Written By: Mahmoud Mansi

Researchers, thinkers and practitioners have been estimating the future of work and that of human resources. In fact we as human beings always tend to look at the future and giving it more importance than the present. We as business professionals are searching for futuristic solution while we are hardly coping with today’s problems.

I believe that one of the institutes that are dedicatedly focusing on resolving today’s business problems while keeping in mind the futuristic impact of their practices is the Human Capital Institute.

HCI (Human Capital Institute) has been dedicated to focus on developing leaders and organizations through focusing on the “agile competencies” that can help manage and impact the environment. Some of these agile competencies that HCI reflects through its courses are change management, strategic human capital, coaching for engagement and performance, leadership development, strategic workforce planning and talent management.

HR and Agile Competencies

The corporate awareness towards working with consultants has been growing, along with the uncertainty of the market. Some organizations have the need and budget for consultancy, but consultants come to accomplish a certain objective then HR people are the ones left to sustain the success of the project. This scenario might have been very successful, but in today’s business world it is not sufficient.

Sustainability on its own does not define an HR leader, yet it is one of the pillars. HR leadership is more about being capable to initiate and lead projects.

HR as an Internal Consultant

One of the most recent creations of HCI is launching the sHRBP (strategic HR business partner) certification which focuses on HR as an “internal consultant” for the organization. Going through the course the learners would recognize that the agile competencies of today’s HR is all about understanding the business, understanding the people, mastering project management, building relationships across the organization, and having the practical know-how to influence and consult for various departments.

The HRBP; Bringing Theory to Practice

Many learners find a conflict between what they learn from theories and models, and their application in real life. It is the challenge of transferring words into action and ideas into projects. The sHRBP toolkit is entirely designed for practical purpose. In fact every page of the 60-page toolkit book is written for practical implementation, where the book is simply divided into three phases of internal consultancy: 1-Prepare, 2-Partner, 3-Perform.

Instructor & Course Engagement

Employee engagement is one of the highly addressed practices in the sHRBP course, which leads us to this question: how does the instructor apply the engagement concepts on the delegates?

Whether you are enrolled in the online or face-to-face program, engagement is applied to the core. As the instructor continuous to illustrate the content, s(he) keeps asking the participants about what they apply in their organizations, their inputs and points of view regarding what s(he) is saying. This way the participants are focusing on the content, relating the content to their personal experience and documenting their points of view. This is a perfect classroom reflection of agility, multi-tasking and organizing ideas.

You might wonder about engagement in the online program; how can engagement be virtually applied? In fact I personally believe that the online program is even more engaging! In the online program the screen is divided into two, where the right hand side contains the slides and videos the instructor is presenting, while on the left side there is a live chat room where the participants almost never stop typing! The instructor engages the participants by asking them to comment on each point and slide, where participants can read each other’s’ comments, share and debate as the instructor is talking in parallel. In a real-life course such amount of sharing and debating is more limited. In the end, the instructor documents all the conversations in the chat room and emails them to all participants.

Who can register for the sHRBP?

There is no question that most attendees are HR directors, senior HR managers, HR business partners and HR leaders in general, however same as HR professionals are moving towards understanding the business, it is essential that leaders from other departments would start applying HR in their work. As a personal recommendation from a human capital consultant perspective, I strongly believe that the skills learnt in the sHRBP course are essential for all business leaders, especially CEOs, because in the end of the day we all want to be “business partners” and if this is a commonly spoken language imagine the ROI it shall bring on the organization culture and strategic depth.

P.S: One of the focus areas of the sHRBP course is establishing intellectual communication with other stakeholders through infographics and different techniques. These communication methodologies were applied in the way the article is written.

Design: Mahmoud Mansi