HR as a Strategic Partner isn’t a buzzword — it’s the difference between HR being tolerated and HR driving profit.
In this episode of GoHire Talks, Robin Griffin — a 30-year HR veteran with SPHR, PHR, SCP, and forensic interview credentials — breaks down what it really takes to move from “policy police” to trusted strategic advisor.
This conversation goes deep into credibility, workforce planning, AI adoption, emotional intelligence, and why HR leaders who don’t speak EBITDA will never truly influence the business.
If you’re an HR or Talent leader who wants a real seat at the table — this one is for you.
Key Topics Covered
- Moving from Policy Police to Strategic Advisor
- Building Credibility and Trust with Leadership
- HR as a Strategic Partner Who Speaks EBITDA
- Workforce Planning vs Reactive Layoffs
- AI as a Productivity Tool — Not a Job Killer
- Emotional Intelligence in Strategic HR Leadership
HR as a Strategic Partner: Moving from Policy Police to Strategic Advisor
For many employees, HR is still seen as the “agent in charge of no fun.”
Robin admits early in her career, she led with the handbook.
“Thirty years ago, Robin came in with her handbook and it was black and white.”
Compliance matters. Policies matter. But when HR operates only as rule enforcement, it stays transactional.
The shift happens when HR begins asking:
- What’s the root cause?
- Was this person trained properly?
- Is this a leadership issue?
- Is communication breaking down?
That’s when HR stops being reactive and becomes strategic.
Moving from transactional to transformational HR changes:
- Leadership accountability
- Employee engagement
- Retention
- Profitability
HR as a Strategic Partner Builds Credibility and Trust with Leadership
HR Business Partnership doesn’t start with authority.
It starts with credibility.
Robin built trust by:
- Being consistent
- Speaking truth — even when uncomfortable
- Working in male-dominated environments and earning respect
- Challenging leaders with fairness and equity
In one example, a senior director wanted to write up an employee for raising their voice — while admitting they had been yelling first.
Instead of defaulting to policy, Robin reframed the issue around fairness and respect.
That’s strategic influence.
HR earns a seat at the table when leaders stop thinking:
“HR is trying to control my department.”
And start thinking:
“HR is helping me run this more efficiently.”
HR as a Strategic Partner Who Speaks EBITDA
Here’s where many HR teams fall short.
They don’t speak finance.
Robin does.
She openly discusses profitability, overtime costs, turnover metrics, and EBITDA.
“When we have more time freed up… that’s where we can increase bonuses and pay raises.”
HR leaders who understand:
- Headcount planning
- Overtime trends
- Turnover cost
- Productivity metrics
Become indispensable.
As one of Jonathan Duarte’s previous guests put it:
If HR doesn’t speak the language of business, it won’t have a seat at the table.
Robin learned early from a CEO mentor who exposed her to financial thinking. That foundation allowed her to influence leadership faster and more effectively.
Strategic HR leadership is financial leadership.
HR as a Strategic Partner in Workforce Planning vs Reactive Layoffs
Robin shared a defining career moment.
She joined a company — only to be tasked two months later with reducing the workforce by 67%.
That experience changed her forever.
It forced her to ask:
- Were we watching headcount trends?
- Did we have succession planning?
- Were we forecasting revenue correctly?
- Did we exhaust every option before cutting heads?
That’s the difference between compliance HR and HR Business Partnership.
Reactive layoffs protect short-term margins.
Strategic workforce planning protects long-term stability.
HR as a Strategic Partner means influencing these conversations before they become crises.
HR as a Strategic Partner in the Age of AI
AI is one of the most misunderstood workplace topics today.
Robin’s take is grounded and practical.
AI is:
- A tool
- A productivity accelerator
- A support mechanism
It is not:
- A total workforce replacement
- A strategic brain
- A substitute for leadership judgment
Tools like Copilot and ChatGPT can:
- Draft policies faster
- Improve written communication
- Save labor hours
But they require human expertise and oversight.
Robin emphasizes reframing fear into preparation:
“How can I prepare myself for the future?”
Strategic HR leaders don’t resist AI.
They integrate it — responsibly.
Emotional Intelligence in HR as a Strategic Partner
Technical credentials matter.
Robin has plenty of them.
But emotional intelligence is what makes strategy stick.
HR leaders must:
- Be willing to confront
- Be willing to coach
- Be willing to influence up
- Balance compliance with compassion
Her philosophy is simple:
Blend compliance with compassion and courage.
And shift leaders from asking:
“Is this allowed?”
To asking:
“What’s the right thing to do?”
That’s transformational leadership.
🙌 About the Guest
Robin Griffin is a senior HR executive and consultant with 30+ years of experience in employee relations, investigations, and multi-state compliance strategy. She helps organizations reduce risk, strengthen accountability, and build defensible HR systems that stand up under scrutiny. As the founder of Lone Star HR, she provides fractional CHRO and executive-level support to leadership teams seeking steady, ethical, and solutions-driven HR guidance without adding headcount.
📎 Connect with her on LinkedIn
Full Robin Griffin Transcript:
[00:00:02] Jonathan Duarte: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of GoHire Talks. Today we’ve got Robin Griffin, who’s going to talk about some incredible topics about movement from.
[00:00:13] Jonathan Duarte: Compliance in HR to being a strategic advisor in the business. Robin, go ahead and gimme an intro about yourself and how you got into this space.
[00:00:23] Robin Griffin: Thank you so much, John, for having me on. I really appreciate that. So you know my history and background.
[00:00:28] Robin Griffin: I bring 30 years of HR experience, and we’re not just talking about policy here, but we’re talking about human behavior, conflict resolution, leadership coaching. I have my degree in HR and I’ve got more letters behind my name, and it isn’t because I think I’m super smart. It shows competency in those fields.
[00:00:44] Robin Griffin: Those that I have is SPHR, PHR, SCP, CP, as well as WZ, so Wicklander offers. Interview techniques. This is how you learn to do a forensic interview. I say all of those things simply because it means I [00:01:00] know what I’m talking about. I have the credentials behind those things, but at the crux of what I do, I believe strong HR teams, blend compliance.
[00:01:08] Robin Griffin: With compassion, with courage. I wanna be able to go to work and know that these organizations or these leaders, they’re walking out more healthy and have a more stable unit than they did going in. I just wanna build those leaders, create those workplaces for people where they don’t have to come to work and go home at the end of the day.
[00:01:26] Robin Griffin: Oh my gosh, I can’t believe, what happened at work today. They wanna go home and say, I made a difference.
[00:01:31] Jonathan Duarte: Yeah. That’s interesting. I became a part-time ski instructor with a very large organization with several thousand employees, and I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire life I’d heard, Workday’s really hard to go through.
[00:01:45] Jonathan Duarte: I did 20 hours of training. I was astonished at. The level of detail and the professionalism that this company put in to the training [00:02:00] because as a ski instructor, , you are the second largest revenue stream for the business besides tickets.
[00:02:06] Jonathan Duarte: It’s amazing to see that. I interact with the Workday team all the time as an employee. You have to understand the system, it is such a strange thing that as an employee, it’s the people who help you get your job done and your training is lumped under the, if you get an email from somebody in HR, you’re probably in trouble.
[00:02:31] Jonathan Duarte: I think there’s gotta be a shift there’s HR compliance and then there’s, people operations or however that shift is. So give me a little, I know we talked about it in the green room. What’s been your history with that? I know it’s something that you’ve been, working on for years.
[00:02:48] Robin Griffin: Thank you and you’re right John, because when we talk about being what I would call the policy police, or the agent in charge of no fun. People know we’re talking about HR.
[00:02:59] Jonathan Duarte: [00:03:00] Yeah.
[00:03:00] Robin Griffin: And compliance and policies, they are very important. Okay. But if full transparency the robin in front of you guys today, that’s not the robin that was doing HR 30 years ago.
[00:03:09] Robin Griffin: 30 years ago, Robin came in with her handbook and it was black and white, right? It was, I am here. You stepped outside of the line. We’re gonna write you up. And some of this comes with emotional intelligence and maturity. As you go through you shift from the compliance piece to say, how can I actually help this manager?
[00:03:26] Robin Griffin: What is the root cause? What’s the deeper issue? And sometimes, yes, we have to be the policy police but more times than not we go back to, like you mentioned, training. Was this person trained properly? Are they being communicated to in a way that they receive the information I drive my team crazy ’cause I do that feedback loop. But they get it because oftentimes message sent is not message received. When you go from being policy police to transactional or from transactional to transformational huge differences from [00:04:00] leadership, accountability, engagement, profitability.
[00:04:04] Robin Griffin: My role is to help them solve the problems, not just say, oh, that’s against policy.
[00:04:10] Jonathan Duarte: Where in your life, in your career, did you start seeing that change? You had mentioned it a couple times, what position were you in, the companies that you changed and now you had this opening to start being more than just transactional.
[00:04:26] Robin Griffin: I think that’s a good call out because there are roles where we are more transactional at times. Most all of us start out early on, either as a HR generalist or we start out in the recruiting field where we’re churning and burning. And we’re not thinking about. More of the long-term things.
[00:04:42] Robin Griffin: We are thinking about retention and time to fill for me it was probably in my mid thirties when I finally made the shift, working at an organization where, I felt valued. I felt important. I felt that they trusted me, that I was not just looked at, oh, that’s just HR, where people would come and ask [00:05:00] for sound counsel.
[00:05:01] Robin Griffin: And that began to foster the relationships. As you start to build those and people say, oh, HR is not trying to run my department. They’re trying to help me run more efficiently. It comes back to building that credibility. At least for me I had to build credibility.
[00:05:15] Robin Griffin: I’ve always worked in male-dominant workforces and I’m a tough cookie, but building that trust through credibility, through being consistent and having the courage to speak up and speak that truth even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s. What a manager doesn’t wanna hear.
[00:05:31] Robin Griffin: A lot of times HR people are non-confrontational. And I’ll give an example I was working at a big company and I had a senior director come to me. They were mad and wanted to write an employee up because the employee raised their voice.
[00:05:46] Robin Griffin: Okay, walk me through the situation. What was going on? I was over there yelling at him doing this. I’m like, okay, hold on let’s think through this real quick. Okay. Let’s talk about equity. Let’s talk about fairness. Let’s talk about respect for the [00:06:00] individual.
[00:06:01] Robin Griffin: And as I talked through this, he didn’t recognize. Oh, I wanna write him up for something I was just doing to him. He was still in that mindset. I’m the boss, you do what I say. And we do need to obey our bosses, right? Yeah. But it’s how we treat people. How are we influencing them?
[00:06:17] Robin Griffin: When we can get leaders to begin to think a little bit differently we don’t want people just to follow the rules. We want them to build a great organization. We still want rules and compliance in place, but don’t do it just for the sake, because that’s the rule.
[00:06:30] Robin Griffin: We wanna do it because it’s the right thing. And yeah, for me, making that shift to true partner, it took a hot minute.
[00:06:36] Jonathan Duarte: How about being a strategic advisor? It’s a nonlinear path, right? You enter HR as a recruiter, or generalist.
[00:06:45] Jonathan Duarte: Once you get trust and respect and understand the baselines then you have these conversations and you realize, wow, this is not just. The stuff I read, and it’s not in aurum book, right? Or a test. This is now [00:07:00] management. Then you go from a manager to strategy.
[00:07:03] Jonathan Duarte: And how did that start happening in, a different company? Did you have to leave the company to do it or what was the basis of now becoming a strategic advisor rather than just the manager who understood and could help, on personal issues,
[00:07:18] Robin Griffin: no, thank you. John. I think you take bits and pieces from everywhere you go, like every role you have, you take a little bit of this, a little bit of that. The shift to a true partnership. Happened in the midst. I was paid very nicely to go to a company. With the bells and whistles, and I had this halo glue and I was there about two months. Then I was tasked with reducing the workforce by about 67%. That’s where, the true partnership really started to emerge.
[00:07:49] Robin Griffin: Not only did I realize at that time. Hey, I’ve probably been suckered in because they knew my strengths, but for me it was partnering with them, doing this the right way, making sure for these team [00:08:00] members that were gonna be impacted, that we’ve got resources available for them, whether that’s resume review, getting, outsource placement.
[00:08:07] Robin Griffin: I was able to see a bigger picture, when that role ended, I knew going forward, this is not gonna happen. Again, where I feel that, oh my gosh, I’m the passerby. So I think for that it was learning, Hey, I need to be on top of things like headcount over time.
[00:08:24] Robin Griffin: Do we have succession plans in place? What is the overall strategy so that I can guide these conversations and influence all of these managers that I work with to be able to understand, hey, before we go cut heads, let’s do absolutely everything in our power that we possibly can.
[00:08:42] Jonathan Duarte: Let me ask you this. In today’s world. There’s a lot of talk about AI in the workforce and automation from your perspective, what’s working and not working across your customers your experience and your friends, what have you heard from other CHROs and [00:09:00] HR leaders there’s a statement out there that AI is going to, there’s a bunch of different AI statements, but there’s AI statements out there saying, Hey, we’re gonna see a reduction in workforce. Hey we’re spending all this money on AI to increase personal productivity, and yet no one’s actually getting trained effectively.
[00:09:21] Jonathan Duarte: And so it’s a conflict because the way I’ve seen it rolled out and having been a technology person for years is that artificial intelligence is not like dropping in workday. So it’s not like you drop it in and you get the business rules. When a CIO and the CEO sign the check and say, now we’re dropping in co-pilot they can’t come to the next quarterly meeting and say, oh, we just put in copilot. Now we’re AI driven, that’s not what it was supposed to do. The goal is to create productivity. But in order to do productivity, you have to do [00:10:00] workforce planning. You’ve gotta do a whole bunch of other things that very few people are even talking about or doing at this point.
[00:10:07] Jonathan Duarte: What’s your kind of thoughts in this area and what you’ve seen or heard and talk to other, friends and colleagues about.
[00:10:15] Robin Griffin: Thank you, John. I will say the HR world itself is pretty safe, because for a lot of these things AI can’t give you best counsel on different scenarios.
[00:10:25] Robin Griffin: However people in general I’m gonna say, and I have a lot of people in the tech world, a lot of blue collar, white collar people out there. A lot of people are nervous that AI is gonna take over. We’re all gonna not have jobs. And that’s not the case, right? When we talk about copilot or Chat GPT, those are meant to be tools and resources to help us to help us be more efficient and more productive.
[00:10:48] Robin Griffin: So it’s not about replacing people, right? It’s about protecting the future of the organization. And as we’re adapting to new technologies there’s still a handful of people who are so [00:11:00] resistant. But that isn’t what I wanna focus on. What I wanna focus on is I want all of these people who maybe get nervous and myself included, at times, I’m a little leery till I get used to it, but I want them working on being the best versions of themselves.
[00:11:12] Robin Griffin: How can I prepare myself for these changes that AI is bringing? So we’re flipping that script of this negative, half empty versus half full. How can I best prepare myself for the future? And that takes, hey, these things I will tell you, copilot and Chat GPT, they can formulate things if I give them the input.
[00:11:32] Robin Griffin: Much more eloquently than Robin ever could. I am a Texas gal. I am not the most refined. I can put a few things together. Just enough to be dangerous. People do get nervous, and when people get nervous sometimes they slow down productivity. So what happens on the EHR end is, Hey, you’re the lowest man on the totem pole for production. I’m gonna look at the metrics. The metrics are gonna drive to me what’s going on.
[00:11:57] Jonathan Duarte: Yeah. It’s been interesting [00:12:00] because it is a big dilemma in the space right now. Everyone’s trying to figure out a path forward and I think my personal opinion is that the way Chat GPT rolled out in the United States is as, Hey, it’s gonna take everyone’s jobs.
[00:12:16] Jonathan Duarte: It’s a different perspective in Europe. In Europe, it’s been, how can we use this? Let’s teach the kids. In the school systems in the United States it was, don’t use Chat GPT cause you’re a cheater. So we created this, we have a different cultural mindset about AI than some countries where they’re teaching elementary school kids how to use it to get to answers.
[00:12:42] Jonathan Duarte: And we’re like, no, if you use it, we’re gonna check everything to make sure that you didn’t and you’re gonna get kicked outta school and all this other stuff. I hear this stuff all the time still, the educational system has to get up to speed with what this is actually doing.
[00:12:57] Jonathan Duarte: I have friends that have kids [00:13:00] going to USC in four years at a quarter million dollars or actually half million. What are they gonna come out and do if they haven’t been trained on how to leverage these tools? What have you seen in different companies variations of how companies have implemented these?
[00:13:17] Jonathan Duarte: Types of tools.
[00:13:18] Robin Griffin: Yes. I have John and we still have a lot of people super resistant, even in the telecom world to adapting to true technology. We still have organizations with paper files.
[00:13:31] Jonathan Duarte: Oh yeah.
[00:13:31] Robin Griffin: We still have all kinds of things and people, I’ve heard things that, the government’s spying on me
[00:13:38] Jonathan Duarte: true.
[00:13:38] Robin Griffin: At the end of the day I’m like, I need to build access information in a timely manner. Yeah. And those, a lot of those things came back through when COVID hit, people realized the need for having more trust in systems. For AI the biggest thing is it’s not gonna go away.
[00:13:54] Robin Griffin: Technology is only going to keep evolving. When we look at Moore’s law this technology is gonna [00:14:00] keep getting faster, smaller, more reliable resisting it. We’re not helping ourselves, but learn to use it. If I wanted to write a policy I can write the policy probably with my eyes shut.
[00:14:13] Robin Griffin: However, if I can plug those things in and I know the laws behind them, I can whip that out in a fraction of the time that it would normally take me. Which is going to help, reduce labor hours adding onto the EBITDA And that’s where people don’t understand. When we have more time freed up for things, that’s where we can increase bonuses and pay raises those type of benefits that sometimes our regular team doesn’t see.
[00:14:39] Jonathan Duarte: Yep. I think you got me at EBITDA. When you hear someone in HR talk EBITDA, you’re on a different spectrum. You’re back into the 30% who understand the language of A CEO and CFO which is critical. On that point, when did you.
[00:14:55] Jonathan Duarte: Understand finances and the language of A CEO [00:15:00] CIO and CFO, one of my other guests who actually is a, the CIO and CHRO, he’s if you don’t speak in anyone in HR, if you don’t speak the language of business, you don’t have a seat at the table and you never will.
[00:15:16] Robin Griffin: John, full transparency. I grew up poor, so I understood the value of a dollar super early. And I worked multiple jobs, when I was younger I’m always looking for opportunities, right? However, making the shift for me, I don’t know that I had a big shift in how I look at organization’s money versus mine.
[00:15:34] Robin Griffin: By nature, I’m very frugal. Most HR people are, I would never spend the company’s money in any way that I would not spend mine. So when I have leaders who are maybe having high turnover, maybe having high, over time whatever that is, that’s where I’m digging in.
[00:15:49] Robin Griffin: I’m putting on my financial hat and saying, Hey, let’s take a look at profitability overall here. Okay. Yeah. What are we looking at? And those shifts. For me, it just come very [00:16:00] natural. That is a natural part of who I am. I’m naturally fiscally conservative. And that rolls over into every aspect of my life, which balances.
[00:16:08] Robin Griffin: My husband is in sales, so Yin and Yang right?
[00:16:13] Jonathan Duarte: Yeah. But was there a time early in your HR space where because you understood finance? And economics, you could actually talk to, even in your earliest roles, did you notice that you were able to advance faster because you could talk the language of business?
[00:16:31] Robin Griffin: I believe so. Yes. Yes. So my first, professional role I was very blessed. The CEO of the organization, was so down to earth the best advice he ever gave me was anybody who mistreats our receptionist, walk ’em out the door.
[00:16:47] Robin Griffin: At the time I was like, what? But I could go to him for sound counsel and he would say, Hey, have you checked the stocks on this? 20 something years old? 22, 23. I didn’t care about stocks, [00:17:00] but I started learning about wisdom from him because he was giving me little tidbits of things that interested him, and I would give him little tidbits that interested me.
[00:17:10] Robin Griffin: And so I think it was planted for me very early by a leader that I very well respected and still do.
[00:17:16] Jonathan Duarte: Wow. Yeah. That’s amazing. I know we’re out of time, so tell the audience how they can find you and on your daily basis what kind of roles are you doing these days?
[00:17:26] Jonathan Duarte: And I know you’re working with a company, but I think you also consult on the side.
[00:17:30] Robin Griffin: Yeah, so hey, anybody that wants to reach me, hop on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn. Reach out to me. I can give you further contact information. I do offer webinars that I’m happy to send to people to help with any type of compliance.
[00:17:43] Robin Griffin: At the end of the day, what I really want people to do is to go from saying, Hey I want the leaders to stop asking, Hey, is this allowed? And say, Hey what’s the right thing to do and how can we get there?
[00:17:55] Jonathan Duarte: Oh, that is probably the clip of the century right [00:18:00] there. . Alright, Robin, thank you so much. I hope everyone will have a great time listening to Robin’s insights and learn from her experiences. Thanks again.
11 February, 2026
