Coming This September!

Mark your calendars: Mid-September will serve as the launch for Cornell’s Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS) Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP) Self-Assessment and Resource Library, which will enable HRBPs to assess themselves against the CAHRS World-Class HRBP Framework and get connected to a hub of research, tools, and insights to support their development.

Why We're Building These Tools

If you've spent any time around HRBPs, you are aware of the paradox of their work life. HRBPs are asked to operate in nearly every aspect of an organization — sitting in strategy conversations with senior leaders one hour, then helping a frontline manager navigate a difficult performance conversation the next. 

Despite carrying this much responsibility, the HR content HRBPs utilize doesn't reflect the unique, cross-functional nature of their role — or worse, there is nothing customized for them at all.

CAHRS recently put a fine point on this gap. In developing the new CAHRS World-Class HRBP Framework — a model built in collaboration with senior HRBPs, CHROs, and business leaders across 45 partner companies. This tool was built to bridge the gap HRBPs rarely have access to in terms of robust peer communities and development resources.

What's Launching in mid-September 

We'll be publishing a self-assessment tool that will allow current or aspiring HRBPs to evaluate themselves against the CAHRS World-Class HRBP Framework. Following completion of the self-assessment online, individuals will be emailed a personalized feedback report that summarizes their results, provides development recommendations, and connects them to the new CAHRS HRBP Resource Library — a curated, continuously updated collection of content designed to help HRBPs do their jobs better and grow into the strategic leaders their organizations need them to be.

Rather than treating HRBP content as a subcategory buried inside a broader HR resource page, we're curating this library around the role. That means organizing content the way CAHRS' own framework does — around the real domains HRBPs have to operate in every day:

• Understanding, influencing, and operationalizing business strategy — helping HRBPs translate boardroom priorities into people decisions
• Anticipating and incorporating external trends — helping HRBPs bring an outside-in perspective instead of immediate reactions to internal requests
• Partnering effectively with Centers of Excellence and Shared Services — clarifying where the HRBP's lane starts and stops
• Talent and leadership capabilities — equipping HRBPs to manage performance and development for the people who move the business
• Organizational effectiveness — giving HRBPs practical tools for change, transformation, and execution
• Employee value proposition and culture — helping HRBPs shape the day-to-day experience that keeps people engaged

At launch, the library will be organized similarly to the broadly based HR content you find in the CAHRS Resource Library, such as benchmarking reports, working group summaries, reports, and video content — with new material added on a rolling basis so the resource never goes stale. Just like the more general Resource Library, the HRBP Library will be searchable by topic, format, and publish date, so a busy HRBP can find exactly what's relevant to the problem in front of them right now.

Why This Matters So Much to Us

This endeavor isn't a minor content initiative. CAHRS considers building dedicated, high-quality resources for HRBPs to be one of the most important things we can do for the broader HR community we serve.

The pace of organizational change, the rise of AI and automation across the workforce, evolving employee expectations, and constant pressure to do more with leaner teams have all made the HRBP job harder and higher stakes than it was even a few years ago. CAHRS' own research and working groups — on topics ranging from GenAI's impact on HR to workforce planning to the evolving employee relations landscape — reflect just how quickly the ground is shifting under this role. 

Save the Date

The new HRBP Self-Assessment and Resource Library will go live the week of September 14th. You will be able to access these tools on the CAHRS HRBP Framework webpage (link to page) and we will share reminders on our LinkedIn page (link to page) leading up to the launch. The HRBP Self-Assessment and Resource Library are just the starting point. Our goal is for the page and its content to grow alongside the HRBPs it's built for, evolving as their role does.