Series: The HR

HR - The Business Partner

by Barbara Kenton

Published 23 May 2005

With HR professionals increasingly expected to be "business partners", are you prepared with the skills and tools to make a positive difference to your organization?

As the recognised definitive guide to the topic, HR: The Business Partner, second edition, offers practical insights to take you through the challenging process of business partnering, including:

* No-nonsense description of what business partnering entails, with case studies to illustrate real-life practice
* Detailed coverage of the common challenges and advice on how to overcome them
* Guidance on how to develop the skills and confidence required to work effectively

Covering the transition from working operationally to working strategically and the tools, techniques and skill sets needed for partnering, this inexpensive guide will help to both add real value to your business and to develop your career in business partnering. If you are aspiring to or about to embark on a business partner role, this book will provide you with ideas and inspiration for the position.

HR

by Barbara Kenton and Jane Yarnall

Published 12 April 2005

Many organisations are changing the structure of some of their internal service departments such as HR and Finance, to give them a more consultative and strategic role within the company. However, in many cases, this takes place with little thought as to how the new function can be best established and how the individuals themselves need to change in order for it to be successful. The book is about helping practitioners understand what is involved in operating as a business partner within an organisation. It will help them to assess how to make the transition from working operationally to working in a more strategic position and will equip them with the tools and techniques to help them in their new role. For generalist HR practitioners who are about to embark on Business Partner roles, or who are struggling to make a difference in such roles, the personal change journey can be made more difficult if people do not know what is involved, or understand how HR Business Partners can make a positive difference to their organisation's success. The temptation then to revert to familiar activities can be strong and dangerous to personal and functional credibility.
The authors draw on their experience of working with HR teams to show what being an HR Business Partner means in practice. They look at the challenges and what can be done to address them, and provide practical insights into how to develop the skills and confidence required to really make a difference in Business Partner roles. This title outlines what being an HR Business Partner means in practice. Use of tools and techniques will be illustrated through practical case study examples in this title. It shows how to develop a range of skills for building internal & external client relationships.

Strategic Career Management

by Jane Yarnall

Published 1 January 2007

Organizations need to develop and retain their talent, and managing careers in a strategic fashion is critical to achieving this. This book takes a practical approach to help you make strategic career management work both for the talent you want to retain and for the organization they work in. It will help you to: - Improve your strategic career management - Improve employee retention - Develop a business case for careers - Design and develop critical processes to support your strategy - Explore best practice examples from other organizations - Evaluate your progress Other titles in the HR Series: Organization Design (Stanford) Transforming HR (Reddington, Williamson and Withers) HR - The Business Partner (Kenton and Yarnall) The Changing World of the Trainer (Sloman) publishing March 2007 Change, Conflict and the Corporate Community (Kenton and Penn) publishing June 2007

Change, Conflict and Community

by Barbara Kenton and Suzanne Penn

Published 1 January 2008

The cost to business of unresolved conflicts is high; tribunals, loss of productivity, resignations and damaged reputations are serious consequences for all concerned. With increased organizational change in the form of changes in leadership, restructuring, downsizing, matrix management, mergers, acquisitions and systems changes comes increased political activity and the potential for either increased learning and growth or tension and unproductive conflict.

Change agents, HR practitioners and managers need to be skilled at empowering others to use or resolve conflict effectively for a more productive working environment and greater employee satisfaction. Change, Conflict and Community takes readers through the essential theory and hands-on practice of working with change and conflict by considering:

* How we can increase our understanding of the tensions that often exist when change is ever present in the organization
* How to work more effectively with the dynamic relationship between change and conflict
* How the idea of "community" can help us to work with the energy of change and human interaction

Barbara Kenton is a freelance consultant and Director of WHooSH Whole Systems Health. She is an experienced consultant, mediator, facilitator, coach and trainer with over 25 years' experience as a manager and development specialist working with individuals, teams and organizations both in the UK and internationally. She has published a number of articles on the role of the internal consultant and challenges facing those in HR. She is a qualified workplace and community mediator.

Suzanne Penn is an independent consultant, facilitator and coach with 20 years' experience in the HR and Organization Development field. She has worked as an internal and an external practitioner across all sectors and industries in the UK, mainland Europe and the US. A previous Assistant Director at Roffey Park Management Institute, she brings to this book particular expertise in leadership development, group facilitation, strategic HR and organizational change and culture.

The HR Series

The HR Series is edited by Julie Beardwell, Principal Lecturer in Human Resource Management at DeMonfort University, and Linda Holbeche, Director of Research and Policy at CIPD, and is designed to plug the gap between theory and implementation. The books draw on live examples of strategic HR in practice and offer practical insights into how to transform individual and functional delivery to improve value-added. Intended for serious HR professionals who aspire to make a real difference within their organization, The HR Series provides resources to inform, empower and inspire the HR leaders of the future.