Human Resource Champions

Dave Ulrich

To create competitive advantage, the Human Resources function must evolve from a focus on administrative activities to a business partnership that delivers measurable results by mastering four key roles: strategic partner, administrative expert, employee champion, and change agent.

In an era of intense global competition, Human Resource Champions argues that sustainable competitive advantage comes not from strategy, technology, or products alone, but from building superior organizational capabilities. Dave Ulrich provides a powerful framework for HR professionals and line managers to transform the HR function from a bureaucratic cost center into a strategic partner that creates value and delivers results. The book redefines the work of HR by focusing on deliverables rather than activities, outlining a model of four key roles—Strategic Partner, Administrative Expert, Employee Champion, and Change Agent. Each role is detailed with practical tools and real-world examples, showing readers how to execute business strategy, build an efficient infrastructure, increase employee contribution, and lead organizational transformation. This is an essential guide for anyone who wants to elevate the people-side of the business and prove HR's direct impact on the bottom line.

The model it argues

A causal path model based on Dave Ulrich's framework where specific HR role activities build distinct organizational capabilities (or 'deliverables'). These capabilities mediate the relationship between HR activities and overall business competitiveness, demonstrating how HR creates value and delivers results for the firm.

Key ideas

Strategic Partnering Activities: The professional activities through which HR becomes a partner with line management in executing business strategy. This role involves moving from a functional to a business orientation by participating in the definition of business strategy and aligning HR practices to make that strategy happen.
Administrative Expertise Activities: The professional activities through which HR builds an efficient infrastructure by reengineering HR and business processes. This role involves designing and delivering HR processes for staffing, training, appraising, and rewarding employees more efficiently and with higher quality, often through the use of technology and new organizational forms.
Employee Championing Activities: The professional activities through which HR manages employees' contribution to the organization by being their voice and providing them with resources to meet increasing demands. This role involves linking employee needs to business success, managing the psychological contract, and ensuring employees remain competent and committed.
Change Agent Activities: The professional activities through which HR helps manage transformation and change. This role involves building the organization's capacity for change by identifying and implementing effective change processes, thereby enabling the organization to adapt, learn, and transform its culture.
Strategy Execution Capability: The deliverable from the management of strategic human resources. It is the organization's ability to turn strategic intent into action and results. This capability shortens the time from strategy conception to execution, enables better responses to customer demands, and drives financial performance.
Administrative Efficiency: The deliverable from building an efficient infrastructure. It represents the organization's ability to perform transactional and administrative tasks with high quality, low cost, and high speed. It is achieved by streamlining and automating processes and removing unnecessary work.
Employee Contribution: The deliverable from managing employee needs, representing the total value that employees bring to the organization through their competence (skills and abilities) and their commitment (willingness to work diligently). It is the organization's intellectual capital in action.
Capacity for Change: The deliverable from managing transformation. It is the organization's ability to improve the design and implementation of initiatives, reduce cycle times, and undergo fundamental cultural transformation. It reflects organizational agility and resilience.
Business Competitiveness: The ultimate outcome of effective HR, representing the firm's ability to create value and deliver results for its key stakeholders. It encompasses financial success for investors, value and satisfaction for customers, and a compelling environment for employees, enabling the firm to win in its marketplace.