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HR Business Partner (HRBP) Job Description
HRBP meaning and HR business partner job description: duties, skills, qualifications and how the role fits an HR operating model. Ready to adapt.
The role in brief
An HR business partner (HRBP) is a senior HR professional assigned to a business unit or leadership team, who advises its leaders on people decisions so that HR work supports the unit's goals. HRBP means HR business partner. The role comes from the business partnering model conceived by Dave Ulrich in the late 1990s, often run as a "three-legged stool" of HR business partners, centres of expertise and HR shared services. An HRBP spends most of their time on organisation design, workforce planning, talent, performance and employee relations for their client group, and pulls in specialists and shared services for the rest.
- Act as the main HR adviser to the leadership team of an assigned business unit, function or region
- Turn the unit's business plan into a people plan covering structure, headcount, skills, hiring and development
- Advise managers on organisation design, restructures and change, and plan the people side of each change
- Lead talent reviews, succession planning and performance calibration for the client group
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Applying for a role like this? Practise the assessment free →Responsibilities
- Act as the main HR adviser to the leadership team of an assigned business unit, function or region
- Turn the unit's business plan into a people plan covering structure, headcount, skills, hiring and development
- Advise managers on organisation design, restructures and change, and plan the people side of each change
- Lead talent reviews, succession planning and performance calibration for the client group
- Coach managers on difficult people issues and handle complex employee relations cases with the employee relations team and legal advisers
- Use HR data such as attrition, absence, engagement and hiring metrics to spot problems early and recommend action
- Work with centres of expertise on reward, learning, talent acquisition and inclusion, and with HR shared services on day-to-day HR administration
- Make sure people practices in the client group follow company policy and the employment law of each country involved
Required skills
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Nice to have
Qualifications
- 1Degree in human resources, business, psychology or a related field, or equivalent experience
- 2Several years of generalist HR experience, including employee relations casework
- 3Experience advising managers or a leadership team directly
- 4Professional HR qualification or certification preferred in many markets, such as CIPD in the UK and SHRM or HRCI in the US
Work environment
Work environment
Career growth
HRBPs move to senior HRBP or lead HRBP roles, head of HR for a division, HR director and eventually CHRO. Some specialise in a centre of expertise such as reward or organisation development.
Common questions
What does HRBP mean?
HRBP stands for HR business partner (human resources business partner): an HR professional who works alongside a business unit's leaders and advises them on people decisions that affect the unit's results.
What does an HR business partner do day to day?
Typical days mix leadership meetings, workforce and organisation planning, talent and performance reviews, coaching managers through people issues, handling escalated employee relations cases and reviewing HR data with the leaders they support.
What is the difference between an HRBP and an HR generalist or HR manager?
An HR generalist handles a broad range of operational HR tasks. An HR manager usually runs HR for a site or a small company. An HRBP is aligned to a specific client group and spends more time on advice and planning, relying on shared services and specialists for transactional work. In small companies one person may do all three.
Where does the HR business partner model come from?
The CIPD traces it to Dave Ulrich's work in the late 1990s. A common version is the three-legged stool: HR shared services for transactional work, centres of expertise for specialist areas, and business partners embedded with the business. The CIPD also notes that a business partnering mindset matters more than the job title.
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