure solutions are more fully implemented and sustained.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for any HRBP is to stop seeing support of their clients under the mental model of the “customer is always right.” Certainly, there are times when being helpful is exactly what is needed. More often than not, however, what they need is for HRBPs to show up as more than a “pair of hands.” Instead, use these expert consulting techniques to co-create solutions with the people you serve. Even if clients don’t know it yet, they prefer a partner over someone who simply tells them how to fix things. It’s more than helpful, it’s useful.
Published originally in the February 2025 CHRO Excellence: HR Strategy & Implementation and HCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence magazines.
For more information on how Designed Learning can help you master these eight strategies, check out our Flawless Consulting® program or call 1.248.701.5928 for more information.
