TY - JOUR AB - Purpose DaVita, Inc., a Fortune 200 health-care company has recently undertaken a Human Resource (HR) transformation. Today, good HR departments can help people and businesses grow. However, many HR departments are stuck in the past and see their role as “personnel” responsible mainly for hiring, firing, attendance and payroll. This is an antiquated perspective of what an HR function does.Design/methodology/approach This case study based on DaVita’s HR team illustrates how people services drive business objectives in part through aligning with operators across the business, ensuring a robust talent and leadership pipeline and differentiated workforce experience. This was done through developing a people strategy and governance model grounded in the business strategy.Findings This case study concludes that any HR transformation must include the language of the business, including strategic financial and operational topics and proposals that effectively operationalize and measure people practices to engage workforces and grow businesses. This transformation was grounded in changing the conversation about HR, allowing people services to better serve and address the complex organizational and workforce dynamics that exists today, thus helping organizations win and grow.Originality/value DaVita is evolving the role of HR to be a critical part of the business that drives results through alignment with operators across the organization. VL - 17 IS - 4 SN - 1475-4398 DO - 10.1108/SHR-05-2018-0042 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-05-2018-0042 AU - Efron Louis PY - 2018 Y1 - 2018/01/01 TI - The new H.R. conversation T2 - Strategic HR Review PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 193 EP - 197 Y2 - 2024/04/16 ER -