How HR Leaders Are Turning Exit Data and Everyday Rapport Into Executive Decision Levers

Human resources teams act as the ultimate buffer between the boardroom and the break room. Executives want to move fast, but fast decisions often create messy downstream ripples for employees. For HR leaders navigating that friction, the smartest operational tactic isn’t to fight back aggressively. Instead, it is learning how to hit the brakes, rely on data, and build everyday rapport so tough conversations feel collaborative rather than adversarial.

We spoke with Nayadira Pacheco, a master’s-certified HR professional with a decade of experience in people operations. She has held roles including Human Resources Business Partner at The TJX Companies, Senior Human Resources Analyst at JBS USA, and Human Resources Business Manager at Public Knowledge. Today, she channels her expertise into Dear Work Friend, an anonymous advice column for workers who want help building the confidence to speak up at work. Pacheco has found that bridging the gap often means treating business logic and human emotion as two distinct, equally valid data sets.

“Maintain the human in human resources. Logistically, there are business facts. You keep emotion out of that. But we also have to recognize how our employees are feeling. Despite the emotion, we need to understand why it is being brought up and why these grievances exist,” says Pacheco.

• Kids, dogs, and data: Pacheco says to start with relationships. If joining a company where HR is historically viewed as an administrative function, she suggests dropping the corporate mask and building a connection. She follows up on small details from prior conversations to build authentic connections. “Yes, the business is important, and yes, I care for the organization. But I also want to know: How are your kids doing? How are your dogs? You told me you were having a dinner this weekend. Tell me more about that. Building that trust and forming a relationship with the leaders I support really helps because it removes the corporate mask of the day-to-day and brings a human level back into the workplace.”

• Receipts over rhetoric: Once that foundation is set, influence comes from turning ground-level feedback into hard metrics. Pacheco shows executives how employee exit surveys and trend data reveal exactly why people leave. “The other piece of the data is the metric side, like our headcount and turnover. Being able to show what’s been going on over the last five years is how you build credibility with leaders. They are able to see the patterns, and you are connecting the dots for them.”

• Be curious: Executives often suffer from tunnel vision simply because they are trying to solve immediate business problems. They see an issue and force a quick fix. Pacheco’s job isn’t to block them, it’s to widen the lens before the fallout hits. She does that by disguising pushback as curiosity. “I like to approach pushback with a curious mindset. I don’t want to give pushback to cause conflict; I want to give pushback to understand. If I’m coming to you with various questions, it’s because I want you to think critically and see the bigger picture outside of just a small solution.”

On the employee side, psychological safety usually takes more than a cheerful handbook. Workers quickly grow cynical when concerns are acknowledged but ignored. Pacheco fixes small, visible issues first to prove HR can enact change. Her strategy aligns with research suggesting that finding ways to elevate employee voices beyond the survey and acting on early feedback works better than repeatedly polling workers, which can erode trust in engagement programs.

• Spilling the corporate tea: When structural constraints like budget limits block immediate fixes, transparency becomes her best tool. She asks employees how they can be satisfied in the moment and offers interim steps. “I don’t want to brush things under the rug, even with something as small as fixing a bad coffee brand.” says Pacheco. “There are attainable things we can do to have stepping stones for employees to feel comfortable.”

• Starving the rumor mill: “Sometimes we only see the negatives, but explaining why really helps. When you leave that out, people invent their own stories.” Her focus on explaining the “why” is consistent with wider industry efforts to create transparency at work and prevent employees from filling in the blanks with pessimistic narratives.

The friction between HR and leadership is often an industry growing pain. Pacheco notes that the evolution of HR has outpaced executive habits. Over her 10 years in the field, she has seen the department move far beyond administration, moving at a much faster clip recently as organizations respond to expectations around flexibility and mental health—trends also reflected in analyses of where work is heading. But many leaders still operate from older models, expecting HR to just handle paperwork. Other studies on leadership have found similar gaps, reinforcing why closing the trust gap remains a top priority.

For HR professionals facing those legacy roadblocks, Pacheco suggests initiating a candid conversation about the partnership. “If you get good feedback on the reason why you aren’t seen as a partner, it’s good to start by asking how you can build that trust, better enhance the relationship, and what they need from you. Understanding the ‘why’ is really important.”