'Being strategic'
by Andrew Mayo

It is now ten years since Professor Dave Ulrich published his Human Resource Champions. In it, he introduced the role of 'strategic business partner', which captured the imagination of a function that has always had an inferiority and 'unloved' complex. A process of so-called 'transformation continues today, with the aim of providing more time and space to be 'strategic'.

Nevertheless, continuing surveys show that HR struggles with this. This is surely no surprise, nor anything to feel bad about per se. After all, line managers don't spend all their time 'being strategic'- they get on. with the daily job, working towards their objectives and solving problems.

The essence of a support department is administration, advice and problem-solving, and everyone wants those things done efficiently and accurately. However, HR has a lot of specialist knowledge — about organisations, teams and people — that it can also apply in partnership with managers. I much prefer such contributions to be labelled 'value-adding' than 'strategic', and, naturally, any professional would like to find as much time as possible to be working on these.

In L&D, the core of our work is the other way round. We need efficient administrative back-up but the essence of our daily work, if we are doing it effectively, is in adding value - by increasing the capability of people and teams to do their work. Our challenge is to measure how well we are doing that, which is not easy, but is necessary. (I have argued that returns on training investments are often measurable changes in non-financial areas of value, and it is a business judgment whether the change achieved is justified by the cost.)

So does the term 'strategic partner' have any special meaning for training professionals?

Strategy is about making decisions - what we will do and what we will not do, to achieve goals. For a support function, it has two strands. The first is what our portfolio of work will be. Every support function is guilty from time to time of having its own agenda, and this certainly applies to training. The way to put a support strategy together is not to describe how to get to the perfect 'best practice' professional function - and then look for 'alignments' with the business strategy. We should start with the business and its objectives (and problems) and see how we will use our professional skills to help.

This strand is itself in two parts - one is the ongoing foundation of activities that support our business, which does not change too much year to year. Thus we have activities that support the organisational values, build the core competences and skills needed, help people in transitions through the organisation, provide personal development options, and so on. In addition, each year, we should add a set of specific, proactive or reactive, activities that are focused on operational needs and derived from discussions with managers on how we can help them achieve their objectives.

The second strand to our strategy is the way in which we will deliver the portfolio. This means our whole philosophy of achieving learning and how it will be resourced. It includes many questions such as 'what roles will line managers and individuals themselves have?', 'what partners should we work with?', 'what supporting systems do we need?' and so on.

So 'being strategic' is getting all of this right-ensuring we are doing the 'right things' and doing them in the best way. It means we keep close to what is happening in our business and can respond readily to new needs. But once we have our portfolio, we don't need to ask about whether we are being strategic — we get on and implement it and make sure it is being done effectively.

I am a judge on one of the Training Excellence Awards and this year, more than any before, I have been really impressed with many initiatives, so clearly driven by a business priority, creatively designed and delivered in partnership with line managers. It is no surprise that they have been able to show measurable returns, because of the clarity of what they set out to achieve. Whether we call it strategic partnering or not, it is professionals delivering value to their organisation - and that's something to be proud of.

This article was published in the September 2007 issue of Training Journal and is reproduced with kind permission. If you would like any further information please contact the author via this page.