Change Agent

The final area of expertise that HR needs to address to be a strategic partner is helping the organisation build its capability to embrace and manage change. Here then HR need to demonstrate their knowledge of how successful change can be brought about. This requires HR to ask their business colleagues some basic questions:

What? – What are we trying to achieve? What will it look like when we have changed?

Why? – Why do we need to change? What will happen if we don’t change?

Who? – Who is going to be responsible overall for the change programme? Who else needs to be involved?

When? – When will we get started? When will the necessary resources be made available?

How? – How should we get started? How will we know if the changes are working?

What does this changing role of HR mean in terms of the key competencies that HR professionals need to demonstrate?

Based upon extensive research among 2000 HR professionals, in three separate studies, Dave Ulrich (1998) has identified five key high-level competencies needed for HR professionals working at the strategic level. These are: understanding of the business, knowledge of HR practices, ability to manage culture, ability to manage change and personal credibility.

Test yourself against the five core competences needed to perform at a strategic HR level.

For each of the competencies defined below, rate yourself on a scale of 1–5 where 5 = highly developed and 1 = needs attention.

Core HR competencies	Personal rating	How others might rate you
Business awareness and understanding
Understands the financial indicators of business success (e.g. balance sheet, profit and loss, return on assets)
Understands customer success measures (e.g. satisfaction surveys, segmentation criteria)
Understands and applies competitor analysis techniques (e.g. industry trends)
Able to translate own work into the same financial and customer-focused language used in the business
Able to describe HR’s impact in terms that business leaders will understand
Delivery of HR practices
Able to identify the value of different HR practices
Able to diagnose business problems and translate these into effective HR solutions
Able to benchmark own organisation’s HRM systems against those of other high-performing organisations
Able to develop strategies for attracting and retaining key people
Enables the business to put in place the right structures to meet operational needs
Knowledgeable about HR systems and practices, internally and externally
Management of culture
Able clearly to articulate the desired culture needed to support the business strategy
Provides credible explanations as to why employee commitment is a critical success criteria for culture change
Able to build employee commitment to the desired cultural shift
Understands the learning interventions needed to kick-start culture change process
Identifies the behaviours needed to support cultural change
Change management
Understands the business case for strategic change
Identifies and articulates the key measures and success criteria
Understands and applies different theories of change to bring about successful change
Persuades people at all levels of the need to change
Develops the necessary support infrastructure for change
Has the confidence to challenge issues that are getting in the way of change
Builds personal credibility
Has an established track record of success
Commands the respect and trust of colleagues
Regularly sought out for opinions and insights about HR matters
Demonstrates willingness to take personal risks
Lives the organisation’s values
Developed from the work of Becker, Huselid and Ulrich (2001) on The HR Balanced Scorecard.

• Self-reliant: initiative, vision, creativity, risk-taker, selfmotivation

• Expert: enthusiastic, professional, intellectual curiosity; lifelong learner

• Networked: communication skills, negotiation skills, problemsolving skills, project management, open-minded

• Resilient: stress tolerance, flexibility, team-worker, adaptable, determination

  However, as Ulrich points out, it is not enough for HR to be competent at what they do, they also need to demonstrate attitude (Ulrich, 2000). ‘HR with attitude’ involves:

• turning knowledge into action;

• making informed choices about how to invest in HR practices to assure business results;

• associating with peers in the HR profession and line management with the confidence that you have something of value to offer;

• demonstrate confidence, decisiveness, risk-taking and actionorientation.

  Does everyone in HR need to demonstrate all of the competencies and attributes outlined above? Does everyone need to be working in the strategic partner role? After IBM had transformed the way that its HR services were delivered, as part of their overall business transformation in the 1990s, several different skill levels of work emerged (Leighton). These include:

• The strategic level – this encompasses policy and process owners, who are responsible for specific policy and processes and HR strategy partners, who are responsible for focusing on the strategic issues of the business units.

• The complex interaction level – dealt with by HR professionals who specialise in a particular HR process.

• The simple interaction level – which could be non-HR professionals, who are able to answer simple questions on current policy and process.