Strategic HR in the V4
From Busy Support Function to Real Business Partner
Picture your next management meeting.
You review revenue, margins, energy prices. Then someone raises labour shortages, wage pressure or the next automation project – and suddenly all eyes turn to HR. The key question is simple: Can HR change the strategic decision on the table, or are they just asked to “staff whatever we decide”?
That is the real test of Strategic HR Integration.
What the V4 research tells us
The V4 survey of just over 2,000 organisations in Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia gives us a sharp mirror. Most respondents are private companies (around nine out of ten) and SMEs (about four out of five).
Three messages jump out:
- Only about half of organisations have any kind of HR strategy. Globally, Cranet data suggests that roughly two thirds of organisations have a written HRM strategy. In the V4 sample, this drops to just under one in two, with Slovakia slightly above and Hungary slightly below that mark.
- Operational HR processes are widespread and intense. Around three quarters of organisations run formal recruitment processes, and roughly seven in ten do workforce number and structure planning. Onboarding, training and personnel administration also appear in most companies.
- The top three “most important” HR processes are termination, personnel controlling and talent management. Leaders rate termination and HR controlling close to the top of a 10-point scale, with talent management not far behind.
So HR in the region is very busy and surrounded by data – but in about half of organisations, this happens without a clear HR strategy and often without deep integration into business decision-making. CIPD’s international People Profession survey shows a similar global pattern: around two thirds of HR professionals believe their function adds strategic value, but less than half feel that impact is really recognised by the business.
You can feel the gap: a lot of work, not always the right influence.
The integration gap you probably feel every day
If you work as an HR or business leader in the V4, you may recognise these scenes:
- HR is invited to the strategy offsite, but people topics are squeezed into the last 30 minutes.
- There is a glossy HR strategy deck, but your plant manager’s reality is still: “I just need welders and drivers for next week.”
- Talent management is declared a priority, yet only around a quarter of organisations report formal talent management processes in place.
Add the regional context: Labour markets have been reshaped by emigration, ageing populations, wage gaps and, more recently the war in Ukraine. The report itself lists “drastically increased labour shortage” as one of the core structural issues in the V4 region. In this environment, short-term survival HR (hire, patch, reduce cost) easily crowds out truly strategic work.
Core message for HR leaders
If HR cannot change a strategic decision, it is not yet strategic – no matter how many projects you run. Your task is not to do more HR, but to re-wire how HR connects to business choices.
Four moves to make HR genuinely strategic – starting now
1. Translate HR into three business questions
Forget the 40-page strategy. Start with three questions that your CEO actually cares about:
- Which people risks could realistically stop us from delivering our strategy?
- Which capabilities do we absolutely need more of in the next 3–5 years?
- Which roles are genuinely critical – the ones we cannot afford to get wrong?
Use the V4 data as a backdrop: in a region where termination and controlling dominate the HR agenda, your differentiation is to talk about future roles, future skills and future risks, not only today’s headcount.
2. Put your HR strategy on one page
A one-page HR strategy forces clarity and integration. Structure it like this:
- Business direction (3–5 bullets) – e.g. export growth, automation, new markets.
- People outcomes (3–5 bullets) – e.g. lower regretted attrition in key roles, more internal promotions, new skills for digital operations.
- Key HR levers and metrics – recruitment, reskilling, leadership, reward, analytics, each with 1–2 success measures.
Notice how this mirrors the V4 findings: you already do recruitment, workforce planning and training in some form. The one-pager simply ties them to explicit business bets.
3. Move from “personnel controlling” to people stories
The survey shows personnel controlling is rated almost as important as termination. Use that energy, but upgrade it:
- Combine basic headcount and cost data with 3–4 strategic ratios: revenue per FTE, cost of turnover, internal fill rate for critical roles, training investment in key areas.
- Each quarter, bring one narrative to the board: “Here is where we are losing capability” / “Here is where we are over-relying on the external market”, / “Here is where talent management is already paying off.”
This is where McKinsey’s work on people analytics is helpful: companies that use people data well report significantly lower attrition and higher productivity than their peers.
4. Run a joint “people + business” pilot
Choose one strategic initiative – a new production line, a service expansion, or an integration project – and co-own it with a business leader:
- Build a simple 2–3 year workforce and skills forecast, using the workforce planning thinking that many V4 companies already apply annually.
- Identify risks: where can labour shortage or missing skills derail the initiative
- Design targeted actions: reskilling, targeted recruitment, retention measures for specific groups.
Then, in every steering meeting, speak in business language: cost, speed, quality, risk – with people solutions attached.
Why this matters now
Cranet’s global figures suggest that around 2/3 of organisations already have an HR strategy; in the V4, it is only about half. That gap is your opportunity.
If you, as an HR leader, can put a one-page HR strategy on the table, backed by clear people analytics and linked to a real business pilot, you are already ahead of many peers in the region. Strategic HR Integration is not a slogan. It is the moment when your CEO looks at you in a key decision and asks:
“What do your people numbers tell us – and how should that change our choice?”
Your job is to be ready for that question.