The role of a chief human resources officer (CHRO) involves overseeing all of a company’s staff management and labour-relations practices. Here’s everything you should know about this challenging, yet highly rewarding, position. By Vanessa Rogers on behalf of Executive Placements
According to technological research and consulting firm Gartner, just a few of the trends and priorities you may find yourself focusing on as a CHRO, include: scarce, yet expensive talent, global supply constraints, and economic pressure (from outside an organisation); and ways to enhance the employee experience, the importance of change management, and working on leader and manager efficacy (from inside an organisation).
Ways to break through the glass ceiling
Start your journey in HR by completing a bachelor’s degree in social science or business administration. Thereafter, seek out an internship within the HR department of a big, or busy, organisation. You’ll want to learn a great deal and have a hand in most of the intricate HR-related tasks going on, which is best accomplished when a department is slightly short staffed.
Next, it’s time to find an entry-level HR position on the basis of your studies and experience, and to set about working your way up the career ladder; from a junior to a senior leadership position.
At this point, it’s a good idea to upskill with a few relevant certifications or short courses. Examples include: Executive and Management Coaching, Human Resource Management, Professional Communication and Office Management, Strategic Human Resource Management, and/or Training and Development Management.
Further, taking on an MBA with an HR focus will stand you in excellent stead when it comes to qualifying for the top rung, a CHRO job, within a vibrant corporate.
Your day-to-day duties
A CHRO has a massive administrative responsibility in any given company. This individual’s duties range across the likes of development training programmes, recruiting new staff members, interviewing potential applicants, making sure government regulations are known and enforced throughout a business, bringing the entire staff contingent together wherever possible at team-building functions, and supervising the junior HR team members while also mentoring their more senior team managers.
If you make yourself available to your team as a much-valued resource and a kindly ear, they will learn on the job (as you once did!), and be able to apply an increasing level of skill, expertise, and experience to the tasks at hand.
Reasons to seek advice as you climb
It goes without saying that the management of an HR department is critical to the success of any given company. Skilful handling of the systems and infrastructure that keep staff thriving and their interactions smooth has a decided impact on a company’s financial impetus.
Once you’ve risen up to assume the CHRO role, you’ll be clear on the value of your talent base and the importance of developing, motivating, and retaining key staff members to achieve your firm’s strategic business goals. But over and above the solid base you will have developed from your studies and experience, you may also face various challenges as you set about working as a strategic partner to your chief executive officer (CEO).
At this point, it can help to seek new insights and fresh knowledge to keep the well-being and productivity of your staff contingent high. Short courses and executive coaching are best in this regard, with a global workplace survey from the Adecco Group revealing that 74 percent of employees would like their management team to show them more empathy and support; and as many as 54 percent of directors feeling that they will be unable to act in accordance with such expectations unless they seek help via:
- the theoretical knowledge a course of study may offer them; and/or
- the practical skills they may learn in a series of executive coaching sessions.
Examples of what a CHRO can gain from coaching
If you’ve gone into the HR game thinking you know everything about people and how to get the most out of them, think again. There is always something new to learn: about yourself; and your management of people. If you think of your job as a sport, and yourself as one of the key players on the field, where should you get your support and advice? From a coach, of course!
Is it time to consider your own career goals and aspirations once again? Are you gearing up to take on a higher-level HR position (CHRO job, here we come!), but need to tackle obstacles related to your mindset?
If so, here’s what an executive or life coach will be able to bring to the mix:
• a smooth transition from one company, or position, to another;
• help in rekindling a lost passion for what you do;
• assistance in emerging from any rut that you may have fallen into;
• tools and mechanisms to help you motivate your immediate team;
• ways to drum up the empathy needed to deal with difficult situations and people;
• revealing methods to pick up on burnout, and how to treat it or prevent it from happening in the first place (both to yourself, and to colleagues/staff members); and
• ability to reflect deeply and gain renewed awareness of yourself.
HR Trends 2025
Employees have extremely high expectations, is the word from the HR leaders of today. To assist companies with this tackling this exact challenge, two individuals, Erik van Vulphen, founder of AIHR and Dieter Veldsman, the company’s HR and organisational development (OD) leader, released an HR Trends report.
Their fervent belief is that HR managers are exhausted and need the opportunity to recharge their batteries, and to receive the proper tools to do their jobs well. “But this is not HR’s responsibility alone,” they say in an interview on CHRO.co.za. “It’s a business problem that must be prioritised. If businesses don’t empower HR to function effectively and make better strategic decisions, organisations will face greater internal pressures from the challenges of the new world of work. HR holds the key to unlocking the change, but enabling them is a business-wide responsibility.”
Let’s hope all the CEOs, CFOs and COOs are sitting up and taking notice.
Just a few of the trends that these astute HR leaders highlight in their report, include:
• prioritising employee wellness and building resilience to avoid burnout (as mentioned above), across the organisation but in the HR department, too;
• offering ongoing and plentiful opportunities to learn, close gaps, and upskill, to remain ahead of any marketplace competition and to keep staff retention levels high;
• putting future-proof policies in place that allow remote and hybrid conditions to actually work for employees;
• ensuring the CHRO can take his or her rightful place in the C-suite’s inner circle; and
• facilitating the creation of a “purpose-driven” organisation, where the work being accomplished has personal meaning for its teams and directors, over and above the company’s ultimate success.
Upskill at best-in-class conferences
Because the world of work just keeps on shifting, it is vital to attend conferences and webinars that help you answer questions like:
- Where will we be working in the time to come?
- How will employees connect with each other?
- How should managers lead their teams?
- What will real inclusion look like?
- What will it take to recruit, engage, and retain the talent that demands truly meaningful work?
- How are we listening to our employees, and showing that we acknowledge their needs and challenges?, and
- What are we doing with the knowledge we have gained?
Find out more by attending the likes of the HR Indaba, the HR Director Annual Conference, and the Future of HR Summit, each offering a series of deep dives into trends, leadership insights, and tech innovations for those at all HR levels.
