A study has revealed that more than half of leading CHROs are not career HR professionals—and of these, around one third said they had no background in HR prior to assuming their current CHRO position. The results of the survey, which was carried out by Aon Hewitt, highlighted the shifting trend in HR away from a merely operational department into one that is strategic for the business—and thus requires expertise and experience of a different kind to drive success.
Capturing the backgrounds of 45 CHROs at some of the world’s leading organisations, the report found that their experiences are indeed wide-ranging. Amongst the results, 66% indicated they have prior board exposure; 84% felt executive compensation experience was a key requirement; and 67% indicated they worked and lived abroad and/or led global teams and initiatives.
Speaking about the results, Neil Shastri, Leader, Global Insights & Innovation, Aon Hewitt stated, "CHROs have become critical stakeholders in defining the strategy of a firm, and they are expected to tackle the HR challenges and evolving expectations of a dynamic workplace environment that will consist of calculated risk taking and evolving expectations from top stakeholders,"
He added, "Those well-equipped to achieve the greatest success will have diverse skill sets, be adaptable and agile, and gain hands-on learning from working through real life situations and acquiring knowledge across disciplines and industries."
But despite this, there were a number of surprising results that suggest HR may need to do more to up their game as a strategic entity. For example, according the survey, 65% indicated ‘business knowledge’ as a key competency they required—but it was also among the competencies for which they felt least prepared. In addition, only 24% took a rotation or assignment in a line role—outside of HR—to build their business and commercial acumen.
With this in mind, Anand Shankar, Partner and Head of Performance, Reward & Talent, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, Aon Hewitt urged HR departments to improve on developing its leaders, "To build a strong bench for the future, HR must work on creating an environment conductive to the growth of future CHROs from both within and outside the function. It must also look for ways to help CHROs of the future pick up critical experiences that matter in the CHRO position."
Amongst the skills that HR should be focusing on developing, Aon Hewitt suggested:
- Data- and analytics-based decision-making. Don't focus on giving the right answers, but on asking the right questions.
- Being the architect and assessor of shifts in organisational culture. Make sure a company's culture is moving in the right direction by ensuring leaders' styles align with the cultural goals.
- Proactively mapping organisation capability needs to the future strategy of the firm. Examine the gap between existing capabilities and the ones needed in the future.
- Playing the role of an internal and external talent scout. Build the critical ability of spotting pools of talent, using a mix of intuition and data and assessment backed insight.
- Understanding the Impact of technology. Be cognisant of the rapid progress in HR technology, particularly SaaS solutions, to improve HR processes and analytic capabilities.
Asking organisation-specific questions rather than following the herd. Realise how different practices can be best applied to their own organisational contexts.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
