HR Business Partner at Swedco

HR Business Partner at Swedco



HR Business Partner at Swedco

Introduction

The globalization of businesses has provided employees with the ability to work effectively across borders, which has become increasingly critical for the success of the business. It is important for the individuals and organizations to understand the concept of cross-culture, and the organization helps employees to eliminate their misunderstanding, which could harm the business and maximize the best attributes each business and nation have to offer.

The studies have provided sufficient evidence that there are cultural differences that impact the efficiency of a business in various aspects, such as the quality of communication between the staff and management is affected. In addition to that, commitment and motivation of employees, and different management styles adopted by employers based on their respective culture (Beardwell, 2010, Pp. 111-176).

Human resource is defined as the total skills, talent, aptitudes, abilities, and knowledge of an organization's work force and value approaches of an individual involved in routine interaction of organization. Human resources create diversified and multidimensional environment. People could no longer work or live in an insular marketplace; they all are part of globalization and global competition. Organization needs to move towards diversification and openness. Managing and dealing with this diversified workforce seemed to be difficult. On these bases, Human Resource Management becomes inherent part of management.

The model was first put forward by Dave Ulrich, a leading HR academic, in 1997. The idea revolved around reorganising the HR function around three main pillars - a shared service centre, centres of excellence, and strategic partners.

The initial aim of the model has barely changed over the years. In the UK, one of the main drivers of change has been cost efficiency, with a Shared Service Centre providing low-cost HR administration (Armstrong, 2006, Pp. 90-186).

In the US - and increasingly today in the UK - the aim has also been to adapt HR to modern business practices - i.e. to make HR fitter and stronger. This implies that HR is growing in importance, and as a result must be more strategic. The result of this was the creation of HR Business Partners who worked closely with line managers and departments to provide relevant HR delivery. By working more closely with line managers, HR are better able to understand their organisation and the challenges that it faces and therefore can deliver people activities that enable the business rather than merely support it (Delery, 1996, Pp. 802-835).

Ulrich originally broke the model down into four roles:

Strategic partners

Administrative Experts (Shared Services)

Employee Champions

Change Agents

Although over the years, Ulrich has modified the model, the basic idea behind the model has remained the same - to rebuild HR in order to face modern competitive business challenges, while making it more cost-efficient and accountable.

HR Partners at Swedco

The company is involved in practices that are handled by people themselves, rather than their direct supervisors. In fact, there is no direct translation of the work supervisor in Swedish. In addition, managers at the head quarter of ...