HR Business Partner to Sales
Role Overview
Overview
The HR Business Partner to Sales is focused on helping Sales make the number. Like business partners to other departments, chief concerns are about the attraction, retaining and development of personnel.
However, for partnering with sales, special skills and activities are necessary as Sales is an organization that sets the first impression on customers of the company.
Strategic Value of Role
Assist the Sales Organization in reaching its revenue targets by:
1.
Ensuring sales and sales support teams are staffed with the right people.
2.
Delivering and continuously improving the learning and development used in Sales.
3.
Making certain that future sales leaders are being developed.
4.
Strategizing with Sales Leaders to help craft and implement tactics for sales team improvement.
Role
Your role as HR Business Partner to Sales is to work alongside Sales Leaders to develop effective sales teams.
You must be literate in the concepts of sales and sales force effectiveness. You will actively drive and manage initiatives to help Sales improve – usually in the areas of personnel, development, and organizational structure. You will develop and apply proven and emerging practices in the areas of recruiting, hiring, onboarding, learning and development, and performance management . This role typically reports to a
Director or VP of HR.
Competencies
What competencies make for a great HR Business Partner to Sales? o Customer focus – this refers to the end customer, not just sales as an HR customer. The effective
HR Business Partner maintains a customer perspective. This means that communications, discussions and other behaviors have the customer in mind. It is an outward-in mentality balanced with the company position. Through this, he/she can better understand the context of the Sales
Rep’s role. This helps them align with top Sales Reps. For Sales Reps not yet using customer focus, appropriate training can be developed. o Drive for results – top Sales Reps normally have a keen drive for results. HR Business Partners with the same competency better understand Sales Rep motivation. By contrast, lacking this competency could cause bewilderment – the HR Business Partner doesn’t understand some Rep behaviors. o Discovery/problem definition – Sales Reps and HR Business Partners frequently need to discover issues. Sales Reps uncover customer issues and HR Business Partners workforce or developmental issues. If both roles have strong skills here, solutions come easier and with higher quality. o Social networking – sales has definitely become more social. In fact all roles have become more social. HR Business Partners with advanced social agility understand how the sales organization must evolve. Appropriate initiatives can be introduced to make the Sales Reps more social. o Self-development and thought leadership – HR Business Partners that want to truly partner with
Sales must keep themselves on top of Sales trends – latest developments in sales methods, sales rep profiles, buyer trends, etc. One way to do this is regular consumption of top sales and marketing blogs ( such as this list .) Consumption is not the only part of this competency, however.
The HR Business Partner also has to share it with Sales in a way that makes him/her a thought leader and trusted advisor.

HR Business Partner to Sales
Role Overview o Systems Thinking – HR Business Partners have to understand how a change they propose to one area or process of Sales may affect other parts of the Sales system. This requires a mindset that looks to the complete Sales system and not just addressing a single symptom. o Analysis – HR has (or should have) access to a large amount of data on employees. Also, they have access to hiring, performance and termination data. The HR Business Partner to Sales should also have access to Sales performance data. With access to all of this data, the need for analysis is key
– the ability to draw findings from all of this data. The findings from the data should influence improvement of:
 hiring profiles and the hiring process
 the onboarding and offboarding of Sales personnel
 learning and development materials and processes
 sales force structure
 sales go-to-market strategies
 leadership development o Convert strategy to tactics – HR Business Partners operating with higher levels of sales leaders will be exposed to sales strategies. Here she must be able to take strategies and develop implementable tactics for areas that HR can assist with. These strategies should already be aligned with corporate strategies but the HR business partner can play a role as watchdog in these situations. o Organization and planning – HR Business Partners must have mature skills in time-management and organization. They will need to transfer the skills to sales personnel were generally are not known to have efficient time management skills. o Coaching and talent development – Sales leaders have a very important function in the coaching and development of their subordinates. The HR Business Partner needs to have experience and well develop methods in this competency to be able to develop sales leaders with the same. o Talent management – One of HR’s top functions, of course, is talent management: recruiting, hiring, Onboarding, performance management, etc. Since this is one of the first functions sales will rely upon the HR Business Partner for, the HR business partner must have a high degree of proficiency in this competency.
Career Path
The career path for the HR Business Partner offers a quality person multiple paths:
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Advancement within HR to more senior positions.
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Moving to sales for a sales representative or sales management position.
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Moving to sales operations for a role supporting sales especially in the area of sales force
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 effectiveness.
Moving to Presales for a role as a business or presales consultant.
Moving to marketing for roles in lead generation or customer intelligence functions.

HR Business Partner to Sales
Role Overview
Responsibilities/Activities
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Stay on top of Sales talent needs to keep territory vacancies to a minimum.
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Continually refine any sales role profiles for recruiting based on analysis of current performance and trends in the industry. Profiles may also be impacted by Sales’ changes in go-to-market strategies.
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Leverage available data to analyze it for determining effectiveness of role profiles, recruiting and hiring processes, compensation, and sales force structure.
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Assess sales role performance effectiveness from a macro view and provide suggestions on how to
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 improve the appropriate coaching, training and mentoring activities.
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Perform as liaison for all traditional HR functions (e.g. Compliance, Benefits, Payroll, employee satisfaction and engagement, performance management, etc.)
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Participate in periodic Sales strategy sessions to be the voice of HR and to provide advice on how the strategy aligns with Corporate strategy.
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Help develop effective tactical plans to reach strategic sales goals, including measurable incentive plans for subordinates.
Maintain frequent contact with all sales teams through participation in weekly sales team meetings.
Ensure sales management has developed an effective performance measurement system.
Be a strong advisor regarding sales compensation to ensure it is equitable, attractive, and drives the
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 desired results.
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Through continual discovery, assist Sales leadership in ensuring an effective sales force structure that meets corporate and sales strategies.
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Keep on top of Sales and Industry trends as far as they intersect with HR functions within Sales.
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Analyze and act on feedback from sales about the quality of recruiting, hiring and development activities for Sales that HR performs.
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Be available for all levels of Sales roles for coaching and mentoring along personal and interpersonal competencies.
Guide and assist sales leaders to ensure viable virtual benches of sales candidates.
Provide thought leadership and assistance during all initiatives in Sales that require organizational change management expertise.
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Own the Sales role onboarding program for all Sales roles. This includes the co-development and continuous improvement of an onboarding framework and the necessary monitoring of its effectiveness.
Analyze and suggest initiatives based on any company employee engagement or satisfaction surveys.
Assist sales personnel in development of effective social media profiles.

HR Business Partner to Sales
Role Overview
Requirements
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2-5 years previous experience in one or more of the following areas: o HR Business Partner role serving Sales, Consulting, Professional Services or other customerfacing organization o Sales managerial position o Consulting experience in a sales or HR environment
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Experience with coaching, directing, and motivating staff
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Strong time-management and organization skills
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Solid understanding of Sales concepts
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Solid process orientation, with understanding of resource management and allocation
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Ability to multi-task and manage multiple streams of work simultaneously
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Excellent written and verbal communication skills
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Ability to effectively partner with all levels of Sales leadership
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Robust interpersonal skills with evidence of teamwork, collaboration and confidentiality
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Strong judgment and persuasion skills
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Superior analytical ability (analyzing and reporting skills)
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Well-developed systems thinking capabilities
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Ability to display strong self-initiative and support recommendations with sound thinking and factbased evidence (data, research, best practices, etc.)
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Proven ability to self-develop and leverage knowledge to become a thought leader
High level of knowledge and applicable experience with traditional HR functions such as Benefits,
Payroll, Compliance, recruiting, hiring, and learning and development

HR Business Partner to Sales
Role Overview
Sample Scorecard
Activity or objective
Territory coverage rate
Sales meeting attendance
Description
YoY growth target A bonus for indirect contribution when sales makes a YoY growth target.
Monthly Field rides An activity target to ensure HR business partners are in touch with sales execution and management as well as customer trends
Trained/certified sales reps and sales managers
An objective to make certain that HR business partners are persuading to sales personnel to consume mandatory and available training content.
A metric that shows how many territories are covered, but will reveal percentage of vacant territories
An activity metric that reveals an HR business partner’s visibility into the sales organization
New Hire Ramp
Rate
Employee Survey
Participation Rate
Employee
Satisfaction Rate
The amount of time it takes a new-hire sales rep to retire full quota – shows the effectiveness of onboarding, recruiting and hiring processes.
How many of the sales force participates in any company surveys on employee engagement/satisfaction.
Shows the influence that HR is having while supporting Sales.
The satisfaction rate in Sales as determined in any company surveys on employee satisfaction. Helps show the influence that HR is having while supporting Sales.
Metric
Small percentage of the YoY growth revenue that sales achieves.
X% * $Y(growth revenue)
X per month average. The field ride does not count unless there is a documented post-call evaluation.
X% of total sales reps and Y% of total sales managers trained or certified.
X% covered territories (#of covered territories/ # of total territories)
X meetings per quarter. X will vary depending on the number of territories or sales teams you have.
The goal is to participate in at least one meeting per each sales team in each quarter.
X months from new hire date
OR
X% improvement over past ramp rate if an onboarding program was implemented or improved.
X% (total number of Sales employees that participated in survey / total number of Sales employees.) Can also be measured as a ratio compared to other departments and then ranked in order.
X% (the average score that is desired amongst the Sales department for satisfaction)
Can also be measured as a ranking of Sales satisfaction compared to other departments.
Sample
‘0. 0025 * $97,000 =
$242.50’
3 field rides monthly: two with sales reps and one with a sales manager
80% of sales reps.
90% of sales managers.
95% covered territories
10 meetings per quarter
6 months
OR
20% improvement.
95%
OR
In top 3 of department ranks for participation.
90%
OR
In top 3 of department ranks for satisfaction.