We Partner Business, We Add Value

by Jahed · Published June 8, 2017 · Updated August 9, 2017

We Partner Business, We Add Value

Noman Bin Zahiruddin
Chief Executive, talent management.
Treasurer, Bangladesh Society for Human Resources Management.
Ex-Operations HR Manager, COATS Bangladesh Ltd.
Ex-HR Manager Lafarge Surma Cement Ltd.

Very recently, I was talking to a young entrepreneur, looking for some venture capital. One of his question: “What does it take to be innovative in HR in an organization?” I got interest in the conversation and the meeting last for about three hours. I was amazed of our entrepreneurs’ transformation from a traditional business pattern to modern concepts. Truly, businesses are looking for operational excellence with high ethical standard. Most of businesses are struggling with down to the line, lack of competency and lack of understanding business. What next? “I want an excellent system which will not interrupt my development thought and moreover, operational excellence will boost my interest for business diversification and improvement of my existing process & system”. I was so happy feeling business communities’ thirst for business development and for the development of the country. A Million Dollar Question; “WHO WILL DO IT?” A Simple Answer; “WE WILL DO IT AND WE WILL PARTNER BUSINESS”.

When BSHRM Executive Committee was selecting BSHRM HR Summit 2017 theme, this story was striking in my mind. How could we be able to set our minds towards sustainable business and how HR professionals are really contributing to business? We wanted to enlighten our inner spirit, energy for change, defining HR role to confirm excellent performance of the organization. Very nicely, we explored for best title among ourselves. Finally, we selected “HR Value Proposition for Business” as Summit theme.

Up to early 80’s HR professionals’ performances were evaluated on hypothesis. In between 80’s to 90’s transformation took place. Business communities, Academician and HR practitioner were thinking of evaluating HR contribution towards business and setting of measurable KPIs for evaluation. Return on investment and Payback period are mostly known as financial parameter of a profit making enterprise. In modern days, HR performances are measured by similar parameters, like; Cost to the Company (CTC), Training ROI, Engagement percentage score and Percentage of training hour verses yearly working hours. In the Industrial Relation (IR) context, some of the scholars may thinking of “Number of working days without any IR unrest”. You may relate the same with one of the Safety KPI; Number of working days without any Accident” or “Safe Man-hour”. All of us, love number game. We love to reflect business performance in number. Number says about value addition. No a days, HR performance is evaluated on Value Proposition.

Reference to Wayne Brokebank & Dave Ulrich; Value proposition generally outlines application of theory in the operational level, where it emphasizes on five factors;

• Assuring HR professionalism

Most of us we do not do, any analysis on market demography. To say easily, very few HR professional talks about market, its nature and dynamics. How many of us really think about globalization and its impact on my organization? The answer is “Very few of us”. As long as we would not participating in business realities, real value proposition would be beyond our thinking. You have to be sincere towards stakeholders. Customers, suppliers and service providers are considered as external stakeholders where managers and employees are internal stakeholders. Both groups have stake on your business. You are hired to cater them and to maximize their share proposition. Unfortunately, most of the HR personnel consider, HR services jobs as Core HR job. Please learn which jobs will really add value to your organization. Hiring group of contractual workers, payment of wages, catering food and transportation are non-value adding and HR services/admin typed jobs. Rather, your initiatives for; improving productivity of those contractual workers, inspiring them for machine maintenance for good performance will increase the profitability of your organization. That is Value Addition. Try to make a performance driven culture in your organization. Set such a system and mechanism that, individual’s performance rating will determine his/her rate of yearly increment. Many a times, we proudly say, “We are HR Professional”. Nevertheless, very few of us talks about HR competencies & roles. You cannot bake professionalism in the bakery; you need to build it up day by day with the flavor of your skill set and competencies. Know your role, identify your lack of competencies and prepare yourself.

On the above section, I tried to illustrate five factors, which are emphasizing on Value Proposition.

Definition 01; “HR business partners are HR professionals who work closely with the senior leaders in order to develop an HR agenda that closely supports the goals of the organization.”

Definition 02; “The HR business partner (HRBP) position is responsible for aligning business objectives with employees and management in designated business units. The position serves as a consultant to management on human resource-related issues. The successful HRBP acts as an employee champion & change agent.”

Like above, you will find hundreds of definition in different websites, journals, publications, and books written by scholars. As long as you trust on value proposition, you will be able to play HRBP role. Today numbers of structured organizations made the transformation from old-fashioned structure to contemporary HR infrastructure. This is not change of designation and title of the job. It is shift of entire level of understanding. When #01 definition says HR professional closely work with senior leaders. It means HR professional will work in strategic level to develop business objectives. Like an expert consultant, we have to opine on best-fit option, which will be sustainable and will give optimum result.

Currently the country is enjoying “Population Dividend” with 45% of active and earning workforce. If we could not maintain Population Dividend exactly with the right plan, it may turned to “Population Burden”. We have achieved UN Millennium Development Goals; MDG and successfully addressed extreme poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. Now, we are working on Sustainable Development Goals; SDG. Goal #08 & #09 are Economic Growth and Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure. 16 million Bangladeshis are generating $15 billion and contributing directly towards nation building. The present Govt. is enhancing development by a remarkable collaboration like; “Public Private Partnership” a funding model for a public infrastructure project. By 2030 Bangladesh need to achieve SDG, while Govt. is aiming to put its status as Middle-income country by 2020. In coming days Bangladesh will gear its’ fullest thirst for economic development.

My friends buckle your belt, fold your sleeves and be ready for facing upcoming economic challenges.

Let us make it happen and let us collaborate Bangladesh development.

We Partner Business, We Add Value