Internal HR Consulting:Why Doesn't Your Staff Get It?

For over a decade, HR leaders have been striving to become business partners. They want to have a strategic impact on their organizations. However, many are struggling to make this transition. The primary reason for lack of progress in this endeavor is that HR analysts, the staff who carry out this mission, are still trained and reinforced in the traditional, transactional mindset. In order for the entire HR department to be considered strategic in nature, the HR analyst must learn critical consultative skills. These skills must be developed through a structured, deliberate approach. A methodical approach to developing HR staff for this role should include the following elements:

· Strategic mission for the HR department that includes consultative approaches

A consultative human resources professional is a business partner with the organization. Most human resource leaders have likely uttered one of these statements recently:

Most human resource departments still focus on the transactional parts of their job: filling vacancies, maintaining employment records, and running open enrollments. Yet, HR professionals are not being insincere when they say that they want to become more strategic and more consultative. Many organizations still need to define what it means to be “strategic” and “consultative.” Even those that have created strategic plans and defined missions have still fallen short of fully implementing the new mission due to a lack of critical skills in the area of internal consulting.

The purpose of this article is to clearly define what is meant by, “internal HR consulting.” The skills needed to transition from a “traditional” HR professional to a consultative practitioner will be explored. Finally, recommendations will be offered for organizations desiring to transform their organization and their staffs to a consultative approach.

The Cutting Edge

For the last decade, we have been asked to become strategic and consultative. Edward E. Lawler III, director of the Center for Effective Organizations at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California said, “HR people are more likely to have a seat at the table when strategy is set and decisions are made and when they translate those decisions into HR policies and practices.”[i] This puts the human resource professional in a new role. They are now expected to be problem-solvers, conflict resolvers, coaches, and liaisons with lots of organizational savvy. This expectation is a huge shift in what organizations have traditionally expected from HR.

Traditional HR professionals are those who focus on recruiting, training, pay, and industrial relations. These functions are transactional in nature and are typically measured in volume. Strategic, consultative HR professionals focus on the strategy and the culture of the organization, contributing in creative ways that impact the entire organization’s productivity and effectiveness. Consider the following table as a way of comparing the transactional HR professional with the strategic HR professional.

HR Roles Compared: Transactional vs. Strategic

It is obvious that the roles and expectations of the HR professional are evolving, and the direction is strategic rather than transactional. Public sector organizations have heard the call and have developed detailed strategic plans to direct their organizations into the future. Organizations such as the City of Charlotte, NC, the City of Rochester, NY, and Maricopa County, AZ have created and published, via IPMA,[ii] detailed strategic plans that will guide their organizations toward being strategic rather than transactional. Such plans include clear mission and vision statements and measurable departmental goals that revolve around measurable outputs. This is a great start. However, it is only the beginning for those organizations that want to create a truly strategic, consultative HR function.

What We Are Missing?

After a decade of reading about this transition, it is time for HR leaders to realize that they cannot do it alone. Many HR Directors and Administrators have figured out the difference between being transactional and strategic; however, many of their HR staff members have not. The evolution necessary for this shift will not occur until the HR staff members are adequately prepared and trained for their new role.

If the HR department wants to be seen as a business partner, the entire HR staff must understand what being a business partner means and every member of the HR department must be prepared to carry out part of the process. Internal HR consulting embodies an array of knowledge, a set of defined skills, a shift in attitudes, and a new way of thinking about HR’s role. Organizations that are successful in making this shift will educate and prepare the HR staff members to make the transition. The critical skills and strategies for helping the HR staff become more consultative are detailed below.

Critical HR Consulting Skills

A large body of information exists on the necessary competencies of an HR professional. In general, most scholars agree that the following knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes are necessary for a consultative HR practitioner to be effective.

While many HR leaders have developed these skills through years of experience and by trial and error, many of the HR staff members who support them and carry out their department’s missions have not developed these same skills and abilities.

If entire HR departments are to transition to this consultative mission, the HR staff member, the analyst, or the representative must be given an opportunity to learn these critical skills for themselves. Often they are not given the same developmental opportunities as the HR organization’s leadership and then the leadership wonders why the organization is not moving in the desired direction. This is the crux of the problem and the solution may already be obvious.

We Need to Develop HR Staff Members

The idea of HR staff development may seem obvious. However, the message staff gets while learning and performing their tasks is inconsistent and makes the transition slow, or even non-existent. Many of these messages have evolved over time and have become the cornerstones of the HR staff role.

First, HR professionals have been taught to be orderly. They are taught to keep accurate records, to complete documentation, and to maintain defensible files. While this is necessary and logical, this thinking leads the analyst to believe that all parts of the job should be treated with such order. However, being consultative often requires flexibility and creativity. Most HR departments have not fostered this deviation from tradition because they fear breaking the rules.

Second, the last two decades have been the era of the customer. Customer service programs have invaded the HR workplace and HR professionals have learned to say “yes” to customers, sometimes to the HR department’s or the customer’s peril. In the effort to be responsive and flexible, many HR professionals have heard another message: “Just do what they ask for.” By following such logic, HR is perpetuating the trend of being transactional and reactive, rather than consultative and proactive. Likewise, the drive to meet the customer’s requests has lead the customer to be dependent upon HR for solutions. So the dependency cycle continues. Being consultative means helping line managers find their own solutions. Good customer service does not mean always doing what the customer asks. Good customer service means helping the customer find answers that will solve the problem.

A recent monograph by Edward E. Lawler, III and Susan Albers Mohrman reported that more than half of HR leaders said that 40 percent of their HR employees lacked the skills to succeed in this new work role.[iii] Lawler believes this is because:

The bottom line is that very few HR professionals have prepared or are preparing themselves for their new role as strategic business partners. Yet, the rhetoric about “having a seat at the table” continues. HR leaders now must do something to fill this gap.

Developing Internal HR Consultants

In order to successfully make this transition, the organization must embark on a comprehensive and sound plan for developing and transitioning the HR staff professional to a consultative role. The goal of this effort is to develop internal consulting skills that allow analysts to move from a “transactional” mindset to one of helping client organizations achieve their organizational goals within the larger organization’s human resource system. Progressive HR departments are implementing creative measures for developing their HR professionals. The following describes six potential elements of a leading edge, internal HR consultant development program.

First, the job of the analyst must be redefined to include the consultative skills described above. This may include the redesign of the HR professional’s career path within the organization. Some organizations have considered two career paths for HR practitioners, one of the consultant and one of the transactional professional. This choice allows those traditional HR staff members to continue meeting traditional and necessary needs, supporting the day to day operations of HR, while the organization as a whole makes the transition.

In addition to defining the internal consultant’s job, the concept of “internal consulting” needs to be clearly defined in terms of the organization’s structure, mission, and function. The following questions should be clearly answered before jumping into the internal consulting business:

As a result, a “strategic plan” for the HR organization’s consulting efforts should be established, so that roles can be defined and an action plan can be established.

Training programs should provide the framework and philosophy of HR consultant development to those staff members who are expected to make the transition. The goal of these programs is to orient potential HR consultants to the concepts of internal consulting and to provide them with the opportunity to examine their own beliefs about this shift. In addition, training programs allow participants an opportunity to explore whether they are interested in taking their career in this new direction.

For organizations new to the concept of internal HR consulting, an introduction to HR consulting should be considered and should focus on the following topics and discussions:

Likewise, internal HR consultants should be given the opportunity to attend a series of developmental workshops in order to hone their consulting skills. Ideally, the organization would offer these workshops internally so that the human resources team can explore and learn the skills together. However, smaller agencies may find it necessary to send staff members to outside sources to obtain these skills. The following list of learning topics would benefit developing internal HR consultants.

The HR consultancy development program described above provides a framework for transitioning transactional HR professionals into consultative professionals. The actual implementation of such a program depends on the size of the agency and the resources available to the organization.

A strong staff development program should include the opportunity for analysts to receive feedback on their current consulting skills. A 360-degree feedback process should be used to assess their current HR skill levels, and the instrument should be tailored to reflect the consulting skills described above.

As a result of the feedback process, HR staff professionals should create individual development plans that will be used to improve their internal consulting skills. This process recognizes that individuals have their own unique developmental needs in relation to becoming more consultative. Individual development planning allows staff members to create their own learning plans. Individual development plans may be used to guide the HR staff member to reach their personal, as well as professional goals. The achievement of these plans may also be used by the HR Manager to evaluate the HR consultant’s developmental progress.

Internal HR consulting requires the HR professional to understand all processes and systems within the HR department. Job rotation is an effective method for learning these systems and processes, and job rotation also builds team cooperation and support among the HR professionals. To fully develop internal HR consulting skills among the HR staff members, organizations should implement a job rotation program. The rotation of analysts among the functional areas should occur every 18 to 24 months. The rotation may coincide with existing vacancies that occur with normal attrition. However, a commitment to job rotation will further develop the HR skills of the analysts and will provide a deeper talent pool for the organization’s HR staff. Job rotation is also an excellent method for developing bench strength among HR staff members, preparing them for future HR leadership roles.

Just Do It

Internal HR consulting is still a myth for many organizations. Without a systematic approach for moving HR staff members to a consultative skill set, the traditional, transactional, volume-focused mindset will prevail. Cutting-edge HR leaders are encouraged to develop a structured approach to help the HR staff make the shift. Don’t let the HR staff’s skill and perspective ruin the quest to “have a seat at the table.” Train them, develop them, guide them, and as a result, the HR function will truly become a strategic business partner with the organization’s leadership.

[i] Walter, Kate. HR Departments Beginning to Reinvent Themselves. IPMA News, June 2001.

[ii] Brown, Judith. Strategic Human Resources—You Can Have a Seat at the Table! IPMA HR Center Series, IPMA website, www.ipma-hr.org

[iii] Walter, Kate. HR Departments Beginning to Reinvent Themselves. IPMA News, June 2001.

Marnie E. Green is Principal Consultant and President of the Chandler, AZ-based Management Education Group. Green is a speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations optimize their talent pool. For more information about Green, call 480-705-9394 or visit www.managementeducationgroup.com

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