Human resource business partner role in respect to internal corporate social responsibility: The case of banking sector

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

For last decade, human resource (HR) function has had to move from its traditional operational, administrative role towards a more strategic role. In the light of transformation and drawing upon business partnering concept (the most well-known Ulrich model), a new formal position of an HR business partner, who acts as an HR subject-matter expert for the leaders of that particular business, has been established in some organisations. Although previous literature suggests the involvement of human resource management (HRM) in the development and implementation of socially responsible business activities, there is a lack of evidence on HR professionals’ role regarding internal corporate social responsibility (CSR), which implies behaviour towards employees.

OBJECTIVE:

To reveal the role of an HR business partner while developing and implementing internal CSR activities.

METHODS:

Qualitative research; semi-structured interviews with employees working as HR business partners in the banking sector were conducted.

RESULTS:

The results revealed a significant HR business partner role in addressing internal CSR, in terms of work-life balance (WLB), diversity and inclusion, learning and development, and psychological and physical well-being.

CONCLUSIONS:

The research results expand the knowledge on the link between HRM and internal CSR. Moreover, the findings have significant implications encouraging organisations to empower HR professionals to act within the internal CSR field.

Keywords

Human resource management (HRM)HR business partner corporate social responsibility (CSR)Internal corporate social responsibility (Internal CSR)HR business partner model Work-life balance Diversity and Inclusion

Živilė Stankevičiūtė, PhD in Management, is a professor at Sustainable Management research group, School of Economics and Business, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania. Her doctoral dissertation on Sustainable Human Resource Management has been recognised internationally: she got Baltic University Programme Annual Award for the Best PhD defended in 2015. Her research interests are: Sustainable Human Resource Management, Employee Wellbeing, Digital Transformations, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainable Development. She is a member of National Expert Council for sustainable development goals at Lithuanian Responsible Business Association (LAVA) dealing with SDG8. She is also a member of AOM (Academy of Management), International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS), EURAM (European Academy of Management). She has expertise in the field of partnership with business while conducting research projects and providing the practical implications based on research quantitative and qualitative data. In 2019 and 2020, she got Kaunas University of Technology Award as a Most Active Young Researcher.

Justina Kalvaitienė is a Human Resources specialist specializing in Talent Acquisition, Career Coaching, and HR Project Management. Kaunas Technology University alumni in the field of Human Resources Management. Areas of interest – Corporate Social Responsibility, Diversity, and Inclusion, Leadership Development.

1 Introduction

Organisations are constantly striving to win in the game of competition and to achieve success in terms of profit, reputation, or loyal customers. Literature claims that human resources seem to be the only resource through which organisations can attain the previously mentioned desired outcomes [1]. In connection with this, during the last 30 years, the field of HRM, which concerns people, performance, and the organisation [2], has changed significantly [3 –5]. Despite considerable progress, questions pertaining to the way HR function should be organised in order to add value in the changing business environment [6], the way human resources should be managed or the role of HR professionals in contemporary organisations still spark the ongoing debates [7].

Clearly, the typical commentary in the literature states that the HR function has to move from its traditional operational, administrative role towards a more strategic role [8, 9]. The prevailing call suggests that HR professionals must partner with line managers by aligning their work with the organisation’s strategic direction [10]. Such call has been reflected in a widely known Ulrich’s HR business partner model (HRBPM) [11], which highlights a stronger involvement of the HR function in managerial decision-making to become a strategic partner with line management and better align HR activities with business goals [4 , 10]. According to HRBPM, the HR function should comprise four different roles, split into strategic roles (strategic partner and change agent) and operational roles (employee champion and administrative expert) [11]. More recently, the number of organisations with the formal position of HR business partner has been increasing. From the analysis of job description example provided by Academy to Innovate HR [12], it can be seen that typically, an HR business partner helps align an organisation’s people strategy with its business strategy and works on setting priorities, driving values, and delivering business results.

Over several years, CSR, which refers to “the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society” [13], has become an increasingly prominent strategy to enhance employee retention [14], the reputation of organisation and its competitive advantage [15]. CSR is commonly divided into external social responsibility, which relates to initiatives affecting outside stakeholders, and internal social responsibility, which is concerned with behaviour towards employees [16, 17]. Previous literature argues for the relationship between HRM and internal CSR considering that core HRM practices such as WLB, diversity management or flexible work are directly related to the area of internal CSR [15, 18]. Although during last decade, academic interest with regard to the relationships between HRM and CSR in organisations has been rapidly growing (for some examples, please see Annex 1) [15, 19], the role of HR business partner as one of the key persons facilitating the attainment of business goals [10] has remained somehow neglected until recently [15]. Trying to narrow the gap, the paper aims at revealing the role of the HR business partner while developing and implementing internal CSR activities. The core research question is the following: What actions and initiatives are performed by the HR business partner in the area of internal CSR? In doing this, the qualitative research was carried out conducting semi-structured interviews with employees working as HR business partners in the banking sector.

The paper contributes to the literature in several ways. First, the paper adds to the HRM-CSR literature by analysing the ways an HR business partner might engage with internal CSR. Second, responding to the call in the literature that context maters when dealing with HRM-CSR link [15, 20], the paper focuses on the banking sector.

The paper is structured as follows. First, a brief review of literature on HR business partner position and internal CSR is provided. This is followed by the methodology description. The paper continues with key findings from empirical study and discussion. Finally, some conclusions, practical implications, and limitations are provided.

2 Theoretical background

2.1 Position of an HR business partner in the organisation

The journey of HR professionals to create a new occupational community and to improve their status, ensure legitimacy and demonstrate power in the organisation started several decades ago and was shaped by ongoing struggles [21 –23]. Initially, personnel management was viewed as a necessary function that focused on administrative activities and cost control and accordingly it was not viewed as adding value to the organisation [4, 24]. Beginning with the 1980s, such factors as globalisation, declining trade union density, employment legislation, demographic changes, and the shift from manufacturing to a knowledge- and service-based economy served as impetuses behind dramatic shifts in perceptions and roles of HR [4]. However, as stated by Wright (1998), at that time personnel management suffered in its status as the ‘poor cousin’ of the managerial professions [23]. Marginalisation was based on several factors: for instance, the difficulty of demonstrating the contribution of personnel management to the organisational ‘bottom line’ or limited resources to solve people-related issues, or lower status accorded to personnel managers by senior or operational managers [23]. Thus, concluding, HR professionals have experienced difficulty establishing themselves as equal contributors to organisational outcomes, facing trust issues particularly in their relations with top management and line managers [25].

However, since 1980s, transformation has started [8] following the call that achieving organisational excellence must be the work of HR [11]. Considering that “HR should not be defined by what it does but by what it delivers – results that enrich the organization’s value to customers, investors, and employees” [11], the HR professionals’ strategic value within the organisation and contribution to the organisational ‘bottom line’ [8] have been included in the field of analysis introducing HR business partnering concept [10, 11]. Actually, the most cited and probably most frequently used framework is the one developed by Ulrich (1997) [8]. The HRBPM aims to develop an administratively oriented HRM into a value-generating and strategically thinking function and positions HRM as a value driver for all stakeholders [7]. The HRBPM is based on two dimensions, the time frame of management action (strategic vs. operational) and the type of management (process vs. employee orientation) [24]. The two dimensions lead to four HR professionals roles, each of which addresses different intraorganisational needs, such as cooperation between relevant stakeholders, employee engagement, change management, and the streamlining of HRM-related processes [7, 26]. There are two strategic roles (strategic partner and change agent) and two operational roles (administrative expert and employee champion). Strategic partner addresses strategic alignment and anticipates issues of line management [7]. The role as a strategic partner is organised around strategic focus on processes in a particular organisation, and is focused on designing the organisation, which has the capacity to realise its purpose and direction and to achieve its goals [26]. A change agent is concerned with managing corporate changes to achieve or to maintain competitive advantages [7]. Furthermore, a change agent is responsible for the delivery of organisational transformation and culture change, while building the capability to change into its core competences [26]. An administrative expert deals with traditional HRM-related process such as staffing and training [7, 26], while the role of an employee champion is related to employee well-being and psychological contract between two parties, namely employer and employee [26]. According to Ulrich (1998), all four roles are equally important and together relevant for success [11]. As such, “being an HR leader also has implications for leading the HR function, collaborating with other functions, ensuring corporate governance, and monitoring the HR community” [26].

In the light of HR transformation, the structure of the HR department is also changing and a new formal position (job title) of a HR business partner has been established in some organisations [27 –29]. HR business partners are HR staff members who are assigned to serve a particular area of the business; accordingly, they act as an HR subject-matter experts for the leaders of that particular business [30]. Usually, HR business partners are situated within a matrix-style structure in which they report to two positions, namely to the business line leader and someone in corporate HR [30].

Fig. 1

Area of activities of an HR business partner provided by AIHR [12].

Actually, to date, there is a confusion and no consensus on what an HR business partner is and what could be expected from them [27]. For instance, an HR business partner can be defined as an HRM expert, who consults business managers on HRM and business issues [31]. Following the insights of the Academy to Innovate HR, an HR business partner helps align an organisation’s people strategy with its business strategy acting in four roles as an administrative expert, people’s champion, change agent, and strategic partner for the business [12]. Kopertynska and Dernowska (2021) [32] share the same attitude arguing that there are four roles encapsulated in the HR business partner concept. In Annex 2, HR business partner job summaries and main responsibilities are provided as they are understood by such institutions as Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR), and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

As it can be seen from Annex 2, an HR business partner has a wide range of functions and responsibilities. HRPB functions can differ based on industry, organisation size, strategy, maturity of the HRM department, etc. [33]. Still, it seems that one of the most structured and detailed descriptions of area of activities of an HR business partner is provided by AIHR [12] (see Fig. 1).

As it can be seen from Figure 1, an HR business partner should be active in four areas: strategic planning, consulting and coaching, building a competitive organisation, and finally maintaining and transforming organisational culture. This description of the areas of activities of an HR business partner will be used as a theoretical point in empirical research conducted interviewing HR business partners.

Fig. 2

Internal CSR dimensions and activities [15 , 41].

2.2 Internal CSR

Generally speaking, CSR refers to an explicit framework to better understand the relationship between business and society [34 –36]. Although the term is somewhat ambiguous, CSR could be defined as “context-specific organizational actions and policies that take into account stakeholders’ expectations and the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance” [37]. Scholars distinguish between internal CSR and external CSR [38]. External CSR relates to environmental and social practices that help to strengthen the organisation’s reputation among its external stakeholders [39]. Perhaps the most general description of internal CSR implies that it refers to practices focused on stewardship toward the internal workforce, meaning employees [40]. Going deeper, internal CSR refers to the psychological and physiological well-being of employees [38]. Internal CSR might include a particular focus on both the career and personal development of employees or actions beyond compliance with normative rules of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice [40]. Earlier studies revealed that such HRM practices as work–life balance, equality and diversity, learning and development, health and safety and employee well-being are usually included under the umbrella of internal CSR [15 , 41] (see Fig. 2). The practices are described below and will be used as a theoretical point in empirical research conducted interviewing HR business partners.

WLB usually includes ensuring flexible working conditions [15 , 41], responding to the needs of employees, increasing the quality of life, etc. [38]. Flexible working conditions can be interpreted as an opportunity for the employees to reconcile their daily life with work, for example, personal holidays, responsibilities, and childcare [42]. Many scholars note that ensuring WLB means the absence of work-family conflict. It is usually associated with flexibility in balancing one’s responsibilities both at work and in the family [43]. Other important factors that help ensuring the absence of this conflict include monitoring of workload, managing the stress and pressure at work, providing support from managers and colleagues, and creating a culture that supports WLB [44].

Meanwhile, diversity and inclusion refer to ensuring equal opportunities [15 , 41], and promoting diversity and inclusion [15, 38]. It is noteworthy that diversity and inclusion have different meanings. Diversity is understood as the emphasising of diverse groups of employees, taking into account their gender, race, nationality, beliefs, language, education, special needs, and disability [45, 46]. Meanwhile, inclusion is understood as the application of specific practices that help ensure diversity and equal opportunities [45, 46]. It is often assumed that recruitment activities are sufficient to support diversity and inclusion [45]. However, many authors argue that diversity and inclusion have a wider spectre of activities. This should be reflected in the daily activities of the organisation, communication with employees, work environment, and organisation’s culture [46].

Learning and development are recognised as life-long education that helps to prepare employees for changes, remain competitive in the labour market, and provide the opportunity to develop their careers inside and outside the organisation [41, 47]. Consequently, these activities also include re-skilling [15 , 41]. Employee training can be defined as directly related to the functions performed. For this, the opportunity to learn from managers, colleagues, and mentors is very important. Indirect education includes open lectures, discussions, workshops, and team activities that promote personal development [47].

Ensuring the psychological and physical well-being of employees includes the concern for the occupational safety of employees, which is regulated by law, as well as for mental health [38, 41]. As a result, this field usually covers a wide range of practices: fairness towards employees, which is understood as fair decisions of the management team, [15, 41], creating the conditions for taking care of physiological health, and implementation of wellness initiatives [48], encouraging employees to discuss these topics and supporting them, and education of employees [49]. Physical well-being supports physical health; thus organisations should focus on improving both of these areas [49].

3 Methodology

3.1 Research context

The empirical focus of this study is on the banking sector. Surveys have shown that the finance and banking sector is ranked as one of the most attractive sectors [50]. Mostly, it draws the employee attention because of prominent business names, prestige, stability, and career opportunities [51]. However, it is seen that the banking sector faces fierce competition for talents with other industries [51]. Trust of the customers and reputation are key factors in banking sector, helping to ensure stable performance of the company [52]. Research shows that organisation’s engagement in socially responsible activities helps maintain and improve its reputation [52, 53]. This serves as an argument for choosing banking sector as the research context.

3.2 Data collection

As qualitative approach seeks to explore phenomena and quantitative research approach aims to confirm hypotheses about phenomena [54], this research utilised the first one. The strength of qualitative research is its ability to provide complex textual descriptions of how individuals experience a given research issue [54]. Moreover, in comparison to quantitative research, qualitative methods are argued to provide rich insightful accounts and the ability to help make sense of complex organizational realities [55]. Thus, using a qualitative approach, this paper is based on semi-structured interviews as the preferred method in order to gain a richer contextual understanding of the role of the HR business partner referring to internal CSR [15]. Such interviews allow access to informant experiences and perspectives across a range of issues, both prompted and unprompted [56]. Moreover, interviews provide information about the “human” side of an issue [54] – that is, the often contradictory behaviours, beliefs, and opinions or relationships of HR business partners and other stakeholders in the banking sector.

In this research, HR professionals, who hold formal positions called HR business partner in banks were interviewed. In order to be selected for this study, the bank had to present itself as socially responsible (for instance, on the website) and had to have formal jobs (positions) of HR business partners. In total, 10 interviews with HR business partners from Lithuania, Sweden, Latvia, and Estonia were conducted, so this research used purposive sampling.

In studies that use semi-structured interviews, sample size is often justified on the basis of interviewing participants until “data saturation” is reached [57]. Saturation is defined as the point at which the data collection process no longer offers any new or relevant data. Drawing upon recommendations of Francis et al. (2010) [58] and following the example in HRM field provided by de Frutos-Belizón et al. (2020) [59], several principles for justifying a claim that data saturation has been achieved in our research were applied. First, the initial analysis sample, referring to the sample size with which the first round of analysis will be completed, was selected. Having in mind the limited amount of potential informants and the specific nature of the research question, eight were selected. The second principle is called the stopping criterion and it refers to the idea that researchers should specify a priori how many more interviews will be conducted, without new shared themes or ideas emerging, before it can be concluded that data saturation has been achieved. After 8 interviews, two further interviews have been conducted with no new themes emerging, so this situation was defined as the point of data saturation. It is important to emphasise that such sample size is in line with previous research in the HRM field, when data saturation is typically found to be achieved with 6 to 15 participants [60].

Based on the review of existing literature, during interviews, several topics of discussion were covered such HR business partners’ roles (areas of activities) in ensuring WLB, diversity and inclusion, learning and development, and psychological and physical well-being. The interview guide was emailed to the research participants in advance. Interviews were organised at the convenience of participants in terms of both time and place, and conducted in the English or Lithuanian language. They were kept flexible and the respondents were encouraged to share their views openly. On average, each interview lasted 45–60 min. All interviews were audio recorded. Confidentiality and anonymity were ensured.

3.3 Data analysis

The research adopted a thematic analysis using Maxqda software, a very effective programme that helps code and link transcribed data. However, extensive human effort was required in terms of critical thinking while extracting quotations, performing initial coding, searching for subcategories and categories, and linking the data with research question and previous literature. Several steps in the thematic analysis were followed: data familiarisation, generating initial codes, searching for subcategories and categories and reviewing and naming subcategories/categories [61]. The process started with data familiarisation, where all the interviews were transcribed word for word. Later, the check of the transcripts against the original audio recordings for accuracy was done. Each researcher spent a considerable amount of time familiarising with data while reading and rereading the textual material several times. Notes were taken to ensure the data familiarisation. Second was the process of generating initial codes; this is concerned with the generation of open codes from the transcripts. Each researcher separately performed an initial coding of the material while separating the quotations from the material and applying some codes. To agree on this initial data coding, the interpretations of different researchers were compared and consensus was found. While coding, the research question was always kept in mind. Further, search for subcategories and categories was performed. Each researcher separately sorted different codes into potential subcategories and categories. Later, the subcategories and categories were discussed while revealing their differences and similarities and final agreement was reached. It is important to underline that the process of data analysis was recurrent, regularly having discussions. Obviously, the authors were also involved in a dialogue. Data collection proceeded concurrently with analysis until theoretical saturation was achieved, in other words, until no new categories were emerging. The final decision (naming subcategories and categories) on coding was made following the agreement of both researchers regarding the codes that correspond to the research question and existing literature. Alongside basic coding process, Maxqda was used to process the transcripts, to code subcategories and categories systematically, and to explore the associations between them. Categories were attributed to the HR business partner activity area and internal CSR field (see Annex 3–6).

3.4 Methodology rigour

Establishing a reader’s confidence in the findings requires the authors to demonstrate the trustworthiness of the research process: its credibility or “truth value”; applicability or “transferability”; consistency or “dependability”; and its neutrality or “confirmability” [62]. There are different strategies, procedures, preventive actions for methodological rigour in qualitative research [63]. The authors of this paper paid attention to ensuring the trustworthiness of the research process. Credibility deals with the question “How congruent are the findings with reality?” [64]. For establishing credibility, the authors have used several tactics. First, tactics to help ensure honesty of informants when contributing data [64] was applied. Participants had the opportunity to refuse to participate in the research. In addition, the interviewer encouraged the interviewees to respond openly, to relate situations, examples or clarifications in the course of the interviews. Second, the paper provides a thick and rich description [65] of the setting, and the categories (subcategories) of a qualitative study. The same procedure, namely ‘thick and rich description’, was used in the case of transferability. In order to address the dependability issue more directly, the processes within the study should be reported in detail, thus enabling a future researcher to repeat the work, if not necessarily to gain the same results [64]. For dependability, a kind of audit trail [63] was created, as the research context, data collection and data analysis have been described. Finally, confirmability refers to the concern how we know that the interviewee is the “author” of the data from which the interviewer derives their findings [66]. Some steps might be taken to help ensure as much as possible that the work’s findings are the result of the experiences and ideas of the informants, rather than the characteristics and preferences of the researcher [64]. In the current research, the researchers even worked separately to code the data; later, the subcategories/categories were identified together until the authors found an agreement that best represented the data obtained. The disagreements were discussed and resolved while enhancing the reliability of the coding process. Moreover, the quantification of content validity using a kappa statistic was done [67]. Computation of kappa coefficient ensures better understanding of content validity as it removes any random chance agreement [68]. Kappa statistic is a consensus index of interrater agreement ensuring that the agreement among experts is beyond chance [68]. Evaluation criteria for kappa is the values above 0.74, between 0.6 and 0.74, and the ones between 0.4 and 0.59 are considered to be excellent, good, and fair, respectively [67, 69]. For this research, the kappa coefficient score was 0.72 and this refers to really good consensus index.

4 Results

Role of the HR business partner in respect of four internal CSR dimensions, namely WLB, diversity and inclusion, learning and development, and psychological and physical well-being is further presented. The results are described according to the HR business partner area of activity. Table 1 illustrates the code system, including HR business partner areas of activity, internal CSR areas (dimensions), categories, and subcategories (for the detailed code system with some examples of quotes, see Annexes 3–6).

Table 1
Code system

Internal CSR area Category Subcategory

HR business partner’s area of activity - Strategic planning

WLB WLB monitoring Measuring tools

Reports

Ensuring the right implementation of the processes for WLB Supporting the processes for WLB

Planning HR for business function Solutions for reducing workload

Diversity and inclusion Addressing diversity in employment cycle Promotion of diversity in recruitment

Promotion of diversity in career management

Paying fair wages

Formal procedures Clear process of investigation of harassment cases

Learning and development Competences fit for organisational strategy Identifying the current situation in terms of employee competences

Identifying future needs for employee competences

Setting up priorities for development Prioritisation of training needs

Agreements on budget

Psychological and physical well-being Caring for the well-being of employees Supporting flexible working conditions

Monitoring of indicators for well-being

HR business partner’s area of activity - Consulting and coaching

WLB Special trainings and sessions on WLB External sessions

Regular training

Support for managers in terms of how to conduct conversation with employees on WLB Discussions on WLB

Dialogue with line managers

Diversity and inclusion Spreading the message about diversity Reminding of diversity

Workshops and training for employees on diversity

Discussions with the managers regarding diversity

Learning and development Advice for employee development Consulting the managers

Advice for employees on administrative issues

Consulting the employees on career paths

Psychological and physical well-being Treating well-being as an integral part of work Drawing attention to well-being issues

Managing stress

HR business partner’s area of activity - Building a competitive organisation

WLB Determining factors for increasing WLB Interviewing leaving employees Survey analysis

Diversity and inclusion Diversity contribution to organisational success Turnover management through diversity

Performance management through diversity

Improving compensation and benefits programme

Learning and development Employability Concern for future career

Psychological and physical well-being Competitiveness through well-being Risk of work environment

Employer branding components

HR business partner’s area of activity - Maintaining and transforming organisational culture

WLB Change of mindset Clarification of meaning of “flexibility”

Creating common understanding about WLB

Zero tolerance culture for overtime 40-hour week as a standard

Down-up communication Collecting good practices for WLB

Acting as a supporter Solving specific cases

Building trust Addressing any query

Increasing awareness about WLB Awareness of managers

Awareness of employees

Diversity and inclusion Inspiration of changes based on fairness Raising questions of fairness in remuneration

Solving discrimination issues

Different communities LGBTQ community

Diversity support in teams

Diversity supporting culture Zero tolerance towards harassment

Culture of openness

Diversity awards

Learning and development Learning organisation Different training directions and tools

Individual responsibility for development

Commitment of organisation

Psychological and physical well-being Culture of transparency Mediation between employee and manager

Investigation of complaints

Internal CSR area	Category	Subcategory
HR business partner’s area of activity - Strategic planning
WLB	WLB monitoring	Measuring tools
		Reports
	Ensuring the right implementation of the processes for WLB	Supporting the processes for WLB
	Planning HR for business function	Solutions for reducing workload
Diversity and inclusion	Addressing diversity in employment cycle	Promotion of diversity in recruitment
		Promotion of diversity in career management
		Paying fair wages
	Formal procedures	Clear process of investigation of harassment cases
Learning and development	Competences fit for organisational strategy	Identifying the current situation in terms of employee competences
		Identifying future needs for employee competences
	Setting up priorities for development	Prioritisation of training needs
		Agreements on budget
Psychological and physical well-being	Caring for the well-being of employees	Supporting flexible working conditions
		Monitoring of indicators for well-being
HR business partner’s area of activity - Consulting and coaching
WLB	Special trainings and sessions on WLB	External sessions
		Regular training
	Support for managers in terms of how to conduct conversation with employees on WLB	Discussions on WLB
		Dialogue with line managers
Diversity and inclusion	Spreading the message about diversity	Reminding of diversity
		Workshops and training for employees on diversity
		Discussions with the managers regarding diversity
Learning and development	Advice for employee development	Consulting the managers
		Advice for employees on administrative issues
		Consulting the employees on career paths
Psychological and physical well-being	Treating well-being as an integral part of work	Drawing attention to well-being issues
		Managing stress
HR business partner’s area of activity - Building a competitive organisation
WLB	Determining factors for increasing WLB	Interviewing leaving employees Survey analysis
Diversity and inclusion	Diversity contribution to organisational success	Turnover management through diversity
		Performance management through diversity
		Improving compensation and benefits programme
Learning and development	Employability	Concern for future career
Psychological and physical well-being	Competitiveness through well-being	Risk of work environment
		Employer branding components
HR business partner’s area of activity - Maintaining and transforming organisational culture
WLB	Change of mindset	Clarification of meaning of “flexibility”
		Creating common understanding about WLB
	Zero tolerance culture for overtime	40-hour week as a standard
	Down-up communication	Collecting good practices for WLB
	Acting as a supporter	Solving specific cases
	Building trust	Addressing any query
	Increasing awareness about WLB	Awareness of managers
		Awareness of employees
Diversity and inclusion	Inspiration of changes based on fairness	Raising questions of fairness in remuneration
		Solving discrimination issues
	Different communities	LGBTQ community
		Diversity support in teams
	Diversity supporting culture	Zero tolerance towards harassment
		Culture of openness
		Diversity awards
Learning and development	Learning organisation	Different training directions and tools
		Individual responsibility for development
		Commitment of organisation
Psychological and physical well-being	Culture of transparency	Mediation between employee and manager
		Investigation of complaints

4.1 The role of HR business partner regarding WLB

According to the findings, WLB is considered broadly as a “good amount of tasks” (I10), “flexibility of working place and working time” (I9), “ability to close the door and not to think about work” (I1), or no overtime. It seems that organisational culture is much about WLB, as one of the interviewees stated: “Approach that we are supporting flexibility < ... >is already implemented and we are working with this kind of mindset for a very long time” (I5). The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the debates on WLB and has significantly changed the situation in the direction to more working hours from home.

In terms of strategic planning, monitoring of WLB is well established. The Pulse survey or monthly reports are great tools for checking how people feel. Additionally, proactivity in HR business partner behaviour was indicated, as: “If there is something which makes me worried < ... >I need to proactively contact the manager to understand what exactly it is” (I5). As a result, HR business partners receive data, which allow them to reflect and identify the core problem areas and to take some actions later. The research findings demonstrate that the workload issue is one of the predominant ones, calling to search for the solutions how to reduce it. Furthermore, it seems that the HR business partners are willing to take this challenge while providing solutions in terms of internships, new positions, or reallocation of responsibilities. Moreover, an HR business partner makes sure that the procedures and processes established in the bank are followed correctly, for instance: “HR business partner should support the processes of WLB that are there and make sure that they are followed and that the manager used the opportunity” (I7).

Turning to the consulting area, two topics were revealed, namely training and supporting managers in terms of how to conduct conversation with employees on WLB. Discussions, dialogue with line managers or workshops are common daily practices of an HR business partner: “we take part in the discussion, raise the questions and try to understand where the lack of balance comes from” (I3) or “my role is to constantly keep on discussions < ... >a problem with workforce balance” (I4). As a result of such conversations, the need for general trainings or very specific topics arises, such as “mindfulness training” (I9). Nonetheless, HR business partners acknowledge that “if we had more time to support managers regarding sustainable employees and work balance, I think that managers would appreciate it” (I4).

In terms of building a competitive organisation, HR business partners have much to do with determining factors for increasing WLB and accordingly the bank becoming an attractive employer and a great place to work [70]. When an employee is leaving, interviews with both sides, employee and manager, are conducted and survey analysis serves as a tool for revealing “hot topics”, or attitudes, or problems and “this is mostly something for the closest manager to do” (I4).

The findings demonstrated that HR business partners perform different actions while transforming organisational culture in favour of WLB. It starts with changes of staff mindset, as there is the need to create a common understanding of what WLB implies and, more specifically that flexibility does not mean “that I can work from home and don’t come to the office at all” (I5). Moreover, HR business partners seek to increase the awareness on how to deal even with “tough cases” (I4). Moreover, equally important is the awareness of manager and awareness of employees. When “the manager stays at work writing messages until half past nine” (I3), this can form expectations of employees concerning their availability “24/7”. Similarly, employees being perfectionists usually makes it difficult for them to abstain from work after working hours. Further, as during interviews zero tolerance culture for overtime was disclosed, HR business partners aim at supporting employees and managers in achieving this mainly through communication with managers challenging them to find answers to such questions as: “Could everything be postponed?” (I10), or “can it be done in some other ways” (I10). However, one HR business partners spoke about powerlessness as there are cases regarding WLB that “I cannot influence” (I5). Next, down-up communication is perceived by HR business partners as their core priority and this is reflected in HR business partners’ talks with employees about their experience in balancing housework, office duties, children, hobbies, and private life. Being more accurate and solving specific cases (not only delivering general recommendations) was named by one interviewee as giving more meaning to work, as it is “strong and influential, when you can target well and focus on specific cases” (I1). Finally, in the area of culture, HR business partners try to build trustful relations with employees and managers and ensure that “our business colleagues can turn to me on any question, even delicate or confidential” (I9).

4.2 The role of HR business partner regarding diversity and inclusion

The findings revealed that diversity and inclusion were among the “strategic and priority directions” (I1) and during recent years, big steps were taken to “incorporate it in every in every business plan” (I6). The argumentation behind this is twofold: an economic aspect, seeing that “having inclusion and diversity will create business opportunities, this creates more agile work teams and efficiency, really, which comes with a profit gain” (I6); and a social aspect in terms of caring about people, as the number of immigrants is increasing and countries are becoming more diverse in terms of ethnical groups, age, and background and “it goes without saying that one has to understand what people work in your organisation, so that we could provide the best possible infrastructure, assistance, and support for these people” (I1). Although diversity is supported by workshops, trainings, or leadership sessions, due to occupational segregation by sex, cultural or economical heritage there are still teams in the banking sector that are not so diverse, for instance, in some teams, “only women work” (I2). In such cases, the confusion of HR business partners is totally understandable as they do not know how to change the situation despite the fact that “we had talks and discussions < ... >but men do not stay to work there anyway” (I2). Moreover, the findings are controversial in terms of diversity awareness among staff as it was said “the question is in the extent how much every manager or employee realises this” (I2) and “I think that most of the members are aware of this subject (diversity)” (I4).

Turning to the strategic planning area, the findings reveals that HR business partners are fully engaged in addressing diversity in the employment cycle, given that in recruitment, career planning or remuneration processes, diversity concerns are included. For instance, in case line managers complain about small numbers or qualification of applicants, HR business partner invites them to broaden the scope of potential workers tackling minority groups or people with disabilities. The same goes for succession planning as HR business partner sometimes shakes the managers inviting them “see all the people” (I3). The findings allow concluding that HR business partners play huge role in remuneration as “we also monitor whether we pay fair wages in terms of gender” (I7).

Regarding consulting and coaching, it seems that HR business partners mainly deal with dissemination of message about diversity. Although “we have done a very cool job in the last five, six years” (I9), discussions with managers or employees, trainings and reminding them of diversity in general and how diversity could contribute to business activities are needed nonetheless.

While building a competitive organisation, HR business partners hold key responsibility for disclosing diversity contribution to organisational success. This is done through several activities. First, HR business partners encourage managers to solve turnover issues from a different angle employing not only young people “who just wait until they could go on with building their career” (I4) but also people with longer working experience. Second, HR business partners see the added value of diversity in performance, as “we really can challenge each other and listen and hear what kind of wise input others have” (I10). Finally, HR business partners dispute the compensation system when it is not fair form the diversity angle.

Turning to organisational culture, the banking sector welcomes diverse communities and supports diversity in teams seeing that “it should not be so that if a Lithuanian is the leader, then the team members are also only Lithuanians; there should be a Latvian and an Estonian, too” (I3). The diversity supporting culture is dominating followed by zero tolerance towards harassment, openness and diversity awards. HR business partners work as change agents as they demand changes in cases when the remuneration system is not fair, when they get information that “we pay to representatives of a certain gender more for work; then we appeal to the managers and ask them to check if everything is really as it should be” (I3).

4.3 The role of HR business partner regarding learning and development

According to the findings, HR business partners do not play a significant role in employee development, as it is “on our learning department’s table” (I8). Moreover, the situation is seen differently, as some interviewees confirmed that “we have very good cooperation with the learning and development unit” (I7); however, some expressed the concerns that “we have different views < ... >this is a very complicated question” (I5). Despite these disagreements, the core message is that the banking sector “really cares about the development of each employee” (I10) and HR business partner’s role is more “about advertising and selling” (I7) of different training programmes and courses.

In terms of strategic planning, HR business partners ensure that employee competences fit to organisational strategy by identifying current and future needs for competences. There are some training visions, a “key future capability list” (I1). However, on the other hand, “we have various short-term solutions, whenever it is necessary to solve complex situations here and now, strengthen certain skills etc.” (I1). Generally speaking, “we look at how the profile of our employees fits with the organisation‘s strategy” (I1). It should be mentioned that drawing upon business specificity (regulations for the sector), there are two kinds of trainings: mandatory and additional, and an HR business partner “is responsible for gathering all the development needs” (I8). According to the findings, both types of trainings are treated in organisations with equal attention.

The research findings allow concluding that the core role of HR business partners is setting up the priorities for development, in terms of both training content and budget as “my role is to help to put the priorities where we will invest the money, what kind of trainings we need and what kind of development activities we need” (I5).

Regarding the building of a competitive organisation, HR business partners speak about the need for reskilling and upskilling and that the return of investment in development is related to the quality of services the employees deliver and also with their employability. The expectation for employees is “to be a more and more expert within a certain field” (I6). At the same time, there is a concern for future expressed, as “Because I think it’s really important to really talk that we are in a rapidly changing world < ... >What do I need to learn here? And now? What do I need to learn to be able to be a strong employee and be able to be employed in the future as well” (I10). Thus, HR business partners try to match the training with the forecast for future work world.

In the field of employee development, HR business partners provide advice to managers and employees regarding the process and content of development. In some cases, managers need support in setting the development goals with employees, providing feedback on lacking or needed competences. On the other hand, HR business partners also address the queries of employees regarding certain administrative procedures and, sometimes, regarding career paths, helping “specify the steps needed to find this path in this particular organisation” (I2).

Referring to organisational culture, the focus on becoming a continuously learning organisation was revealed underlying several aspects, such as individual employee responsibility, strong commitment of the organisation, and variety of training tools. One of the interviewees (I6) said: “as an individual, you are responsible for your own development, we are here to help you navigate in this area and to create plans, preconditions were you to equip yourself with everything that we need to deliver on your job”.

4.4 The role of HR business partner regarding psychological and physical well-being

Psychological and physical well-being as a dimension of internal CSR is tightly related to other dimensions, especially WLB. Strong concern for employees during interviews was expressed: “with the culture that we have, that we are really caring, we want to have employees that are feeling well” (I10). However, for some of the well-being areas, such as the quality of workplace, or health insurance package, other departments are mainly responsible, thus the role of the HR business partner is slightly limited.

For the purpose of strategic planning, HR business partners substantially rely on well-being monitoring, for instance, monitoring of “unused vacation days” (I8) or absence from work due to illness, as it is possible every month to check every unit and to see “the trends of short terms sick leaves and long terms sick leaves”. For HR business partner, these measurements are the key factors to see “if we have problems or we don’t have any problems” (I5).

Turning to the consulting area, the first responsibility of HR business partner is to draw attention to well-being issues, to make sure that the managers not only pay attention to possible issues, but “take actions before things get worse” (I7). The second responsibility is a more specific one as it refers to managing employee stress while speaking with the manager about possible antecedents of stress, actions already taken for reducing the stress and their effect, finally that “maybe something is not covered” (I8). Training courses and personal development plans are seen by HR business partner as one of ways to ensure that well-being is an integral part of work.

Following the findings, HR business partners seek to build a competitive organisation through well-being, by evaluating the hazards of the working environment and creating employer branding though various initiatives, like wellness weeks, exercising, hiking challenges, meetings with nutritionists, or adjustable height desks.

As regards culture, HR business partners strive for culture transparency, which supports psychological and physical well-being of employees. HR business partners work like mediators between the employee and manager (manager and employee) helping “the two parties involved in the conflict to talk” (I3). The findings demonstrated that the investigation of the conflicts was quite a common activity of an HR business partner, as ”employees address me on various topics. < ... >complaints and dissatisfaction, dismissal. Then you are talking with the manager and employee and try to find a balance” (I2).

5 Final discussion and conclusions

The paper aimed at revealing the HR business partners’ role with regard to internal CSR. Although an HR business partner is a quite new formal position in organisations [32], usually HR business partners actively work in four areas: strategic planning, consulting and coaching, building a competitive organisation, and finally maintaining and transforming organisational culture. Do and how HR business partners address the issue of internal CSR, in terms of WLB, diversity and inclusion, learning and development, and psychological and physical well-being, in the mentioned areas was the core question of the empirical research. The research was conducted in bank sector, however, the research methodology could be applied in other industrial sectors.

As it was revealed during the interviews, HR business partners are involved in strategic planning, provide consulting, care for competitiveness of organisations and are responsible for transforming organisational culture. Nonetheless, the findings suggest that HR business partners’ involvement in development and implementation of four internal CSR dimensions differs. It seems that HR business partners are mainly dealing with WLB aspects and most rarely – with learning and training, as this falls in the scope of the learning department.

The previous literature analysing HRM and CSR in banking sector mainly focused on external CSR. However, some studies, for instance the study of Mocan et al. (2015) [71] underlined the need for improvements regarding CSR towards employees. Similarly, the recommendation to have HR professionals who possess field expertise in HRM practices in order to provide the best possible internal services to employees and line managers in banking sector was revealed [72]. Such insights are aligned with the current research as HR business partners dealing with internal CSR serve as key players for creation and implementation of more socially responsible HRM practices. Moreover, the previous literature highlights that HR professionals should also have business competencies that enable them to design a series of internally consistent HR policies and practices that contribute to organisation’s business objectives [72]. This call was also reflected in the current study.

For achieving WLB, HR business partners suggest and implement various initiatives ranging from more sophisticated such as building trust, when every colleague can turn to the partner with any question, when HR business partners collect and share good experiences of employees in creating WLB to simple practices such as general consultations. Considering the fact that WLB is generally considered to be an individual-level concept [73], the person-oriented approach acting as a support and solving specific cases reveals the maturity of an HR business partner and maturity of organisation when CSR is perceived in a broader sense, not only as the responsibility for bank customers, shareholders, and risk management. In line with previous research, some evolving initiatives, such as working time and workplace flexibility tailored to particular employee are also in place [15, 74].

The findings support the tendencies in the literature to accept diversity as a prerequisite or desirable feature for optimising the organisations’ performance outcomes [75, 76]. Banking sector includes diversity in its agenda due to several reasons, including economic and social. Accordingly, HR business partners promote diversity in the whole employment cycle, starting with recruitment or team design, trying to employ people of different genders. Despite the fact that gender-neutral practices in the banking sector are just emerging, some of the previous studies have addressed gender neutrality in particular HRM practices, such as training [77].

Drawing upon the findings, HR business partners are not deeply involved in arranging employee learning and development. Nonetheless, they have several tasks of high importance, namely agreeing with managers on training budget and on the topics of training. Given the call and the need for upskilling and reskilling workforce [78], the participation of HR business partners in current and future competences evaluation and forecasting serves as evidence that they create strategic value within the organisation [8] and have established themselves as significant contributors to organisational outcomes [25] without any trust issues in their relations with line or top managers.

The research responds the prevailing call in the literature to strengthen the employee wellbeing [3, 79]. HR business partners act as mediators between the employee and manager, investigating the complaints and encouraging colleagues to take advantage of various initiatives for psychological and physical well-being.

The paper has some implications for the managers. Based on the findings, it is seen that potentially significant synergy exists between HRM and internal CSR. Practical implications are mainly related to complexity, trust, and respect. In terms of complexity, HR business partners have the possibility “to see the bigger picture” and accordingly, if there is some space for improvement, they can highlight this. Further, it seems that managers and employees trust the HR business partner and they usually know that they can come to them and tell their story. Finally, HR business partners show respect to different opinions and understand why people view the same problem differently and actually what we can gain from the different points of view. Thus, taking into consideration complexity, trust, and respect, other organisations are encouraged to establish the former position of HR business partner or to confer more power and responsibility to them.

The paper has a number of limitations. First, although data saturation was achieved, it is based on a relatively small number of interviews. Further studies could address this issue while focusing not only on a bigger number of HR business partners, but also trying to conduct an international comparative study (Baltic or Nordic Baltic countries), which would significantly advance the understanding of institutional and cultural drivers and constraints shaping the role of HR business partners in terms of internal CSR. Second, the research focused on the perception of HR business partners of their own role. Trying to avoid bias, further studies could include other stakeholders, for instance employees, asking them about the activities and impact of HR business partners on employee WLB, well-being, training or diversity management.

Summing up, organisations are encouraged to use the potential of the HR function to establish and implement internal CSR practices leading to sustainable humans, business, society, and world.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors have no acknowledgments.

Author contributions

CONCEPTION: Živilė Stankevičiūtė

METHODOLOGY: Živilė Stankevičiūtė and Justina Kalvaitienė

DATA COLLECTION: Justina Kalvaitienė

INTERPRETATION OR ANALYSIS OF DATA: Živilė Stankevičiūtė and Justina Kalvaitienė

PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT: Živilė Stankevičiūtė and Justina Kalvaitienė

REVISION FOR IMPORTANT INTELLECTUAL CONTENT: Živilė Stankevičiūtė and Justina Kalvaitienė

SUPERVISION: Živilė Stankevičiūtė

The supplementary material is available in the electronic version of this article: .

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