Your CEO wants to outsource their next HR leader

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Since the start of the pandemic, HR has inarguably become a more central and strategic business function.

Indeed, Sage People stats show that 87% of C-suite execs credit people leaders with overseeing transformation since COVID-19 took hold.

Yet, this doesn’t mean senior HR individuals are guaranteed to stay at the top.

CHRO Trends report data shows that just before the pandemic broke out only 47% of CHROs were internal hires with Marc Effron, president at The Talent Strategy Group, and Jim Shanley, partner at The Shanley Group writing that this is a result of low-performing CHRO teams.

High performance and influence

In a thinkpiece for Talent Strategy Group, Effron and Shanley conclude that part of the reason that more CHROs are external hires is that answers to questions on whether HR teams are executing core processes well, whether they are influencing top executives, and whether they can be trusted with important decisions aren’t yet good enough.

As such, they lay out that HR leaders have to start assessing their team in three core areas:

• High-performance mindset
• Capability built through experience
• Executive advisor and influencer

For a high-performance mindset, CHROs need to reflect on whether their team works harder than others, are willing to make sacrifices, and embrace relative performance in order to raise team standards.

They also argue that HR teams need to have diverse experiences that give functional depth and breadth so CHROs need to assess how good their HR leaders are at core HR processes and whether they can be agile.

Finally, Effron and Shanley argue that leading HR teams need to be executive advisors who “excel at HR” and can change executives’ minds by being trusted advisors, who have practical business acumen, who show courage, who have authority in their area, and who are strategists, too.

Figuring out if HR is up to it

For Effron and Shanley the best way to assess if HR teams hit the mark in these areas is for CHROs to conduct experience interviews with HR leaders, and use a Hogan assessment to check performance against other team members and in core areas.

Whilst CHROs are widely regarded as important business cogs, the think piece concludes that more needs to be done to ensure that the teams below them are the same.

Speaking exclusively to UNLEASH, Effron says: “A brilliant CHRO means nothing unless they have built and enabled the team below them.

“The first question we ask every CHRO client after ‘what is the strategy of the business’ is ‘what is the quality of your direct reports?’ If they hesitate in their description of anyone, we tell them, ‘if in doubt, replace them now.’”

The stats align with Effron and Shanley’s thinking: Accenture data shows that CHROs focused on growth are being as strategic as possible around talent development and are keyed into the power of influence.

CHRO takeaways

What this means for CHROs could be difficult. As Effron and Shanley write, whilst they have done work in elevating their roles “they must now rely less on their personal strength and more on their ability to build high-quality teams in order to sustain their progress.”

It could mean tough decisions — especially when assessing if the teams they’ve worked with through difficult periods are good enough to take HR to the next level.

But, conclude Effron and Shanley, business leaders won’t be averse to making the call if CHROs don’t. They note that “CEOs replacing their CHROs with external candidates indicates that they want top talent in the role but that they aren’t going to wait for the CHRO to build better talent patiently.”

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