Strategic vs. Operational: Where Is Your HR Team Spending Their Time?
Published by
Alan Walker
on
HR teams today sit at the crossroads of transformation. With more technology, more data, and more expectations than ever before, they’re expected to lead strategic initiatives and keep the day-to-day machine running. But when operational tasks consume most of the team’s bandwidth, strategy falls to the bottom of the list; and the business feels it.
So how much of your HR team’s time is truly strategic, and how much is lost to admin, firefighting, and system upkeep?
Let’s unpack why this happens; and how HR teams can shift from surviving to driving.
The Reality: HR as System Firefighter
In theory, HR tech should lighten the load. In practice, many HR teams become the unofficial IT desk for their platforms:
- Fixing data issues
- Managing workflows
- Building reports for every team under the sun
- Managing access requests and rights
These tasks are critical; but they’re also operational, and they leave little room for strategic work like:
- Talent development planning
- Workforce forecasting
- Culture and engagement initiatives
- DEIB strategies
- Organisational design
Why This Matters
Spending too much time on operations has ripple effects across your business:
- Delayed innovation: Strategic projects keep getting postponed.
- Burnout risk: Teams become reactive, always catching up.
- Lost business value: HR’s impact is reduced to admin support rather than a driver of growth.
And yet, this is often nobody’s fault—just a natural outcome of trying to do too much with too little.
How to Rebalance the Scales
To shift from operational overload to strategic clarity, HR teams need two things:
- Capacity: breathing room from repetitive admin and maintenance tasks.
- Capability: access to the right expertise when optimisation or problem-solving is needed.
What Good Looks Like
Your HR team shouldn’t be doing it all. Instead:
- Ops should be handled by a dedicated function or partner
- Strategic work should be HR’s priority
- System issues should be logged and solved without derailing the day
Enter Assist by Udder; our always-on HR-Ops-as-a-Service model that goes far beyond basic support.
Yes, we take the busywork off your plate from system tweaks and user support to reporting and admin. But Assist is also a strategic enabler, helping you get more value from your HR tech stack, not just keep it running.
We provide hands-on operational support across five core areas: System Optimisation, User Support, Process Enhancement, User Enablement, and Reporting & Analytics. But what makes Assist different is the strategic oversight we bring across platforms like Avature, HiBob, and SmartRecruiters.
Our specialists proactively monitor system health, flag opportunities for improvement, and help you take full advantage of new features, turning your HR systems from a maintenance headache into a competitive advantage.
Where Are You Spending Your Time?
If strategy always seems “nice to have” but never gets the focus it deserves, it’s time to look at your operating model. Assist helps shift the balance—so HR can lead, not lag.
Curious where your HR team stands? Take our free, 10-question HR Tech Operations Diagnostic and get clarity on how you're really managing and maintaining your HR systems.