Heather Daniels
Chief People Officer
ICBD Holdings
Episode 158
Beyond HR: Why Business Acumen and Data Drive Strategic People Growth.
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleJune 6, 2025 · 17:11
Thesis
“Effective HR leadership requires prioritizing business acumen and operating as a strategic business partner first, deeply understanding the organizational ecosystem and leveraging data-driven approaches to proactively address challenges like hypergrowth and performance.”
Show notes
Strategic HR Leadership and Hypergrowth Challenges with Heather Daniels
In this episode of the Built by People Podcast, Heather, a seasoned HR leader, discusses her extensive career journey across various industries, emphasizing her time in manufacturing and healthcare.
Heather shares her experience in managing hypergrowth at a healthcare startup, outlining her strategies for effective workforce planning and anticipating business needs. She offers practical advice on developing business acumen, the importance of field engagement, and aligning HR initiatives with business goals.
Heather also talks about overcoming resistance to performance management systems and the role of data in enhancing team performance.
The episode concludes with Heather's counsel on the significance of understanding the broader business ecosystem.
00:00 Introduction and Career Journey
01:46 Addressing Organizational Challenges
04:30 Developing Business Acumen
08:32 Performance Management Insights
11:35 Overcoming Resistance to Performance Management
15:07 Parting Advice and Conclusion
Previ is a private pricing network that is free for companies to launch and maintain. It saves employees $2,200/year on essential services like their cell phone and auto insurance bill. Visit here to learn more.
What you'll take away
- 1HR professionals should adopt a 'business person first, HR person second' mindset, deeply immersing themselves in the company's operations and external ecosystem.
- 2Proactive workforce planning, including field visits and strategic conversations with business leaders, is crucial for anticipating staffing needs, especially in hypergrowth scenarios.
- 3Implement data-driven performance management by teaching teams to manage their pipeline like a sales funnel, focusing on conversion rates and net hires rather than just individual reviews.
- 4Overcome resistance to performance management systems by demonstrating their value to leaders, providing practical tools like monthly 'win' trackers, and fostering continuous, honest feedback culture.
- 5Never lose sight of the external ecosystem (political, economic, industry trends) as an internal focus can lead to missing market shifts and competitive disadvantage.
What most organizations get wrong
- •While acknowledging some companies move away from traditional performance management, Daniels emphasizes its enduring value, especially in developing leaders to consistently provide direct, humane feedback, pushing back on the idea of completely abandoning structured feedback.
In Heather's words
“I think as a business person first and an HR person second.”
This quote encapsulates her core philosophy on the strategic role of HR within an organization.
“So I literally would schedule time on my calendar every week to just go walk the floor because otherwise we get, we all get so inundated with meetings that it's really easy for that just to take, hey, I'll someday get to it.”
This highlights a practical, actionable strategy for HR leaders to stay connected to the business operations and frontline workforce.
“And within TA, you're in sales. So, A, you gotta understand your business and be able to sell it to people externally. So, you've gotta have your elevator speech of why do you wanna work at our company? But then you also need to be able, just like any good salesperson, is manage your pipeline.”
This reframes the role of talent acquisition as a sales function, emphasizing data-driven pipeline management.
“I don't know a single leader in my career that has finished performance reviews ahead of time. It's always shepherding people in the process, but giving them the tools and tricks that I mentioned and engaging them on a more regular basis and making sure that they're having regular and ongoing conversations with their managers.”
This quote acknowledges the common challenges of performance management and offers a practical solution through consistent engagement and tools.
“Go learn your business. And what I mean by that is understand, so at a 30,000-foot level, understand the ecosystem in which your business and your business leaders are operating within.”
This serves as her overarching parting advice, emphasizing the importance of broad business and market understanding for HR leaders.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Difficulty scaling staffing rapidly during hypergrowth (e.g., 32,000% growth in 4 years) leading to reactive hiring.
- •Supply and demand imbalances for critical specialized roles, prolonging time-to-hire significantly.
- •Business leaders often lack clear foresight into their future staffing needs due to rapid change, making workforce planning challenging.
- •Resistance among people leaders to engage with performance management systems and provide direct, constructive feedback.
- •Companies becoming insular and internally focused, losing awareness of the external market ecosystem and competitive landscape, leading to loss of market share or price.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
I've been in manufacturing and in healthcare for a large part of my career
Top Executives: Starting Out in Healthcare
Heather uses business acumen to address an organizational challenge
How to Get Ahead of the Curve in Healthcare Staffing
How do you encourage others in organizations to develop their business acumen
HR Strategy: Business Acumen
Heather says performance management played a critical role in her team's success
Performance Management in the Business
Heather says she overcame initial resistance to performance management systems at GE
How to Win Over Performance Management Systems
Heather: Go learn your business. And what I mean by that is understand
Heather Hewitt's Last Words
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
Expand transcript (0 words)
Transcript is not available yet.