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Keep shoppingBusiness Partnering: Be a Partner, Not a Service Desk [EN]
2,033 students
Business Partnering: Be a Partner, Not a Service Desk [EN]
business partnering | hr business partner | hrbp role | stakeholder management | internal consulting | trusted advisor
Last updated 5/2025
English
English [Auto],
What you'll learn
- Move from taking requests to being asked what should be done
- Run a one-to-one that surfaces a problem before it becomes a resignation
- Build a case a business leader will act on, and handle the objections to it
- Deliver what you promised, using a project method rather than good intentions
- Treat an internal stakeholder as a client, with standards and a service level
- Measure your own function with satisfaction, effort and resolution metrics
- Communicate to people outside the room so the message survives the retelling
- Handle a difficult stakeholder without either capitulating or escalating
- Learn alongside Mike's 1.6 million students from 185 countries
- Get the author's experience from Preply, Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank
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Course content
15 sections • 40 lectures • 18h 21m total length
Requirements
- A support or staff function that serves a business unit, in any discipline
- No project management background required. It is built from the beginning
- Access to at least one business leader you are supposed to be partnering
- English at intermediate level or above, since all lessons are in English
- Willingness to find out how your function is actually described when you are not there
Description
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
The difference between a business partner and a service desk is not the job title. It is whether people arrive with a task or with a problem.
How a function ends up as a service desk
Nobody decides it. It happens because every request gets accepted, so requests are what you get. You are competent, you are responsive, and you are told about decisions after they are made — because you have trained everyone that you are the person who executes, not the person who is consulted. I spent two years being extremely useful in exactly that way and could not understand why I was never in the planning meeting.
What this course actually covers
Five blocks, each one a piece of what changes that. First, the substance of the role — ten lessons on what partnering actually consists of: workforce planning, one-to-ones that surface a problem before it becomes a resignation, engagement, burnout, coaching, development plans, exit interviews and difficult people. Second, persuasion, because a partner cannot instruct anyone: the funnel, objections, and getting to a decision. Third, delivery — ten lessons of project management, because trust is built on things you promised and finished, not on good meetings. Fourth, treating an internal stakeholder as a client: auditing how your function is experienced, service standards, metrics, escalation and difficult situations. Fifth, communication, so the message survives being retold by someone else.
A note on the first block
Those ten lessons are recorded from the people-partner seat, because that is the most fully developed version of this role and the one with the clearest practice behind it. The mechanics are the same in any function. A finance partner, an IT partner and a people partner all begin the same way: by stopping waiting for the request, and by learning enough about the business unit to have an opinion worth interrupting for.
Who is teaching this
I am Mike Pritula. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, working as a partner to every function in it, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.
What is included
Lifetime access to all 40 lessons
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
A Udemy Certificate of Completion
Working material: the one-to-one structure, Gallup Q12, the development plan, AIDA, SPIN, FAB, BANT, the project charter and stakeholder map, service standards and the metric set
Practical work aimed at the business unit you actually support
Where to start
Look at the last ten things your function was asked for and mark which arrived as a task and which as a problem. That ratio is your current position, and it is the only number this course is trying to change. Enrol now and start today.
Who this course is for:
- Business partners in people, finance, IT or legal who are still treated as a service desk
- Specialists moving from executing requests to advising on decisions
- Function leads whose stakeholders go around them rather than to them
- Internal consultants who deliver good analysis nobody acts on
- Managers of support teams building standards and metrics for the first time
- Anyone whose function is respected and never invited to the planning meeting
- Specialists preparing for a business partner role