Why does HR fail to be an effective business partner?

It has been close to 20 years now when the notion of HR as a business partner was floated by consultants and practitioners alike. It was supposed to be the natural evolution of the role of HR from being personnel managers to a functional group that is value adding. Yet, time and again I have had conversations with both HR people and line managers about how HR is unable to be an effective business partner. Why is this still the case? I will tell you why - Simply, because HR folks lack the capability and the desire to build the capability to be effective business partners. The y are still spending time on maintenance activities, don’t make enough of an effort to understand the language of the businesses they are serving and don’t know how to ask tough questions of the business they are serving. The HR generalists responsible for partnering end up being order takers at worst and compliance officers at best! For example I was talking to the business partnering folks at a global energy company. The HR generalist didn’t know how to respond to changes in the operational plan for a site that was producing gas. Neither did they know how to support the site or the region in capability development in an effective way. They focused purely on recruitment and compensation. None of the HR partners had actually spent meaningful time offshore to understand how work gets done or the conditions in which the workers were working! If HR has to build a reputation for business partnering, a few things need to happen: a) Increase the competence of those being hired into the HR function – hiring standards need to be raised – or else HR will always be maligned b) HR professionals need to understand the economics of the businesses they serve and the entire company c) HR partners need to be able to ask tough questions of the clients they serve d) HR managers need to develop a general manager’s sense of how different elements of the organizations work together e) Line managers need to coached as to the role of HR f) The CHRO must be a strong person with credibility at the CEO and board level