Document Type
Report
Abstract
As aspects of a firm’s human capital, such as talent, executive compensation, executive succession, and culture, become more prominent on the radar screens of Boards of Directors (BODs), the role of the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) has grown in importance. Correspondingly, in recent years boards have been increasing the number of CHROs who serve as directors to ensure that at least one human capital expert is part of the board mix. This report attempts to determine the extent to which some HR expertise exists with either the CEO or the board, and if so, the extent to which it might be associated with positive outcomes. One of this report’s authors, Frank Mullins, conducted a study examining the impact of HR expertise within BODs on firms’ engagement in a broad range of diversity management activities, including hiring CEOs and managers from underrepresented groups and creating inclusive workforce policies regarding people with disabilities and sexual orientation. HR expertise was determined by manually reviewing the background of each board member to identify whether they had any professional experiences in HR. He found that firms with HR expertise on their boards were 8 percent more likely to engage in these diversity-related activities.1 The 2018 HR@Moore Survey of CHROs attempted to go beyond the original work by providing a more detailed assessment of the HR expertise that exists on the BOD, as well as the extent of the CEO’s HR expertise and support for HR. The survey was sent in April of 2018 to 326 CHROs, and the results presented in this report are based on 116 who completed this section of the survey. We matched the survey responses to whether or not companies appeared on one of the many employer reputational lists in 2018 such as Fortune Magazine’s Best Companies to Work For, Forbes’ America’s Best Employers, and GlassDoor’s Best Places to Work. The first section of this report describes the relationship between the CEO’s HR expertise and support for HR, as well as the level of HR expertise and support among board members. The second section of the report addresses the extent to which those measures are related to the company’s inclusion on employer reputational indices.
Publication Date
2018
Disciplines
Business
Copyright
© 2018, University of South Carolina
Publication Info
2018.