Reimagining HR Business
Partnering
REDESIGNING A GLOBAL HR OPERATING MODEL TO ENABLE HR BUSINESS PARTNERS TO BECOME TRUE STRATEGIC PARTNERS
For years, HR Business Partners had been recognised as trusted partners to the business. Yet despite their reputation, many were spending the majority of their time responding to operational issues rather than shaping strategic decisions.
In a global financial services organisation employing around 60,000 colleagues across 3 jurisdictions, this had become increasingly unsustainable.
The People Function faced growing commercial pressure to reduce costs while providing greater strategic value to the business. At the same time, accountability across HR Business Partners, Centres of Expertise and Shared Services had become blurred, creating duplication, inconsistent service delivery and frustration for both HR teams and business leaders.
The ambition was ambitious but clear:
Create an HR Business Partnering model where HRBPs spent the majority of their time helping leaders solve business problems, not managing day-to-day operational activity.
Achieving that ambition would require much more than redesigning HR Business Partner roles.It meant redesigning how the entire People Function worked together.
UNDERSTANDING WHERE VALUE WAS BEING LOST
The programme began by taking an evidence-based view of how work actually flowed across the People Function.
Working alongside two HR Directors, HR Business Partners and leaders from every Centre of Expertise, I led a series of discovery workshops to understand demand, identify duplication and challenge long-standing assumptions about who should do what.
These conversations quickly highlighted a common issue.
HR Business Partners had gradually become the point of escalation for almost everything. Activities that should have sat elsewhere within the People Function had slowly migrated into HRBP roles over time, leaving little capacity for strategic partnering.
Rather than asking how HR Business Partners could simply become more strategic, we asked a more fundamental question:
What work should HR Business Partners stop doing?
That shift changed the direction of the programme.
DESIGNING A DIFFERENT OPERATING MODEL
The future model was built around clearer accountability across the People Function.
Together we redesigned how work flowed between HR Business Partners, Centres of Expertise and Shared Services, ensuring activities were delivered by the teams best equipped to provide them.
The redesigned operating model:
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Clarified ownership across the People Function;
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Reduced duplication of activity;
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Increased specialist support where it added most value;
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Created greater capacity for strategic partnering;
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Defined the future commercial, consulting and organisational capabilities expected of HR Business Partners.
One of the programme’s most innovative outcomes was the introduction of a permanently funded Problem Solving Pool.
Rather than creating another specialist team, this established an agile internal consulting capability that could be deployed to the organisation’s highest-priority business challenges, including Organisation Design, Strategic Workforce Planning, Culture Transformation and large-scale change programmes.
The model delivered two important benefits.
Firstly, it gave the organisation immediate access to specialist capability without permanently increasing headcount.
Secondly, it created a structured development pathway for future HR Business Partners, allowing colleagues to build consulting, commercial and transformation experience before progressing into senior partnering roles.
TURNING DESIGN INTO DELIVERY
Unlike many operating model programmes, the work did not finish when the future design had been agreed.
Over the following twelve months, I led the implementation of the new model, working closely with senior stakeholders to manage organisational change, navigate differing perspectives and build confidence across the leadership team.
Not every decision was straightforward.
Reducing duplication within Centres of Expertise inevitably meant difficult conversations about organisational structure, capability and investment priorities.
By grounding those discussions in evidence and involving leaders throughout the design process, resistance gradually became ownership.
The operating model was not imposed on the organisation.It was built with it.
The operating model was not imposed on the organisation.
It was built with it.
Results
Twelve months after the programme began, the redesigned operating model had fundamentally changed how the People Function partnered with the business.
The programme delivered:
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A fully implemented HR Business Partnering operating model across a global organisation employing approximately 60,000 colleagues.
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An operating model enabling HR Business Partners to spend around 80% of their time on strategic business partnering and 20% supporting operational activity.
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Reduced organisational cost through targeted redesign of the People Function while increasing strategic capacity where it created greatest value.
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A new Problem Solving Pool providing flexible specialist expertise while strengthening succession planning for future HR Business Partners.
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Clear capability frameworks, role accountabilities and career pathways supporting long-term workforce planning.
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Strong executive alignment around a sustainable operating model designed to support future organisational growth and transformation.
Perhaps the programme’s greatest achievement was changing how senior leaders thought about Business Partnering.