HR is the alter ego of the shareholder
Jaizal Kamar bin Jalaludin, HR Director at Carrefour Malaysia and Singapore argues that business partnering is one of those areas that truly defines the purpose of HR in any organisation. However, before we can look at how we engineer this, we need to get the right perspective of HR’s role.

“In any startup or small organisation, the structure is simple. The owner performs various roles including HR. The key HR function is to hire and retain the best people to help grow the business. This simplicity however, is somehow lost in larger enterprises where owners are usually shareholders, who don’t spend time in the business other than in board meetings or at AGMs. So, if we get back to basics, I view HR as the alter ego of the shareholder and I believe that amongst all functions, HR actually represents the interest of the shareholders in getting the business to perform to their expectation,” explained Jaizal.
Jaizal makes the argument that HR is more than an equal partner to the business.

Business needs to agree on one thing – they need to view the role that HR plays as central to the business. Management support is absolutely critical in this regard. If the HR Director is not able to gain the trust and confidence of both the Chief Executive and the Board, this impacts the role HR plays and any initiative embarked on.

Frequently, we hear leaders lament the slow, inflexible and often inconsistent nature of HR. It explains why business can be seen to not take HR seriously and why there is a reputation issue at stake.

Speed of execution is key
Jaizal commented that, “HR must have credibility in delivery – this I cannot stress enough. If I were an entrepreneur about to partner someone with a poor track record of execution, I would be very concerned. Perhaps I may not even proceed with the partnership. If a poor track record exists, the focus must be on building credibility before anything else. Get the right people on board, build effective processes and infrastructure and begin showing the results to the business. Do it fast because speed of execution is of the essence. Then we can start talking about strategic stuff and how to drive business forward.”

ABOVE : JAIZAL KAMAR JALALUDIN

"HR is no longer the exclusive domain of the HR practitioner. We need to be enablers by empowering and coaching the business to perform HR activities correctly – this is where our value lies." - Jaizal Jalaludin

The hallmark of a potent and capable HR professional? The intellectual horsepower to grasp business fundamentals and the ability to challenge outdated processes and business perceptions. Such a professional would also possess a strong awareness of market and industry issues and a clear grasp of financial and operational matters. If organisations however, are motivated by other concerns in their search for the best talent to run HR, it will prove to be a recipe for further organisational decline, in time to come.

Waiting is not an option
We’ve heard the frequent complaint that HR makes about not being at the table. Yet, time after time, we see and hear how successful HR leaders achieve this – you do not get invited to the table. You put your hand up and make a stand for it. You work at it and you prove that you ought to be there at the table. What you don’t do is wait to get an invite or worst still, act as if it is your birth-right.

Yet, this is a hard road to travel on. For many, there is a struggle to drive value for the strategic work they are engaged in as they stay mired in transactional activity. There are however, solutions to this challenge.

A prerequisite is to acknowledge that the transactional work HR performs is one that is frequently taken for granted. Let’s get one thing straight– generally no one bothers with this type of work until something goes wrong, in which case, they will come straight for HR. There is no recognition for work well done, only pain and finger pointing when the work is not done well. Yet, if we spend our finite time and resource on these activities, we will not be able to work on the things that truly matter.

As Jaizal clarifies, “We need to be clear about what we should do versus what we can do or face being caught in a vicious never-ending cycle of tedium. We need to ask the question – are these activities still needed by business and do they indeed need to be performed by HR? HR is no longer the exclusive domain of the HR practitioner. We need to be enablers by empowering and coaching the business to perform HR activities correctly – this is where our value lies.”

The growth in outsourcing, shared services and software as a service (SaaS) however, provide HR with great opportunities to park transactional activities here. This is a viable solution as research shows that it leads to better service, less pressure on headcount and reduced cost. In fact, one may even question whether other core HR functions could be outsourced and consequently, whether there is a need to maintain a HR department thereafter.

Jaizal believes that there are two schools of thought here. The first school of thought, he explains, is that the HR function is a prerequisite but not necessarily one that needs to reside in-house. The other belief is that only an in-house HR team truly understands real business issues and the aspiration of its employees.

“I’m somewhere in-between. If outsourcing/shared services can lead to better services than in-house HR, then surely, why not? But it’s got to make business sense. The cost must be right, the quality must be better than the alternative and it must represent the interests of both enterprise and employee. Even then, we still need the HR business partners to manage and deliver these services in accordance with their business requirements,” Jaizal argues.

Does size matter?
Some would argue that employing the business partner model necessitates a suitable team size to ensure adequate time and effort be split between the generalist duties as well as the strategic planning required. But what is a suitable size?

HR, like other departments, is not immune to organisational challenges such as cost and efficiency. HR team size is, very often, one of those items scrutinised by management. Jaizal believes that there is no magic number – it depends very much on the HR operating model and the degree of automation embraced.

Jaizal says, “We need to be careful when using ratios to compare one company with another - processes might be entirely different e.g. one might have invested in a proper HRIS system whereas the other might not have, thus resulting in a bigger team. Before any business shoots itself in the foot by chopping HR headcount, HR should provide a true picture of the operating landscape. Best practice dictates an effective HR operating model consists of generalist, specialist and shared services.”

Does knowing the reason for going down the business partnering model help in successful partnering? Jaizal says yes. “Both parties do need to know what they’re looking for, before embarking on this venture because it requires investment in terms of paradigm shift, cost and process re-engineering. Both parties need to define what a successful partnership looks like and this will be influenced by the ‘follies’ or missed opportunities in the pre-partnership era as the cost is too high for the business. In turn, this will cause a better buy-in from both parties,” he says.

Be ready to make the change
Ultimately, for partnering to be successful, both senior leaders and HR need to recognise the impact of the initiative on the organisation as a whole. It may be one thing for leaders to push for change – it is another for HR to turn this into reality. HR will have to change how it approaches the issue as much as the line managers and the ones they manage.

The stakes are higher in today’s world, and no right-minded organisation would be foolish enough to not include HR in the business equation. Organisations seek to realise the benefits of a synergistic relationship between business and HR, yet many are not willing to let go of old ways.

HR is no exception. Jaizal adds, “HR needs to be ready to make these changes. We cannot hide behind the semantics and fluff that precede actual deliverables. HR leaders must set the path for HR managers to show their value to the business by defining the rules of engagement and continuously building the capabilities of these managers.”

We know what we need to accomplish to make this simply more than a re-labeling exercise.

Jaizal Kamar bin Jalaludin, currently the HR Director at Carrefour Malaysia and Singapore, graduated from the University of Leeds, UK with a Bachelor of Laws and started as a Management Trainee at Malaysia Airlines.

Rising to become Controller for Industrial Relations, he then took on the Industrial Relations Manager role at British American Tobacco. His most recent undertaking was Group Human Capital Director at Syarikat Prasarana Malaysia. Jaizal’s strengths include Industrial Relations, Talent Management and Compensation and Benefits.