Advanced Strategic HR Business Partner
Expand Your Strategic Reach and Business Influence
Take your HR strategy to a new level. Introducing HCI’s Advanced Strategic HR Business Partner (Advanced SHRBP), the next step after our flagship Strategic HR Business Partner certification program.
This isn’t theoretical training or canned scenarios. This is a hands-on learning lab where participants will pressure-test solutions, receive structured feedback, and practice influencing under real-world executive conditions. For this new advanced program, you’ll bring in a current organizational challenge, regardless of what stage of development it is in, and use it as the foundation for your hands-on learning experience. Because each participant brings a different challenge, you'll get fresh perspectives, new ways of thinking, and practical insights you can apply right away to your own situation.
Through peer consulting, business simulations, and applied exercises, you’ll explore systems dynamics, behavioral economics in talent strategy, and scenario planning for future disruptions. By the end, you’ll walk away with sharper strategies for your real business challenges, stronger influence capabilities, and renewed confidence navigating complex issues and future disruptions. You’ll also gain a set of practical tools you can use across any business problem and a supportive network of HR partners who will stay with you long after the program wraps.
What You'll Learn
Strengthen systems thinking capabilities to identify leverage points for large-scale organizational changes
Build executive influence skills to shape senior leader decisions
Apply behavioral economics and workforce analytics to design talent solutions that anticipate human behavior
Practice courageous conversations and presentation skills with peer and facilitator feedback
Develop accountability partnerships and concrete action commitments to sustain strategic impact
What to Expect
- Interactive design labs for applying design thinking to real organizational challenges
- Finish your HCI program with a guidebook, access to additional videos and research, and a set of skills that you can use on the job immediately
- Access log-in information, certification materials (participant guide and toolkit), and the exam in your MyHCI profile
- Chat and interact with faculty and peers via Zoom
- Earn your HCI certification by attending all the sessions and completing all classwork
- Renew your HCI certification every three years by obtaining 60 credits
- Attend this certification program and earn HCI, HRCI, SHRM, and ATD recertification credits
The Advanced Strategic HR Business Partner certification program is ideal for HR teams and can be delivered in-house, virtually or in person. For in-person, in-house programs book time with one of our Learning Consultants to talk about Corporate Training options.
What is the difference between Strategic HR Business Partner and Advanced Strategic HR Business Partner?
Advanced SHRBP is the next step beyond SHRBP, designed for HR leaders ready to move from strategic alignment to enterprise impact. While SHRBP builds the foundation of strategic partnership, Advanced SHRBP deepens your consulting, influence, and decision-making capabilities with senior stakeholders. Participants bring a real organizational challenge and apply advanced tools to solve it throughout the program. It’s the evolution from HR Business Partner to true strategic advisor.
Unsure about which program is the right fit for your team? Our Strategic Learning Partners can help guide you in the right direction.
Who should attend Advanced SHRBP?
This program is designed for experienced HR Business Partners who either have:
- A proven track record of leading strategic talent initiatives
- Completed HCI's Strategic HR Business Partner Certification
Ideal participants should have a proven ability to lead strategic talent initiatives and bring a current organizational challenge they're actively working to solve. Talk to a Strategic Learning Partners to see if Advanced SHRBP is a good fit for you.
Should I complete Strategic HR Business Partner before Advanced Strategic HR Business Partner?
Advanced SHRBP is designed to work both as a stand-alone experience or as a natural progression from our foundational SHRBP program. While it’s designed to build upon concepts introduced in SHRBP, completing that program first is not required.
Course Outline
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Day One
- Learning lab mindset & real-challenge application
- Expectations for peer consulting & psychological safety
- Positioning Advanced SHRBP vs. foundational SHRBP
- Strategic vs. operational influence
- Stakeholder mapping & influence levers
- Business-language framing for senior leaders
- System dynamics & archetypes
- Identifying high-impact leverage points
- Converting complex maps into leader-ready insights
- Key decision biases in organizations
- Behavioral nudges & workforce design
- Anticipating predictable human behavior in HR systems
- Forecasting vs. scenario planning
- PESTLE scanning for uncertainty
- Building and pressure-testing contrasting future scenarios
- Framing: Challenge → Impact → Importance → Action
- Clarity, brevity, and business relevance
- Pitching the “why now” story
Course Outline
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Day Two
- Strategic reinterpretation of the challenge
- Dropping/keeping/adding based on new insights
- Strengthening focus and strategic alignment
- Selecting high-signal data
- One-slide insight storytelling
- Data-driven business cases & objection handling
- Option generation & bold solution pathways
- Impact/effort/risk evaluation
- Unintended-consequence testing & peer critique
- Influence styles (relational, rational, reputational)
- Reframing objections & handling pushback
- Executive presence and confident message delivery
- Integrated talent solution pitch
- Simulated leader Q&A and challenge response
- Demonstrating strategic clarity and influence
- Translating insights into commitments
- Accountability structures for sustained action
- Reinforcing outcomes-driven HRBP practice
