HR Transformation - Business Partnering

What did our client want to achieve?

Our client a blue-chip financial services company was in the process of transforming the Human Resources function to support the business strategy more closely and deliver value added services to the business leaders. The senior leaders of HR recognised that many of the HR professionals required support and skill development to help them adapt and function at a value added level in the new world of HR. In particular they wanted to help clear up the ambiguity, which was associated with the term Business Partner and provide delegates with a practical toolkit they could readily apply back in the real world, to have a direct impact with their business leaders.

What did our client achieve?

Due to the scale of this programme with in excess of 200 delegates attending the programme, we were able to invest with our client in some thorough evaluation methods, including immediate post programme reviews, pre and post knowledge questionnaires and pre and post behavioural questionnaires measured 3 months after the programme.

• The overall shift in the knowledge results was; pre-course 49% to post-course 82%
• The overall shift in the behavioural results was; pre-course 59% to post-course 71%
• For the range of questions across the knowledge dimension, there was a shift towards the right answer from pre-course lows of 6% to post-course highs of 99%
• For the range of practiced skill levels across the behaviour dimension, there was a shift towards “always” as a practiced skill level from pre-course lows of 35% to post-course highs of 82%

The comments in the delegate feedback below support this material and significant shift in learning.

So, how did we achieve this?

Strategis designed what looked like a 2-day classroom based programme, however there were some key elements within this programme, which helped us deliver on our concept: "reality learning". All of the facilitators for all of the programmes had been highly successful HR Business Partners in blue-chip organisations. This enabled them to share real stories with the delegates when explaining key concepts, models and techniques hence, adding to the credibility and applicability of the tools. This also injected humour and made the learning memorable.

In addition to this delegates were required to complete real work during the programme, which they would implement on their return to the office, including a communication or presentation, which could be used to market the services of Human Resources.

Finally real case studies were used in exercises, which facilitated the learning process enabling each delegate to identify with the subject matter quickly.