ULRICH
ULRICH’S STRATEGIC PARTNER MODEL OF HRM
WHAT IS IT?
David Ulrich’s ‘business partner’ model is a HRM model that is most favoured to support a transition from the functional HR orientation to a partnership orientation. The former means that HR department is primarily involved in administering policies while the latter engages the HR professional in Strategic decisions that impact on organizational design and performance.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Ulrich’s model presents a framework with four key roles that HR professionals must accomplish in order to add the greatest value to the organization
“Insert picture”
The two axes represent focus and activities. It explains that HR professionals must focus on both the strategic and the operational for long and short term goals and that the activities range from managing processes to managing people and produce four principal role. These two axes delineate to four principal roles
1. Strategic Partner
2. Change Agent
3. Administrative Expert
4. Employee Champion
Do HR Professionals Prefer Certain Leadership Roles? As a Strategic Partner, HR professionals work with other managers to formulate and execute strategy whilst as a Change Agent they facilitate transformation and significant change. A later variant of the model integrates the Change Agent role into the Strategic Partner role and gives greater emphasis to HR professionals playing leadership roles. This is a highly attractive role to many HR practitioners. It is possible that the role of the strategic business partners attracts more attention due to the opportunity to take on work with managers and leaders, or perhaps as members of a management team.
The Administrative role allows for processes that re-engineer the organization towards great efficiency while the Employee Champion encourages listening to employees and providing resources for employees. However, research shows that very few HR practitioners would consider these their primary roles. (Guest and King 2004;
WHAT IS IT?
David Ulrich’s ‘business partner’ model is a HRM model that is most favoured to support a transition from the functional HR orientation to a partnership orientation. The former means that HR department is primarily involved in administering policies while the latter engages the HR professional in Strategic decisions that impact on organizational design and performance.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Ulrich’s model presents a framework with four key roles that HR professionals must accomplish in order to add the greatest value to the organization
“Insert picture”
The two axes represent focus and activities. It explains that HR professionals must focus on both the strategic and the operational for long and short term goals and that the activities range from managing processes to managing people and produce four principal role. These two axes delineate to four principal roles
1. Strategic Partner
2. Change Agent
3. Administrative Expert
4. Employee Champion
Do HR Professionals Prefer Certain Leadership Roles? As a Strategic Partner, HR professionals work with other managers to formulate and execute strategy whilst as a Change Agent they facilitate transformation and significant change. A later variant of the model integrates the Change Agent role into the Strategic Partner role and gives greater emphasis to HR professionals playing leadership roles. This is a highly attractive role to many HR practitioners. It is possible that the role of the strategic business partners attracts more attention due to the opportunity to take on work with managers and leaders, or perhaps as members of a management team.
The Administrative role allows for processes that re-engineer the organization towards great efficiency while the Employee Champion encourages listening to employees and providing resources for employees. However, research shows that very few HR practitioners would consider these their primary roles. (Guest and King 2004;