Dee Brown
CHRO
West Bend Insurance Company
Episode 211
Transform HR: From Policy Enforcer to Business Strategy Driver
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleApril 30, 2025 · 6:00
Thesis
“HR leaders gain credibility and influence by deeply understanding and aligning with overall business strategy, leveraging data to demonstrate value, and fostering inclusive buy-in across all organizational levels, rather than operating solely as policy enforcers.”
Show notes
HR's credibility problem isn't a branding issue — it's a business fluency issue. Dee Brown, CHRO at West Bend Insurance, has built her entire career around closing that gap: becoming as conversant in business strategy as any line leader, then using that fluency to make HR indispensable.
Her core insight is straightforward: if you only know HR, people are less likely to listen to you. The CHROs who earn genuine organizational influence are the ones who understand the business well enough to connect every people initiative to a business outcome — whether that's retention, productivity, or risk reduction. At West Bend, that means walking into executive conversations with data, anticipating the financial implications of HR proposals, and applying enough emotional intelligence to know how to frame a recommendation for a particular audience. It also means involving people at every level in culture work — not because it's good optics, but because top-down culture mandates consistently fail while bottom-up buy-in consistently sticks.
She's also direct about a specific failure mode she sees across the HR profession: under-communication. HR teams often do excellent work that nobody knows about. The result is that stakeholders remain unaware of HR's contributions, and the function gets treated as administrative overhead rather than strategic infrastructure.
- Building HR credibility through business fluency — why knowing the business is the prerequisite for being heard
- Inclusive culture design — how to get genuine buy-in by involving leaders and employees in the creation process
- Securing executive support for HR initiatives — using data, risk framing, and emotional intelligence together
- Communicating HR's contributions — how to ensure the organization knows what HR is actually delivering
- The evolving HR mandate — why stepping outside traditional HR boundaries is now a leadership requirement
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What you'll take away
- 1HR builds credibility and influence by mastering business strategy, enabling them to connect talent initiatives directly to organizational goals, moving beyond being perceived as 'policy police'.
- 2For effective culture building, involve leadership teams and employees at all levels in the creation process to ensure buy-in and greater impact.
- 3Secure executive buy-in for HR initiatives by presenting data, considering business implications, anticipating risks, and applying emotional intelligence to tailor communication.
- 4To establish HR influence, focus on delivering clear, small short-term and long-term wins, and proactively communicate HR's strategic contributions across the organization.
- 5HR leaders should step outside traditional boundaries, viewing their role as a powerful influence on business strategies, with data as a crucial tool for decision-making and advocacy.
What most organizations get wrong
- •If HR solely creates initiatives without input, 'we're just creating HR stuff.' True impact comes when people feel they have 'buy-in and they can have helped create it'.
In Dee's words
“HR builds credibility and influence in knowing the business. If you just know HR stuff, people are less likely to listen. But when you can know and talk the business strategy, and you can connect the talent and the people strategy people listen because they're like, okay, you know your stuff.”
This quote highlights the core of HR's strategic value, emphasizing business acumen over administrative focus.
“I think the strategies that are most effective is when you bring everyone along with you and have input from your leadership teams into your strategies... letting them have buy-in and input into whatever you're creating.”
This emphasizes collaborative and inclusive approaches to culture development for greater impact and ownership.
“I have found that using data and knowing who to use data with and knowing who to use my gut with, is very key. So I say emotional intelligence and understanding who your business leaders are, your executive leaders, is extremely important.”
This quote stresses the importance of combining analytical insights with interpersonal skills for effective executive engagement.
“The other piece that I would say is extremely important that I think sometimes we forget about in HR is communication, telling our story. And, you know, that people sometimes don't even know what we're doing, and we're doing some great stuff in HR.”
This highlights the often-overlooked necessity of HR effectively communicating its value and contributions to the organization.
“Organizations are transforming. And my parting advice is HR, step outside the box of HR and see yourselves having that influence into your business strategies in a powerful way. But understanding what the business strategies are is absolutely key and use data to do it.”
This serves as a strong concluding call to action for HR to be more strategically integrated and data-driven.
The problems this episode addresses
- •HR often struggles with being perceived as the 'policy police' rather than a strategic business partner, hindering their influence.
- •Gaining genuine executive buy-in for culture and people initiatives can be challenging without proper data and tailored communication strategies.
- •Organizations face difficulties in elevating HR's role beyond operational tasks to a strategic partnership, especially if historically viewed narrowly.
- •A common challenge for HR is the lack of effective communication, leading to stakeholders being unaware of the significant contributions HR makes.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
Your career journey started in the insurance industry in HR
What's Your Career Journey?
HR builds credibility and influence in knowing the business, Dee says
How HR Leaders Gain Executive Buy-in for Culture and People Initi
Dee, what are some common challenges HR faces in establishing influence
Establishing Influence in HR
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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