In my opinion (and I'm new to this world!) it hinges on three things:

1. Trust from the organisation.
2. The organisation actually wanting a bsusiness partner and taking what people professionals can do seriously.
3. The people proferssional actually understanding the business.

I think 3 was why I was successful in securing my first two pure HR jobs over candidates with good paper qualifications, I had extensive experience of my sector in a management role.

Hmm, this may be outside of the scope of your programme but I think a key factor is understanding cultural priorities and levers and some of this is ourselves as instruments in our environments. [I generalise massively below for the sake of illustration.]

For example, I worked in a small business owned by an MD. The only language he spoke was profit. He might have spared 30 seconds to listen to a risk based approach but that would be on a rare cautious day. He had no concern about reputational damage or ethics. He was fully prepared to go right to the extent of the law and in some cases beyond to save money or make money. It would have taken a very commercially minded and frankly unethical HR practitioner to execute all of his instructions.

In charities and not for profit sectors, particularly those with a social purpose, often the leaders are more interested in ethics and "common good". This can lead to an inconsistent or even paternal approach but there is more focus on being kind or minimising perceived harmful actions. Leaders in these environments can often be persuaded to decisions which are more focussed on individuals than organisations. Again, the HR roles in these places are probably more suited to those with this focus.

Having worked in a few different sectors over the years I've improved in observing what are the levers to test and which are not likely to have any impact. I've also made career decisions much more consciously about the roles and environments which suit me better and put me less in conflict with my own values and ethics.

In reply to Gemma:

I like your view on the charity/NfP sector, Gemma. The problem I am increasingly finding here is that hesitation to take action when needed because it might upset someone comes back to haunt the organisation in a big way further down the line.

The bulk of my workload for the last nine months has related to cases where some robust guidance and possibly short service dismissals would have saved a vast amount of management time and money paid to solicitors.

As an experienced HRBP, I think there are different styles of business partnering. It's not all about knowledge of HR policies and data packs. It is about presence, contracting, coaching and show don't tell. You are doing a good job as an HRBP but it can be hard to translate what you do when writing application forms.

In reply to Matthew:

Thanks Matthew, yes that can be a challenge for NFPs. I give the other leaders in my organisation a mini options appraisal for the decisions they find hard and they are getting better at weighing up all of the factors. I think they often find it trickiest when it's the "least worst option" scenario (i.e. one where no-one "wins) but sometimes even putting that label on it can help them.