Strategic HR, Business Acumen & Partnering

Strategic HR, Business Acumen & Partnering

Strategic HR, Business Acumen & Partnering is a structured track of 14 lessons that build a complete, interview-ready understanding of the topic. Work through them in order, then use the quiz and flashcards in each lesson to revise.

What this course covers

  • What Makes HR Strategic Rather Than Administrative - The concrete difference in the questions a strategic HR team is asked.
  • Linking People Strategy to Business Strategy - Deriving people priorities from a business plan instead of from HR trends.
  • The Business Partner Operating Model and How Work Flows - Business partners, centres of expertise and shared services, and the handoffs.
  • Business Acumen: Understanding How Your Company Makes Money - Revenue model, cost structure and margin, explained for an HR audience.
  • Reading a Profit and Loss Statement as an HR Professional - The lines an HR business partner must be able to interpret and question.
  • Manpower Cost, Budgeting & Cost-to-Revenue Ratios - Building and defending a people cost budget, and the ratios leadership watches.
  • Building an HR Scorecard and Human Capital Return - Linking HR activity to business outcomes, and computing return credibly.
  • Influencing Without Authority & Managing Senior Stakeholders - Getting a people decision made when you do not own the budget or the team.
  • Consulting Skills: Contracting, Diagnosis & Recommendation - Treating an internal request as a consulting engagement, from contracting onward.
  • Workforce Productivity & Span-of-Control Analysis - Analysing spans, layers and productivity to find real capacity.
  • Building an Annual HR Plan and Getting It Funded - Turning priorities into a costed plan with measures leadership will approve.
  • Cross-Cultural HR & Managing Across Geographies - Cultural dimensions applied to policy, and where global policy must localise.
  • Making the Business Case for AI in HR - Costing an AI initiative, defining the benefit and defending it to a finance team.
  • Case Study: Presenting a People Strategy to a Leadership Team - A people strategy built and presented, with the objections it had to survive.