The Changing Face of HR
Helen Francis
Napier University Business School
h.francis@napier.ac.uk
Tracing the concept of ‘thinking
performer’ into practice
• Our study (Helen Francis & Anne Keegan)
– Approach (origins of TP), methods and aims
• Context of study
– Modelling of HR roles & emergence of
business partnership
• Our preliminary findings & implications
for HR practice
Origins of ‘Thinking Performer’
• Originates from discussion about the need for a central
vision (of an effective practitioner) underpinning CIPD
standards.
• Two images emerged: ‘reflective practitioner’ and
‘strategic activist’: Emerged from concerns about low
level of reflection, and overly operational focus
• Someone who ‘makes the move’ to becoming a
business partner and (…) ‘is an HR professional
who applies a critically thoughtful approach to
their own job so as to make a contribution to
organisational survival, profitability and to
meeting its vision and strategic goals’.
(CIPD Standards, 2002)
Tracing the ‘Thinking Performer’ into Practice
PDS Course
Tutors
KIP
Workshops
CIPD
Membership/Ed
Examiners; PKI
Members of
Upgrading
panel
Collaborative
Inquiry
Individual
Practitioners
Student
Student
members
Members
In-depth interviews
10 Members of
CIPD Membership
and Development
Committee/PKI
Team
2 PDS Examiners
54 HR Practitioners
(Inclusive 11
Student
Practitioners
working towards
graduate
membership of
CIPD)
1 Regional Secretary of
GMB Trade Union
Total
77
7 PDS Course Leaders
3 Members National
Upgrading Panel
Questionnaire
• Simple format
• Checking familiarity with
terms thinking performer
and business partner:
where first heard, sources
• 99 Filled in at upgrading
clinics/KIP event
Visualisations of the
thinking performer
– 150+ Students in
Workshops/3 Centres
– 40+ Practitioners and
Academics at a local CIPD
KIP Event
Changing Context of HR
• HR Professionals increasingly expected to
– Justify HR activities : costs/added value
– Play a more ‘strategic’ role and work closely
with line managers
• Increasing amplification of ‘strategic view’
evident in evolution of HRM models conceptualising
HR roles (Tyson and Fell 1996, Tyson 1995, Storey,
1992)
• Concept of Business Partnering (& focus on
multiple roles) now becoming influential (Ulrich,
1997, 2005)
Modelling of HRM
(Ulrich 1997)
Strategic Partner
Admin
Expert
Change
agent
Employee
Champion
Framing of HR practice as business partnership depicted as
four roles. These are treated as mutually reinforcing rather
than as a potential source of role conflict (Caldwell, 2003).
Our Findings
Various Meanings attached to the
thinking performer
Current vocabularies framing HR
practice
Impact of strategic/business framing
Various meanings attached to the
thinking performer
•Strong business focus
underpinning visualisations
–Images connected to
strategic concerns at ‘top
table’
–Multi-tasking of mostly
business focused issues
• Clear image of the reflective
practitioner also evident
• Few practitioners are familiar
with the term TP, but it has
some intuitive appeal
• TP concept not a strong feature
of how people talk about their work
Business-driven juggler
Question of balance ?
Concept of ‘business partnership’
dominates talk of HR practice
(emerged unprompted at interview)
Strategic
Partner
Administrative
Expert
Change Agent
Employee
Champion
 Describe themselves as strategic partners, or moving in this direction
 Employee champion role regarded as ‘belonging to the line’
 Tensions framed as business tensions
CIPD HR Survey: Strategic partner role has most influence; ‘Few
seniors see themselves primarily as employee champions and ‘fewer
still would wish to do so. ‘Partly because language sounds unfamiliar’?
Some practitioner views (1)
‘The emphasis is definitely on being a
strategic partner. Change agent as well,
Depending on what you are doing at the
time, some background admin
knowledge, and virtually zero on the
Employee champion role’
‘Employees have a ‘career manager’ (line
manager) who is the person responsible
for their care and welfare. That’s not an
HR job’ (Business Partner)
Some practitioner views(2)
(…) it’s a strange word but I don’t think
there’s anybody got permission to be an
employee champion in our, in our sort of
set up really.
(…) the unions see it as their role for the
employees to come to them to tell them
about their problems and it’s only when
they can’t resolve that locally with the
supervisor that it will get escalated into,
into the function if you like. (Business
Partner)
Talk of profound structural changes
(current or planned)
Focus on business partnering,
supported by flatter structure
• Business partners working with the
senior team; strong business focus
• HR ‘centres of excellence’: small
teams of HR experts with specialist
knowledge
• Shared service centres supported by
e-enabled HR & call-center
technology
• Transactional work devolved to line
managers ; reductions in no. of HR
staff
Business
Partners
Centres of excellence
Shared Services Centre
See also Reddington and
Withers (2005)
Amplification of business partnering:
Potentially negative consequences
Estrangement of HR from employees
• as HR staff move into service centres or become a
‘disconnected band of business partners’
• HR advisors increasingly have no face to face
contact & limited telephone contact with employees
as HR work is devolved to the line
•
We lost that human contact: we were at the end of a
telephone. We weren't allowed to go out and see people any
more or to give advice to people face to face… (HR Advisor)
• When I was working in HR, very often employees would
phone me and I’d have to say sorry but my role here is to
advise management, I can’t get involved between you and
your manager (Senior Consultant)
Disenchanted practitioners &
truncated careers ?
• Lack of career opportunities in employeefacing roles
• Two-tier system between business partners
and those at the lower end of HR
We are losing what HR’s about. I want to be
an employee champion working directly with
people and I can't. I can see that avenue
being closed off fairly soon, and it makes me
uncertain about whether or not I want to
stay in HR (HR Advisor)
Loss of confidence and trust in HR
function to advocate employee needs?
If business partnering becomes too much
driven by team leaders and line managers,
and the only place that you can contact HR is
to actually go through a PC, or ‘phone a call
centre, then employees will question whether
their employer really cares about them and
are serious about the maxim that they are the
company’s most valued assets.
It seems to me that the role of employee
champion will become the sole preserve of
the trade union (GMB Regional Secretary)
Problems in devolving
HR to the line ?
• Competing priorities – ‘ very performance
focussed’. HR not incorporated into
performance appraisal.
• Selection, training, and capability issues
(..) sometimes you wonder have they been
selected because they did well in sales?
(…) I don’t think that a one-day training
course is going to make a manager into an
HR manager.
Imbalance between roles
‘This represents the
thinking performer and
it is a balancing act
between the needs of
the business and the
people in the business.
The balls are the
competencies.’
Reclaiming space for talking about
employee well-being?
The world of HR has changed dramatically in the past
20 years. The department of the past would deal mostly
with employee welfare, dishing out ‘tea and sympathy’
as required, but these days HR has raised its status to
board level (Developing a career in HR)
Standards framing the development of thinking performers
Organisation: 712
Performance: 305
Change: 183
Employee : 222
Well-being: 5
Conflict: 25
Employee Support: 1
Stress: 8
Strike: 2
Management Support: 3
Justice: 4
Job
Satisfaction: 0
Welfare: 3
Can the concept of
thinking
performer …….
…help HR practitioners reclaim a space
for the employee champion, thereby
redressing the imbalance?
…reinvigorate critically reflective HR
practice?