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

I continue to be impressed by the depth and breadth of LSA’s expertise in leadership development, and management development.

What a smart and client-centric group of great people who really know how to help leaders attract, engage, develop and retain top talent in a practical and results-driven manner.

Thank you LSA!

Tracy Esposito
Director, HR Business Partner

Over the years, both at 3Com and now at Redback, I’ve found LSA Global to be a valuable partner. The recent management programs that they delivered for Redback’s executive and management teams was the right solution, of the highest of quality, and customized to fit our unique business and culture. I would highly recommend LSA to any company looking for top quality solutions.

Gina Fulton
Vice President of Human Resources

I had been working with LSA for many years across a few different companies.

Currently, I’m with a company who hadn’t done much new manager training. LSA designed and delivered exactly what we needed at this stage in our life cycle.

Our managers are excited, talking in the halls about the great experience, and applying what they learned.

LSA makes things easy and practical for us. Thank you!

Phyllis Moracco
HR Director

LSA has been a tremendous asset at my current company and my past company.

As an HR leader, I am always looking for ways to find external resources that can provide impactful leadership and management development expertise. LSA consistently does that for me.

The tools and practices are crisp, business relevant, and easy to apply on the job.

Ken Boehm
VP of Human Resources

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

We have worked with LSA Global for our learning and development needs and have always had great success.

They helped us recently with targeted and customized Management Training Workshops to fit our unique situation, and they were fantastic.

I highly recommend LSA to anyone that is attempting to help take their leadership and management talent to the next level.

Mary Johnston
HR Manager, BU Radiology Informatics

LSA understands our business, has deep expertise in content areas, and customizes their approach to deliver great results.

The facilitator was extremely knowledgeable about working virtually across cultures. The passion, practices, and tools made the session interesting, fun, and highly valuable.

I highly recommend LSA Global to any company that has global partners or offices.

Glenn McGillivray
Human Resources Business Partner

Harmonic has worked with LSA for over 8 years. We have found their partnership extremely beneficial.

We recently implemented customized Management Development Programs designed to support our company’s strategic initiative of hiring, building, and retaining key intellectual property and human talent. It has had the greatest impact.

I would recommend LSA to any company that’s looking for a trusted training and development partner to take their leaders and managers to the next level.

Janice Passarello
Director of Human Resources

LSA has become the gold standard for team building and management training programs at Genomic Health!

I have not found companies that come close to their level of customization, impact, expertise, and experience.

Emily Couey
Director of Human Resources

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 turned to LSA to help us custom design and deliver a action leadership and management development curriculum to help drive performance across the company.

They have done an excellent job diagnosing the business situation, designing an approach that fits our unique culture, and delivering first class solutions. Thank you!

Sally Buchannan
VP Human Resources

I appreciate that each management development program is preceded by a thorough training needs assessment of the participants that informs a design to fit the specific parameters and needs of the group.

The highly interactive delivery is provided by recognized experts in their fields. On the spot coaching is provided during the program and each participant receives individual follow-up after the course.

Courses can be delivered in-person or virtually.

Given the nature of Cisco’s business and the way we operate, these remote workshops are a must for anyone who joins our company. Their work is eye opening. Great content and fantastic delivery.

Frank J. Kuypers
Business Development Manager

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

What a refreshing change from the half-baked psycho-babble you normally get from training and consulting organizations. LSA gives you the practical and results-oriented assistance you need to define and reach your goals.

Their leadership, management, and sales expertise has been invaluable. They think strategically and provide a results driven plan – not just a temporary fix.

They are great to work with, and even more importantly, they “get it!”

David Fiano
Director of Merchandising

We contacted LSA to help us design and deliver customized management development programs. LSA worked with us to meet our exact needs. We started at the top with our executive team. It was such a great success that we rolled it out company-wide. We look forward to a long-term partnership with LSA Global and their team of experts.

Barry L. Byrd, SPHR
Human Resources Manager