The Miseducation of HR Business Partners (HRBP)

"What does 'HR Business Partner' or 'HRBP' really mean?

Is it a fancy way to say someone has a high-up HR job? Or is it another buzzword to show seniority in HR hierarchy, even if they're doing the same stuff?"

HRBP is important to CoLearn's success in building highly motivated and skilled teachers (Guru Juara). However, it is a highly misunderstood role. Since we are currently hiring HRBP roles and building the capabilities within the Company, it is good to talk about it so we can get the best-fit candidate for the job. If you'd like to join us in this capacity, please read this before applying!

What are we looking for in an HR Business Partner?

I have heard the term HRBP a lot throughout my career and spent significant time researching it. In a nutshell, an individual in an HRBP role spends their days solving various business problems that involve People. Specifically, at CoLearn, our HRBP roles are focused on managing our educators, the Guru Juara.

HRBP at CoLearn will be solving problems such as:

• How do we create and refine our processes to measure teachers' performance fairly?
• How do we design incentives for teachers so they get rewarded for doing what's best for our students?
• How do we make sure teachers' workload is manageable and even while meeting the business needs?
• What are the channels to recruit teachers? Online vs offline?
• And more exciting problems to solve.

From this angle, it sounds like it would be good for every person in the HR Department to be HRBP. While it sounds like a good idea, the fact is that much work in HR is functional which is essential for the running of any company. It is about following HR best practices rather than strategizing based on specific business needs. With that, I want to debunk one very common misconception about HRBP. It's not a higher level of HR. It's just a type of HR role within the HR organization.

Misconception #1: It's a Consultant Role

If you imagine yourself as an HRBP observing and crunching data to provide insights and the best possible solution for Management to pursue, you'll be mistaken.

At CoLearn, we view HRBP as a true problem solver involved in prioritizing problems to be solved, identifying root causes, and coordinating and executing the solutions. It's challenging but very rewarding. Of course, you will have the support of the Teacher Leadership team and HR to be successful which is why it is important that you have a very strong ability to communicate and take the initiative to coordinate multiple parties with different priorities.

It is also an exciting chance to do some travelling to meet our teacher community around the country regularly!

Misconception #2: Focused Solely on Employee Relations

While HRBPs handle some employee relations matters, this is only one aspect of their role. We believe that CoLearn's ability to keep refining our HR processes and policies through continuous feedback is the most effective way to manage employee relations.

For example, early detection of uneven workload will reduce our need to address concerns about unfair workload. We are continually refining our early detection of in-class performance in order to provide coaching support as early as possible to help bring up teachers' performance.

When our R&D Team decides that we must correct our teaching method, do you know if the changes were communicated effectively? Are the changes reflected in the performance measurement? If so, when should it count? What may seem a simple change in how we teach, we must do everything we can to ensure that these changes are deployed properly so that no one is left behind.

If you think this is an exciting challenge, please consider and apply to the available roles.

Misconception #3: No Need for Business Acumen

Strong knowledge and experience in HR best practices are required but insufficient to succeed in these roles. As HRBP, because you will be coordinating with various stakeholders, you also need to understand the business well, particularly the cost structure and, most importantly, how we teach and teach well.

We do not expect a new hire to have a good understanding of both business and pedagogy. However, a strong desire and ability to learn quickly are required.

HRBP at CoLearn is an exciting role to grow your career in HR and Education. If at the end of this article, you are more excited about the opportunity than before you read this, you may be what we are looking for. Apply here!