HR Business Partnering in Pakistan: Bridging the Academic Practice Gap for Strategic HR Transformation

Abstract

Human Resource Business Partnering (HRBP) has become one of the key focus areas of modern HR management, transforming HR from an administrative support role to one which is part of the business, strategic and advisory. The model of HRBP which was popularised by Ulrich (1997) has a focus on the strategic alignment, workforce planning, consulting skills, change management ability, evidence based decision-making and close working relationship between HRBP and business stakeholders at a global level. But it is not the case in Pakistan where HRBP adoption is not uniform. There can be many variations in HRBP related job titles, but in reality, HRBP remains a position of operational HR responsibility instead of business partnering. Meanwhile, academic training of future HR professionals is not quite aligned with the remodeling of the HR profession in today's context. The current study aims at measuring HR Business Partnering in Pakistan, revealing the shortcomings between HR practice in the companies and academic training. The design of the study was quantitative, cross sectional which measured the existing perceptions, pattern and preparedness of the respondents involved in the study. The respondents in the study consisted of HR professionals of Corporate Sector and faculty from HR & Management education institutes of Pakistan. The number of HR professionals and HR faculty involved in the project were 64 and 26 respectively and collected using purposive sampling with a structured questionnaire as primary data collection methods. It is under this umbrella that the professional survey reveals data on strategic HR involvement, competency alignment of HR Business Partners, business acumen, consulting capability, digital and analytics capability, organization's exposure to HRIS, organizational support, HR role clarity, and academic readiness. The HRBP curriculum coverage, HRBP teaching practices, exposure to HRBP related subjects of HR analytics, HRIS, Graduate skill gap, linkage with industry and priority areas of curriculum reform have been explored by faculty through a survey. The study is supported by the Institutions Theory of DiMaggio & Powell (1983), Human Capital Theory of Becker (1964) and Contingency Theory of Lawrence & Lorsch (1967), as well as HRBP model (Ulrich, 1997). The results revealed that HR is slowly making its way towards strategic role in Pakistan but it is a yet to be complete and consistent process. HR professionals indicated moderate levels of role engagement strategy and competency alignment, with an analytics capability being a relatively high strength recognition area. Some challenges were found in the areas of business acumen and readiness for consulting, role clarity, enablement of leadership, administrative overload, HRIS maturity and academic preparation. Second, faculty responses also validated that a formal academic competency for HR is not yet fully integrated into the HR curriculum for HRBP. Based on the study results, it is concluded that Pakistan needs two sets of reforms, one in the corporate to develop HRBP culture, and another in academia to ensure its modernization. Improved models for HR, development of HR analytics, curriculum updates, applied learning, and industry-academic connections within HR are suggested for developing future HR practitioners for business partnering roles.