Document Type
Report
Abstract
The 2023 HR@Moore Survey of Chief Human Resource Ofcers (CHROs) gained responses from 171 CHROs, and this report focuses on the results regarding the CHRO Role. Using the updated Gartner “Model of a World Class CHRO” the CHRO participants indicated that the most critical and diferentiating roles they play in terms of driving business outcomes are the Board’s Leader of Human Capital, Driver of Culture and Purpose, Trusted Advisor and Coach, and Enterprise Change Leader. These roles stand in contrast to The Functional Business Leader role, which respondents largely considered table stakes or important but expected as opposed to critical and diferentiating. In evaluating the capabilities of the current HR function, CHROs rated “Driving Culture and Purpose” as their strongest capability, followed by “Designing Executive Succession Planning,” “Advising/Coaching Business Leaders”, and “Advocating for Employees”. Their weakest capabilities consisted of “Strategic Workforce Planning”, “Infuencing the Development of Business Strategy”, and “Understanding the Financial Impact of HR Processes.” They reported that they are focusing on improving strategic workforce planning, executive succession, and talent management. As in prior years, our results continue to show that CHROs are much more likely to have been hired externally than promoted internally. However, for the frst time, our responses indicate that CFOs are now more likely to have been hired externally than promoted internally as well. Finally, women increasingly dominate the CHRO role, as our respondents are comprised of over twice as many female than male CHROs. And while white CHROs continue to signifcantly outnumber non-white CHROs, our responses depict the CHRO role as one of the more diverse roles within the C-suite. Like every C-suite position, the role of the Chief Human Resources Ofcer (CHRO) has evolved over time. However, over the past 20 years the CHRO role has been almost revolutionized as people have increasingly become central to the biggest issues confronting organizations. In the late 1990’s McKinsey released its “War for Talent” report that pointed to the increasing competition among frms for the best people. The corporate scandals regarding executive pay in the early 2000’s transformed the content and process for determining executives’ compensation and helped elevate the CHRO to a more active role with the board of directors. Companies’ repeated failures to replace their Chief Executive Ofcers resulted in boards increasingly looking to the CHRO to help facilitate the CEO succession process. An additional round of corporate scandals attributed to the “culture” of frms such as those occurring in Uber and Wells Fargo led to boards relying on CHROs to monitor and inform them of potential cultural risks. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic required massive transformation in how and where work is done, again increasing the CHRO’s importance, visibility, and centrality to driving frm success, providing counsel to the board, and supporting the larger society. The HR@Moore Survey of CHROs has examined the changing role of the CHRO since 2009, tracking the changing issues and challenges faced by those in the role. The 2023 survey continued this tradition with two signifcant modifcations. First, since 2009 the survey has asked CHROs to report on the time spent in 7 roles that were identifed early in this research stream. However, Gartner developed a “Model of a Modern World Class CHRO” in 2018 and updated this model in 2023. This year’s survey used this more up-todate model, exploring the importance of the various roles identifed within that model. Second, this year’s survey asked a number of questions about the HR function, particularly focusing on the efectiveness of various functional capabilities as well as identifying the areas in which CHROs are investing time and resources to improve. This report provides a summary of the survey results regarding the CHRO role. We surveyed just over 400 CHROs in May/June of 2023, and 171 of them completed the survey with an additional 12 completing part of the survey.
Publication Date
2023
Disciplines
Business
Copyright
© 2023, University of South Carolina
Publication Info
2023.