Strategic vs. Administrative HR: The Impacts on Your Craft and Career

HRCI recently partnered with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the World Federation of People Management Associations (WFPMA) to gather insights for the 10th edition of the Creating People Advantage report, and the findings reinforce several trends shaping the HR profession.

Some of the findings were apparent. For example:

• Stronger HR capabilities lead to greater business value.
• HR lags when it comes to technology.
• Strategic workforce planning, leadership development, and recruiting and onboarding top the list of HR priorities. HR professionals often go deep into these time-consuming areas, sometimes losing sight of the created business value.

Access a related Workspan Daily article on this subject:

• Reflecting on the Role: How HR Professionals Feel About Their Work

You Need to Show the Way, But Are You Feeling the Weight?

In my roles as the CEO of HRCI and as the secretary and treasurer of the North American Human Resource Management Association (NAHRMA), the North American representative to WFPMA, I see these trends play out across global and regional contexts.

I support the belief that HR needs to deeply understand the business as well as the linkage between HR practices and organizational growth plans. HRCI’s 2026 State of HR research found professionals like you are hopeful about the function, with 76% indicating they enjoy working in this field. At the same time, the winds of change are noticeable. Career paths have become murky, with 26% of our survey respondents saying they have no clear growth plan. Perhaps as a result, 41% said they are considering careers outside of HR.

Anxiety also is high among HR professionals. Most of our surveyed practitioners (58%) said their department’s range of responsibilities has increased, and 50% reported they currently handled external functions.

I don’t need to remind anyone in this field that HR each day walks a line between operations and strategy, as well as administrative and leadership. WorldatWork CEO Scott Cawood has acknowledged how difficult it is for HR to maintain a strategic outlook when the function is mired in administrivia, even at the highest levels.

You Need to Drive Value, But Are You Feeling Valued?

If you work in the business and not on the business, your role and corresponding compensation may not align with your potential and your career aspirations. That’s a message worth reading twice. While it’s not entirely clear if a strategic approach to HR drives greater organizational respect for the role, HR professionals who describe their function as strategic versus operational are far more likely to report being valued by senior leadership. The gap is striking: Just 43% of those seen as operational report feeling valued, compared to 90% of those seen as strategic.

It’s clear to me that for HR to be strategic, it needs to put on its own oxygen mask first. However, you may still feel underprepared in critical areas. Thirty-nine percent of our respondents said they feel least prepared to handle strategies geared toward development and effective compensation and benefits, while 52% said they feel least prepared to implement new HR technologies.

It’s impossible to successfully contribute to an organization’s goals and objectives without demonstrating solid confidence in these areas. The rest of the organization looks to HR for guidance; this is not the time to be self-effacing.

HRCI believes every HR practitioner should have a well-defined career path and a vision for the future. Ideally, that is a path and future not shaped by ever-increasing workloads and stress. The way forward requires self-advocacy — not only for employees but for ourselves and our teams.

When you take that ownership, you can more effectively strengthen your profession, your career and your earning potential.

Editor’s Note: Additional Content

For more information and resources related to this article, see the pages below, which offer quick access to all WorldatWork content on these topics:

• Career Growth
• Organizational Performance