To demonstrate its impact on performance, employee engagement, and retention, HR must play a strategic role. Yet 41% of HR professionals say they are “overwhelmed by administrative tasks,” and only 19% feel they spend enough time on strategy and innovation (Tissot Barometer 2025).
So how do you build your HR strategy? During HR Impact Week, organized by Skillup, Xavier Broseta, former CHRO of Air France–KLM and Canal+, shared 10 practical recommendations based on his experience.
Legitimacy is essential to influence strategic decisions. It is built over time through actions that demonstrate your added value to the executive team.
Every organization offers a promise: internal mobility, skills development, autonomy… What matters is not what you claim, but how consistent it is with the day-to-day employee experience.
If your company promotes internal mobility, but talent reviews are irregular, vacancies aren’t shared internally, or managers block moves due to lack of succession planning, the promise loses credibility.
Conversely, a company that simply promises “a clear and predictable framework” builds trust if it applies transparent criteria and consistent rules.
Clarify the promise you can realistically keep and embed it into every HR process.
HR’s influence grows when it tackles the issues that matter to leadership: payroll evolution, critical skills and transformation capacity. This requires speaking the language of business from figures, KPIs, ROI, trade-offs, etc.
“HR Directors are sometimes the unfortunate ones on the Executive Committee—along with CIOs. People only think of them when something goes wrong.” — Xavier Broseta
Anticipate payroll evolution over 12 months, quantify the risk of lacking critical skills, calculate the real cost of turnover in key roles or the failure rate during probationary periods. By systematically linking “people issues” to business outcomes, you position HR as a strategic partner.
Representing employees does not mean saying yes to everything. Managerial courage means defending the right position even when it comes to unpopular elements such as highlighting risks proactively or refusing requests that could weaken the organization.
For example:
Stay firm while keeping dialogue open.
Influence relies on continuous alignment. Meet regularly with the executive team and share clear, business-oriented data: internal mobility rates, cost of turnover, links between engagement and performance and projected payroll trends.
At Marie Brizard, a redesigned performance review cycle was so convincing that the management committee actively promoted it to the executive committee and managers.
This data-informed presence at the top positions HR in its rightful role by anticipating skill needs and steering human development with the same rigor used to manage finances.
Once your legitimacy is established, turn it into measurable outcomes through a clear method and well-defined priorities.
Regulation becomes a source of credibility when used to structure practices rather than simply meet compliance.
For example, reforms targeting performance reviews or employee evaluations can be an opportunity to transform a formal obligation into a meaningful conversation about skill development and career paths.
Likewise, the EU Pay Transparency Directive can support strategic alignment by clarifying compensation criteria, harmonizing managerial practices, structuring evaluations, and ensuring reliable reporting to anticipate and address inequalities.
Some organizations even use regulations to drive transformation. Aon, for example, turned a complex compliance requirement into a driver of employee engagement through clearer skill development, stronger management processes, and recognition of internal trainers.
Used effectively, regulation creates value: it clarifies rules, structures practices, and reinforces HR’s legitimacy.
A process is only useful if it leads to action. Do talent reviews assist with the succession planning process as well as identify risks? Or, is it a slide deck that no one uses? Do annual reviews lead to internal mobility moves and learning and development plans, or are they simply a formality?
When managers understand the purpose of a process, they commit to it. When leadership sees its link to business outcomes, HR is viewed as a performance driver.
Focus on what creates value. A talent review covering 50 critical roles is more impactful than a generic review of 500 employees. A training plan focusing on 3 strategic skills with measured outcomes is more effective than a catalogue of 50 courses without evaluation.
Doing less, but better, increases visibility and credibility.
Regularly collect feedback from managers and the executive team to identify friction points and adjust your approach. After each HR cycle, send a short survey. Hold brief meetings with the executive team to gain insights.
This listening culture strengthens alignment and supports continuous improvement.
To gain influence, HR must make its impact visible. Measuring, demonstrating, and communicating outcomes is essential.
Before discussing strategy or transformation, trust is built on operational excellence: accurate payroll, effective recruitment, stable employee relations. These basics often go unnoticed until something goes wrong.
Track simple, business-focused indicators such as recruitment lead time, payroll error rate, social climate, and internal mobility.
HR delivers a lot, but much of it remains invisible. To influence decisions, you must make your actions and results understandable.
Examples:
“We measure too much what we do, and not enough what it changes.” — Xavier Broseta
Regular communication strengthens trust and helps leadership understand how HR supports performance.
Beyond the ten recommendations, two additional practices highlighted by Xavier Broseta can accelerate HR’s strategic influence.
Measuring only activity levels (number of reviews, training hours, completion rates) keeps HR in a support role. Outcome-based commitments change the dialogue with leadership: it’s no longer about what you did, but what it delivered.
Examples:
A north-star metric provides a clear, long-term direction. It represents HR’s strategic contribution to the business and guides prioritization and communication.
Depending on the organization, this could be:
There is no universal right metric, but the right one is the one that best reflects the value HR commits to delivering.