Value creation through effective Business Partnering in a Start-up!

Business Partnering is when professionals comes into intimate contact with the realities of business, to influence and drive initiatives that generate real business value. Hence, a true HR Business Partners (HRBP) are measured against talent outcomes and the business value they drive.

The role of an HRBP becomes far more challenging and infinitely more exciting, when juxtaposed against the business realities of a start-up organisation like Ola. To begin with, an organization in start-up mode, rarely has the luxury of a fully defined operating plan. Goal posts keep changing frequently, sometimes within a matter of days and this can include constantly shifting product priorities.

Resource crunches are like an abysmal pit, where you feel like you are only throwing more and more into your ideas, with no sign of tangible outcomes. No matter how strategic their intent, HRBPs in start-ups get dragged into an unending train of transactional and operational issues. Many front-line managers are usually first-time managers with no training, systems and processes are continuously evolving, there are always more questions than answers.

So, what does effective HR Business Partnering entail in this scenario?

• Begin by first eliminating the notion that HR and the Business end are two separate functions. They are NOT!  In a start-up, their fates are interlinked, every day. 
• You learn to approach the same business problem from several different directions and in fact that is exactly what propels and stimulates the creation of value. 
• And there will be moments when HR partners are caught wearing business shoes, but that’s a good problem to solve. Because when two traditionally different functions begin to intersect, it invariably results in an empathetic exchange of ownership.

Here’s an illustration of that exchange of ownership. In an effort to boost productivity in the cities that Ola Fleet Technologies operates in, a collaboration between HR, and the Business saw us rolling out the Super City challenge where all the cities came together to compete amongst each other for growth and other business parameters. What began as a business problem, eventually morphed into an exciting employee contest to achieve our business objectives. Whether it was the design of incentives, growth targets, and even monitoring the front line staff on their own due to lack of managerial bandwidth, every part of the program was almost run by the HR on ground. In a traditional set up this could have been a joint effort of commercial finance, rewards and sales teams. This not only boosted productivity, but also motivated the employees.

So the real reason why HRBP is critical to a start-up is the fact that Ownership eases Problem-solving.

• When you begin to own the problem, you empower yourself to solve the problem. You wrest the onus of decision-making on yourself. At times this means pushing your business-side partner to close issues without much debate.

Yes, people will drop out during the course of this journey, as this goes completely against the conventional way in which we look at the role of HR. But for those who hold on and succeed, the pay-offs are immeasurable. And yes, because of our preoccupation with solving problems of the real world, we always run the risk of falling short on the basic hygiene stuff that HR usually carries out. But in a start-up that is typically powered by adrenaline and pace, that’s a small price to pay. The focus always remains on the bigger picture!