More than eight in ten HR leaders are not aligned to their organization’s business strategies. 

This is due to ineffectual coordination across business strategy development, collaboration with the C-suite and alignment with the business on talent strategy.

The 2024 Talent Survey from Eightfold surveyed 500 HR leaders from organizations with more than 5,000 employees and found that just 18% believed they were fully in line with their organization’s strategic objectives.

The survey found that by and large HR departments are still often viewed as administrative centers by executives, rather than strategic apparatuses, while a lack of executive-level support for HR is causing tension when it comes to securing buy-in for strategic technology.

Furthermore, Eightfold uncovered that competing priorities between executives and HR are causing further misalignment.

Just over half of HR leader respondents said their talent strategies do not align with the overall business objectives, or reported they were involved from the outset in developing and executing their company’s overall business strategy (53%).

In an exclusive conversation with UNLEASH, Eightfold Co-CEO Chano Fernandez (LI link) says that the key issues uncovered by the survey are being driven by a “difference between the established way of doing this and the possibilities opened up by the availability of talent intelligence”. 

“Traditionally, HR isn’t always a part of foundational, company goal-type discussions — they can be viewed as operational, the folks responsible for hiring and its related activities,” Fernandez explains.

Talent intelligence has introduced a new element to the equation – if a company isn’t adaptive, open to reskilling and continued growth, and doing so constantly, they’ll be behind as skill needs evolve, and its best employees will be working for an organization that does that for them.”

Organizations should be focused on a skills-first workforce

Eightfold’s survey found a series of positive trends among the 18% of HR leaders who are aligned with business strategies.

For instance, nine in 10 of those report complete alignment with executives for HR initiatives. 

Within these organizations, HR regularly meet with leadership, have a higher awareness of weaknesses and areas requiring improvement, and report increased levels of buy-in reduced resistance from executive leadership.

Fernandez explains that while the competing priorities between HR and executives are opposed in many instances, both groups have to come together “in service of their organization”. 

This is particularly important given that Eightfold also found that just 61% of 1,200 employees surveyed were satisfied with the roles and a significant 82% looked for a new role in past 12-18 months, pointing to pay, culture and motivation as top challenges.

One of Fernandez’s key recommendations to achieve harmony between employees, HR and executives is to focus on the creation and development of a skills-based workforce. 

“This is in service of a relatively new scenario – the required skills for many organizations are evolving too rapidly to hire for,” he says.

“Upskilling the existing team, and hiring the people who are going to be able to take those next steps, solves for both problems and improves retention.”

AI could be the key to growth in skills and business harmony

A significant part of the skills landscape going forward will be the increased adoption and use of AI tools, both within HR departments and the wider organization.

Around one in five (21%) of surveyed HR professionals said they were “advanced” users, while a further third (32%) stated they were “scaling up” their skills.

Just over one in three leaders noted they plan to adopt AI for cross-skilling and reskilling, in line with the 20% of respondents who said aligning upskilling programs to business objectives was one of the most important factors in their ability to achieve business objectives.

Fernandez tells UNLEASH that one of the key takeaways from this year’s study is that “HR is truly in the driver’s seat for artificial intelligence”, particularly in the context of bridging the existing gap between HR and executive priorities. 

“This is an applicable use of new technology that gives unprecedented levels of speed and efficiency to an operation that has a reputation for the opposite — think about an HR practitioner reviewing 5,000 resumes for one role, for example,” he explains.

Show the value of these offerings and the dynamic changes extremely quickly. This is not some far-off tech evolution, it is available today.”

Want to learn more about the Eightfold 2024 Talent Survey and how HR leaders can bridge the gap between HR and business strategy to achieve organizational harmony?

Register for the exclusive webinar AI-Assisted HR Strategy 2025: Adapting to Change, Driving Business Results from UNLEASH, in partnership with Eightfold, taking place on January 21st!