1 -The CEO of Mighty
Telecommunications, Sharon Wentworth, meets with the new VP of HR, Thomas
Brody. Sharon points out to Thomas that many administrative HR functions have
been automated or outsourced in the last two years. She wants HR to bring more
value to the business and asks Thomas to transform the HR department. She asks
Thomas to begin by working with the sales department. After the meeting, Thomas
decides to develop a highly skilled team of strategic partners (SPs) who will
build strategic business partner relationships with the company’s business leaders.
He realizes he will have to coach this new team to success and begins by
instructing them on the first steps in building a strategic relationship.
One of Thomas’s new
SPs, Karen Johnson, catches on quickly and is selected as the first person to
practice the techniques she has learned by building a partnership with the
sales department. Her ultimate goal is to consult with sales leaders to uncover
ways she can help them increase sales revenue. Eager to begin, Karen sets up a
meeting with a high-performing sales operations manager, Jacob Reynolds, who
was referred to her by a friend in sales. She begins by asking questions about
the business goals of the department, but he isn’t able to articulate what
those are. His discussion is mostly tactical in nature.
Karen quickly realizes
that she has made a major mistake. She has not identified the true client,
someone who can articulate the department’s business goals and with whom she
can build a long-term partnership. She consults with Thomas, who quickly identifies
Wendy Harris, the VP of sales, as her true client. Thomas talks with Wendy
about Karen’s role and the HR department’s new focus, and arranges a meeting
between Karen and Wendy.
Question 1: What are
Karen’s challenges and how can she be most successful?
2-
Karen successfully
builds a trusted partnership with the sales department, so her techniques are
replicated by other SPs with the VP of customer service, VP of IT, VP of
procurement and VP of marketing. The CEO’s executive team begins telling the CEO
how impressed they are with the “new HR” and the value the SPs have
brought to their divisions. As a result, the CEO asks Thomas to attend the next
planning meeting to determine the business model and strategy for the
organization over the next several years.
Question 1: How should
the VP of HR prepare?
Question 2: What
skills does he need to participate in the executive team meeting?
Question 3. Develop a
roadmap of a business model and strategy for the organization that Thomas might
present to the executive team.
3-
Over the next year,
Thomas will work with the executive team to further define the problems and
opportunities and the corresponding people initiatives. He will help create a
vision, mission and goals for the company’s new business model. This time
period will be ambiguous, but in the end, he will have partnered with the
executive team to devise a set of people initiatives that support the business
plan. Each initiative will directly link to the business strategy. At that
time, he will delegate the initiatives to his SP team. They will be in charge
of overseeing and monitoring each initiative. They will create a change
management plan, evaluate their initiative’s effectiveness and be held
accountable for its success.
Thomas wonders if his
new team is ready. He wonders what skills and competencies they must have
before assigning them these tasks; if they successfully complete these tasks,
they will earn strategic business partner status. He needs to make sure that
over the next year, they are developed into high-performing SPs who are up to
the task.
Question 1: What
should he do to make sure his team is ready?
Question 2: What
skills and competencies do they need and why?
