Ulrich's impact on HR

‘Ulrich comes of age’ in HR Director and ‘Critics of Ulrich Model ignore new progress’ in HR Magazine

I have chosen to review these two short articles because they follow on from a survey carried out by Orion Partners, a relatively small firm of consultants in the field of talent management.  This organisation has successfully raised its profile by carrying out a survey of the HR functions of 40 businesses, most of which are large and global operations.

I was particularly interested in the report and the responses because of our work in business partnering.  The survey is relevant to my recent book on Finance Business Partnering and to my, soon to be published, follow up covering partnering in the IT Function.  In both books I describe the influence of the Ulrich Model on the development of Business Partnering and mention the recent criticism of its impact on the HR function.

If the objective of the Orion report was to generate a response, it seems to have succeeded.  In the HR Magazine, Ulrich responds himself; I recall from my own book research that he was similarly defensive when a Roffey Park survey suggested that HR people were changing their title to Business Partner but were still adopting the same behaviours.  With some justification, Ulrich blamed HR people for not acquiring the necessary business skills to make the transition.

His response to the Orion survey also has some justification.  It seems as though the most critical elements of their findings has focussed on the issue of talent management, which appears to be their core business.  The findings are that 83% of organisations do not have a coherent strategy around talent and 53% say that their performance in this area could be improved.

Ulrich quite rightly questions the direct link between his model and talent management; all he advocated in his original work was the separation of the administrative personnel functions from the other responsibilities of HR – to be employee champions, change agents and strategic partners.  Talent Management was never a fundamental part of the picture and has only recently emerged as a separate strand.  Ulrich claims in the HR Magazine interview that this is a separate issue from his partnering model:

‘Singling out talent management within the HR function is mixing two separate issues … the right governance should help organisations to create and deliver talent’

The article in HR Director is more positive because Allan Boroughs, the Orion partner behind the survey, is featured more strongly.  His comments do not do much to answer Ulrich’s questioning of the link between his model and talent management but there are some interesting extra insights.  He reveals that, despite the intentions of the model to separate administrative transactions, 63% of HR people still feel that they spend too much time on admin issues.  He also puts forward the view that, though the Ulrich model has had an overall beneficial effect, the investment of time and money in its development has diverted resources away from talent management.  He suggests that thinking based on Ulrich has ‘dominated the HR profession over the last ten years’.  I suspect that, though Ulrich would be flattered, many HR Directors might challenge this assertion.

His further conclusion is that the main problem has been the adaptation of a ‘one size fits all’ model, without tailoring to meet the needs of each company.  My cynical conclusion is that Mr Boroughs would like companies to adopt a tailored version that includes talent management and that he would be pleased to advise how this can be achieved!  But I guess that his is not the only organisation to be self-serving in the research carried out and the issues to be highlighted.  And the responses he has generated – including feedback from the great man himself - have contributed to an interested debate.

Read the articles here;
Ulrich Comes of Age - HR Director
Critics of Ulrich Model ignore new progress’ - HR Magazine
What did Dave Ulrich ever do for us? - Orion