HR Business Acumen Skills for Internal HR Professionals

HR Business Acumen Skills

Description
Even though ATD reports that 87 percent of human resource professionals believe that is it critical to have business acumen, most HR professionals find it difficult to effectively influence business unit executives. Our research shows that three-quarters of business unit leaders perceive HR to be lacking in basic HR Business Acumen Skills.

Unfortunately, most line leaders view HR and HR professionals as transactional and administrative workers incapable of helping them with their strategic priorities.

Before executives or senior directors will be open to partnering with an HR professional on significant business initiatives, they need to understand how the project will specifically impact their overall corporate goals.

Before you arrive at the HR Business Acumen Skills for Internal HR Professionals workshop, you prepare information on an actual business unit or executive that you would like to strategically influence. Then, you spend two or three days with a former corporate officer (e.g., CEO, CFO, CIO) who consults on the current state of the business and on the specific strategies needed going forward. The strategies include three key phases:

Identify your target customer’s goals, objectives, and strategies including the operating issues that constrain the achievement of their market and business performance.
Link a unique, Human Resources solution to your target partner’s business issues, strategy, and financial goals to provide compelling internal business value.
Articulate the unique and compelling business value of your solution to business unit leaders and executives.

Our executive facilitator serves as “the client” throughout the Business Acumen Skills for Internal HR Professionals workshop. Together, you analyze your company’s annual report, financial reports, and industry analyst reports to identify crucial issues affecting your potential business partner.

You get an in-depth look at financial concepts such as ROI, time to market, and the time value of money. After analyzing your customized case, you prepare for and practice conducting executive level meetings using your target business partner.

Outline
While Business Acumen Skills for Internal HR Professionals workshop is customized for each client, the general outline is as follows:

Review your internal customer’s point of view, the pressures they are under, and how they make decisions.
Review key financial statements and how they interact with a particular focus on the competitive landscape and trend analysis.
Review secondary research sources for both public and private companies.
Generate questions that you can use to move horizontally and vertically throughout the organization.
Practice primary research questioning to validate your financial and secondary research with a CXO leader.
Use comparative analysis and ratios to help identify business issues and solution opportunities.
Role play live opportunities with our CXO leaders.

Outcomes
As a result of attending the Business Acumen Skills for Internal HR Professionals workshop, you will master strategies for developing relationships with internal business units and internal executive decision-makers as you learn to:

View the customer (both external and internal) customer from a business perspective to identify and solve critical business issues.
Identify a broader range of opportunities/needs based on your business based value proposition.
Create business value for your ideas through an analysis and application of financial and business information.
Understand how to maximize the business and financial value of your solution.
Identify and justify the financial impact of your solution.
Position your solution as part of a strategic investment that supports executive-level needs, such as increased revenue, greater profitability, greater inventory controls, and higher return on assets.

Target Audience
Human Resource professionals who need increased business acumen skills to understand business drivers to more effectively influence executives and senior management to be successful.

To speak with an LSA Expert to learn about HR Business Acumen Skills program customization and delivery options onsite at your company, please contact us.

Related Information

We have been able to utilize LSA’s extensive expertise to leverage our investment in employee development.

The result has been the cost effective and highly effective delivery of high quality management training programs.

Thank you!

Steve Feller
Vice President, Human Resources

LSA Global has been a great partner in helping us move toward being “the leading developer of talent in the service performance management industry.”

I have engaged LSA to help develop best-in-class programs in the areas of: Executive On-boarding, Manager Training, Sales Training and Coaching, Employee Engagement, and Instructional Design.

They have consistently met or exceeded my (very) high expectations and are always responsive to my needs to increase performance, engagement, customer satisfaction, and sales growth.

Mike Normant
Senior Director, Training & Development

I’ve been associated with LSA for the last 8 years and have found them to be extremely professional and client-focused.

I’ve participated in a number of solutions ranging from Performance Management to Leadership Training. I’ve found the quality to be superior.

They are always well prepared and have definitely done a considerable amount of pre-work in order to customize to our unique culture and goals.

Duane Schroeder
Human Resource Manager

LSA’s customized Effective Presentation Skills program has helped us elevate our presentation skills to the next level. I personally now have a much greater self-awareness of my presentation skills and can leverage my strengths while working to improve upon other areas.

I definitely recommend LSA Global to anyone for whom presentations are an integral part of their job.

Jim Elliott
Senior Marketing Manager

We gave LSA a very short deadline to customize an important management training program to meet our unique requirements.

Their facilitator was excellent, an expert in the subject matter, and very credible with our teams.

The targeted design provided practical and valuable information and skills that our managers truly needed.

I highly recommend LSA Global, particularly in the area of management training.

Julaine K. Souza
Senior Vice President

I continue to be impressed by the level of leadership development training and management expertise and quality of advice and facilitation that LSA has to offer.

What a smart and client-centric group of great people who really know how to help assess and develop high performing leaders.

Tracy Esposito
Director

We have been very pleased with the high quality management development programs that LSA Global has designed and delivered to meet our unique needs.

They have world class facilitators and the knowledge gained by our management team has been put into practice very quickly.

LSA consistently delivers excellent results and receives exceptional feedback. I highly recommend them to anyone looking to improve management capabilities.

Cindee Van Vleck
Director Human Resources

LSA custom designed a Management Development program that is absolutely “on target” for our technical managers .

Their facilitator has done a superb job delivering the material in a way that is fast paced, highly interactive, and fun. She presents practical solutions to the critical people situations that our managers face every day.

I regard LSA as an excellent partner that understands our business needs and an important virtual member of our HR department.

Judith Onton
Vice President Human Resources

I consistently look to LSA Global when we need help.

I can always count on them to do a thorough needs analysis and to put together impactful and well-received leadership programs.

Their proven and outcome-based management development and performance management expertise make them my top-rated learning and development partner.

Stephanie Webb
HR Program Manager

Here’s a token of my appreciation for ALL your efforts. I’m offering my most sincere thanks, and it extends to all the folks who made our customized management development programs such a great success.

Susan Anderson
Workforce Planning Bureau

Avon’s success is dependent on strong relationships among our Customers, Representatives, Associates, and outside resources we hire to help us meet our business objectives.

We were very pleased with the results from working with LSA Global to design and facilitate a custom management training program for our events management team focused on decision making and delegation.

LSA demonstrated responsiveness, flexibility, and a highly innovative approach to working with us.

Deanna Rudnitsky
Senior Manager, HR Destiny Sales Region

A key to performance improvement is cultivating the proper type of motivation.

Since the performance management training, I have been much more focused on identifying and discussing how our actions in Engineering create value to IGT’s success.

The feedback has been very positive, the group appears to be more accountable for their actions, and victim loop reactions are less frequent. Thank you!

Stewart Thoeni
Mechanical, HW Engineering Director

We engaged LSA to design and deliver a 6-month custom executive coaching program to help a core group of senior leaders to leverage previous investments in management training, to ensure the engagement and retention of key employees, and to push critical strategic initiatives forward.

Even with the high expectations of our senior people, LSA has completely exceeded our expectations. You can’t go wrong with LSA.

Ivan Fukumoto
Senior HR Manager - Staffing, Training, & Development

For our go to training outsourcing partner, LSA provides exactly what we want and need – which is not an easy task.

As always, they design and deliver outstanding leadership development results and high quality management training programs that totally align with our unique business and talent strategies!

Elizabeth Siebert
Director, Organizational Excellence & Development

We partnered with LSA Global to help us invest in our people in the areas of performance coaching, diversity, and inclusion. They were very flexible in meeting our specific needs.

LSA exceeded my expectations from a speed, quality, and value standpoint. I would recommend LSA to anyone looking for a true business partner.

Anita Luckinbill
Director, Human Resources