Making the move to HR Manager

The HRBP "title" was indeed invented, several years ago now, to replace HR Officer and/or HR Manager in many businesses to avoid HR "interference" through their "management" titles upsetting poor hard-done-by line managers authoritarian games with their "peasantry" of subordinates.... In some workplaces the same still applying, but in most the roles and duties of HRM and HRBP are pretty much interchangeable as Robey suggests.

What remains quite common, regrettably, is the lack of understanding (or possibly interest) regarding HR qualifications and practice, so many workplaces simply want to bring in what they perceive as a "one size fits all" HR manager/BP who has previously held that role, regardless of qualification or really meaningful experience. As can be repeatedly read on these threads, that applies all the way from HR admin' roles upwards; getting the "next step up" is frequently a catch 22, so it can be necessary to either step back in pay or company size to get the necessary "title" and then, having gained the badge, step back up in size, pay and company-status later.

What the answer is I don't know (or rather, I do, it's to become a registered profession where no-one gets to call themselves an "HR Professional" without registration, just as with Solicitors, Chartered Accountants, or Gas-fitters) but that requires a shift of focus many people seem not to want....for some reason). For now, however, the answer remains that often some maneuvering must be done to find the right role to move upward from.

That (rather negative) view given however, those roles are out there for the finding, and hopefully one of the (few) positives of the current situation will be that HR, and its flexible and efficient practices determining "how" people should be managed to maximise their contributions, might at last be becoming recognised as more than a box-ticking placement exercise by company Strategic Managements. So we might (with a little prodding from the right people) at last see HR as a whole recognised as being a true, strategic, "Business Partner" and not just an alternative role for "payroll" or "meeting note-taker".

P

The HRBP "title" was indeed invented, several years ago now, to replace HR Officer and/or HR Manager in many businesses to avoid HR "interference" through their "management" titles upsetting poor hard-done-by line managers authoritarian games with their "peasantry" of subordinates.... In some workplaces the same still applying, but in most the roles and duties of HRM and HRBP are pretty much interchangeable as Robey suggests.

What remains quite common, regrettably, is the lack of understanding (or possibly interest) regarding HR qualifications and practice, so many workplaces simply want to bring in what they perceive as a "one size fits all" HR manager/BP who has previously held that role, regardless of qualification or really meaningful experience. As can be repeatedly read on these threads, that applies all the way from HR admin' roles upwards; getting the "next step up" is frequently a catch 22, so it can be necessary to either step back in pay or company size to get the necessary "title" and then, having gained the badge, step back up in size, pay and company-status later.

What the answer is I don't know (or rather, I do, it's to become a registered profession where no-one gets to call themselves an "HR Professional" without registration, just as with Solicitors, Chartered Accountants, or Gas-fitters) but that requires a shift of focus many people seem not to want....for some reason). For now, however, the answer remains that often some maneuvering must be done to find the right role to move upward from.

That (rather negative) view given however, those roles are out there for the finding, and hopefully one of the (few) positives of the current situation will be that HR, and its flexible and efficient practices determining "how" people should be managed to maximise their contributions, might at last be becoming recognised as more than a box-ticking placement exercise by company Strategic Managements. So we might (with a little prodding from the right people) at last see HR as a whole recognised as being a true, strategic, "Business Partner" and not just an alternative role for "payroll" or "meeting note-taker".

P