Spencer Stuart, the premier executive search firm, just released their CHRO 2025 report.

What are the key findings and trends emerging in 2020,  and what is the impact to the role of Chief Human Resources Officer? As Rhonda Morris, CHRO of Chevron, highlights in her interview with Adam Bryant, this isn’t a simple question, as the CHRO role is one “with almost no job description”.

The top trend: CEOs expect their CHROs to bring strong business acumen and an understanding of how the organisation makes money — and how that feeds into top-tier decision-making.

The report advances that, “As technology such as AI, predictive analytics and blockchain automates and streamlines significant parts of HR, the CHRO of 2025 will be open to technology’s role in bringing greater capacity and value to what will very likely be a more focused HR function. An intelligent, forward-looking response to fast-evolving expectations of HR’s role can strengthen both its visibility and viability.”

Second key take-away

Data is your friend: The CHRO of the future will have to harness data and analytics and cultivate a full understanding of available tools and digital strategies. Not only will these tools offer the function increasingly sought-after efficiencies, but also result in a range of benefits spanning recruitment, retention, motivation and employee engagement.

The report continues to outline increasingly complex expectations of the Chief People Officer role, summarized as thinking like a CEO. This means combining people focus, exercise business acumen, being fluent in digital transformation, and not only defining the culture but driving toward cultural fit.

So, how are Chief Human Resources Officers to start on this journey?

  • Start augmenting people insights at an organizational level. Behavioral platforms like Aptology help HR and Business leaders take stock of another dimension of their workforce.
  • Define Success Profiles for roles, starting with roles where objective metrics are available (eg. quota attainment or time to resolution)
  • Start by rolling out pilots in organizations to avoid multi-year, multi-million dollar rollouts