Human resources are directly connected to all departments in an organization and embrace a positive relationship with each person. It is this connection that affords HR to become more engaged in business.

The CEOs of today expect Chief Human Resource Officers (CHRO)- the HR leader to be a strategic partner in business, understand the company’s business plan, identify potential talent needs, and design a workforce to support company’s future. Articulating the company’s vision, assessing the needs like new customers, products, and operating models, transforming the workforce accordingly, building programs to enhance the employees’ performance are the real challenges for CHROs of today.

Before understanding the changing roles of Chief HR officers, let us know the HR leaders’ initiatives taken for the year 2019 as per Gartner 2019 Future of HR survey. HR leaders responded to the survey by explaining their top three initiatives. They are determined to -

• Build critical skills and competencies
• Strengthen the existing and future leadership bench
• Improve employee experience

The changing roles of CHROs create new expectations.  A few of them are briefed below.

The Challenges of CHROs

Define Enterprise-strategy

Know the talent demands and provide the C-suite colleagues with an insight into the skills of the existing workforce, availability of new talent, and strategies to bring business value.

Refine Operations

CHROs are expected to understand all aspects of business operations, derive insight into the talent needs of every region, department or division. 

Data-driven Decisions

CHROs must be more analytic while hiring talent. They must rely on advanced analytics and data for hiring decisions.

Growing people

Being the in-house experts for hiring, staff planning, and retention, CHROs must establish succession planning and career progression which is also linked to employee engagement.

Foster Right Culture

CHROs must build a culture that fosters the right talent, performance, learning, and development to retain talent and attract talent by creating a brand outside the company.

In brief, the CHROs are expected to address the needs of the global labour market, lead digital transformation in the company, meet the structural and social changes to develop a productive workforce, engage restless or unengaged employees and support business objectives.

Solutions for Aspiring CHROs

CHROs are tested to play an impactful and strategic role in aligning human capital business challenges and bring a long-term business sustainable success.

Ram Charan, global business adviser in his keynote address at HR technology conference and exposition (14-15 May 2019), Shanghai provided several tips for CHROs and inspired them to put the right people in the right jobs.

He urged CHROs to take 30 seconds whenever they meet a person to articulate the talents precisely and verify them. They should become predictive in hiring by thinking eight quarters ahead, use data, design organization’s structure for speed and adaptability, delegate or automate transactions. This helps them to find, hire, and retain the right talent.

As a final note, CHROs role today is more inspiring and challenging. New and broader skill sets will help them to tackle the challenges of today’s new age demands.