Re-thinking the role of the CHRO

Now more than ever, CEOs are consulting with their CHROs before they make major organizational decisions. Corporate boards too, have increasingly heightened expectations of their senior-most HR executives when it comes to their role as leaders in implementing and executing business strategy.

The CHRO is seen as the expert on culture, change initiatives, business strategy, industrial relations, regulatory guidance, diversity management, succession planning, recruitment and much more. The key element in all of these is change — not just managing it, but understanding, anticipating and driving it successfully across the business.

The CHRO’s challenge

Change is more complex and therefore harder to manage. It is often the experience in organizations that change initiatives are launched only to slowly lose traction and disappear after a year, leaving behind a cynical organization challenged in their willingness to try again. While most organizations tout what has been successful, very few have been able to transform the daily grind — the actual way people work.

Employee motivations have changed and organizations struggle to adapt to the expectations of this evolving demographic.

There is a reduced timeline to employee dissatisfaction — the new normal approaches even faster as companies at the forefront of industries broadcast their new, innovative employee benefits.

More and more, people are searching for growth and development opportunities and have a greater tolerance for uncertainty than in the past — loyalty is not a principle to be judged as either good or bad. It is just a new perspective on work/life.

Regulatory requirements are more stringent and as a result the CHRO should also have some legal acumen, even if not formal training.

In the technology-driven environment of today, CHROs have to cater to the emerging needs of the workforce as they align to the availability and use of hardware, software and how technology intersects with the personal lives of its employees.

Diversity and inclusiveness are no longer values that organizations can simply espouse; they have to be seen to be practicing these values.

All of these fall under the purview of the CHRO and are as important as traditional responsibilities such as succession planning, compensation and benefits management, recruitment and employee strategies and engagement.

Navigating in the New World……… How can the CHRO of today meet these challenges?

What happens when you get past the point of illumination? It is only a navigational aid; a marker, at one point on the journey. It is an illusion to believe one will have completeness of vision of the entire journey.

Recognize that shaping corporate cultures is an ongoing challenge and not a project. CHROs have to embrace this new albeit similarly titled role, recognizing that it is fundamentally different to what pertained ten years ago.

Understand the concept of agile delivery and prototyping solutions. Gone are the days when a fully baked solution was implemented — we now need to iterate quickly, learn from the output and make changes based on new information. Organizations have to embrace experimentation for them to succeed.

Be willing to innovate. Traditional systems, mindsets and ways of operating have to be challenged. Many organizations and societies are held back by their recurring beliefs around how things work; myths which determine the way they need to operate and which take solutions off the table before they even have the option to be properly explored — an early death to ideas based on the constraints associated with feasibility, viability or desirability.

Be irreverent. CHROs need to see beyond the myths, principles or rules considered to be sacrosanct to manifest the internal change agent necessary for true innovation to take place. It can be career limiting to dismantle the status quo; however, the CHRO is well placed both in terms of responsibility and the role of leadership coach to move ideas forward and take organizations in a new direction.

Be an Adaptive Leader. The ability to work, operate and lead in conditions of uncertainty and rally (mobilize) an organization around the challenge of navigating through that uncertainty. It involves setting out a stretching performance challenge, or establishing a compelling vision for a future state, without knowing how to meet it, holding the organization in the “productive zone of disequilibrium” and providing the necessary support and perspective to the organization as it pursues the solutions.

Practice futurecasting. CHROs have to be in a position to anticipate how the market is changing; both in terms of the business and the available and potential employee base and develop strategies to adapt. They may not be able to see into the future but they must be current with market trends and be able to frame or at least consider possibilities within the strategic timeline of the business planning process.

CHROs are central to the ability of organizations to deliver sustainably high performance. The onus is on the business to recognize this transition and make effective use of these roles, releasing themselves from the “frozen perceptions” of the label HR.