In hybrid vehicle development, the operating strategy has a decisive role in meeting the development goals, such as compliance with emission standards and high energy efficiency. A considerable number of interactions and cross-influences on other topics, such as emissions, on-board diagnostics, or drivability, must be considered during the calibration process. In this context, the given time constraints pose further challenges. To overcome these, approaches for virtualization of the calibration process are an effective measure. For this purpose, in the current study, a real engine control unit is embedded into a virtual simulation environment on so-called hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) testbenches, which allow virtual calibration and validation of the complete target vehicle. In this context, the paper presents a novel method for virtual calibration of operating strategies for hybrid-electric propulsion systems. This includes an innovative multi-criterial approach that considers the requirements of several development tasks, such as emission and OBD calibration. Measurement data for this optimization is generated on a HiL testbench setup tailored for the described methodology, including both the electrical setup and the simulation environment. To validate the selection of modeling approaches and the parametrization, the simulation environment is operated in open loop. The results of the open loop validation show promising behavior regarding the proposed use case. Finally, the presented methodology is evaluated regarding time and cost savings compared to a conventional approach.