HRBP Qualities

The qualities that are foundational to effective HRBP practices

The author owns the image publishing rights

[HRBP: Human Resource Business Partner; BP: Business Partner]

The 2022 HRBP Report summarizes my research findings of HRBP interviews conducted from 2020 to 2021. In it, I share:

• Description of the function
• Seven success factors
• Challenges related to the role
• Insights into managing HRBP teams
• Skills and qualities

For this post, I hesitate to share HRBP qualities. Qualities are abstract. They don’t provide much insight into the needed behaviors to succeed at working with BPs. Moreover, they aren’t unique to HRBPs.

However, they are the foundation of HRBP guiding principles, beliefs about the work, and specific practices (including needed knowledge and skills). Their strength is in the stories that exemplify how HRBPs apply them.

I created the following image for the forthcoming second edition of my book, Nine Practices of 21st Century Leadership. I thought the illustration effectively describes how qualities relate to the other levels.

The iceberg illustrates that what’s below the surface isn’t obvious or easily identified by observing behaviors. It also conveys…