Organizations across the world lay the bricks of their foundation by adhering to their mission and vision, values which help progress these teams to the ultimate goal of their organizational strategy. In this foray, Human Resource Directors or CHROs are the ones enabling these teams with the re-alignment of the people strategy and the organizational one. A CHRO thus, has become the conscience keeper and the navigational compass of organizations. But they have to be perfectly balanced in their advocacy, be a perfect fit as an employee and an employer, for which, they have to stay in touch with different verticals in an organization.
Historically, CHROs were considered to be on the fringes; however, nowadays, they’ve come out as critical cogs in the organizational machinery. The CHRO role has evolved from the archaic role of workforce managers to strategic partners in the major decisions for any company. And in my experience, more than the time spent sitting with all the major stakeholders in the boardrooms, getting involved in the people strategy for better HR initiatives have paid off more than anything else.
Although the golden triad of the CEO, CFO, and the CHRO has been highlighted by thought-leaders like Prof. Ram Charan for organizational success, what about the bonding between the CEO and the CHRO? What makes the elusive CHRO-CEO partnership an effective one?
Finding the perfect fit – the CHRO & CEO relationship
An efficient relationship between a CHRO and CEO is like the one between a Principal and a HoD in an educational setting. A successful HoD supports his/her Principal by serving as a coach, mentor, and a sounding board through difficult decisions in the teaching spectrum. Just like in the above example, a CHRO needs to advise the CEO on key people strategies to grasp the optimal levels of performance in the organization and tap into the potential of key employees, while ensuring that the CEO has the best talent pool to choose from.
The secret sauce
If the CEO-CHRO relationship is to succeed, there has to be a strong element of trust and respect for each other’s judgment. It is only then that the CHROs can position themselves as partners and constructive challenges, and help CEOs build a high-performing and cohesive executive leadership team, pivotal to the success of the business.
The imperative matters
Trust, in turn, is a result of both respect and credibility. It is imperative for the CHROs to have a superior understanding of the big picture and the organizational mandate. He/she must possess strong domain knowledge of human capital management concepts and practice and overlay these with both business and industry knowledge. For this, the CHRO needs to build strong links with the keyboard members, peer business leaders, decision-making units wherever applicable, and even individuals/institutions external to the organization. But such relationship building also needs managerial bandwidth and time. A CHRO constantly harried with the day-to-day running of the department will find this hard.
In search of perfection
In today’s digitally transformed era, the CHRO’s capability to efficiently hold a self-assessment rather than ‘picking up the crumbs’ approach to the CEO depends on his/her ability to be an information hub, and being a leader who can effectively understand the ramifications of an action, and quickly turn-around with analytically-proven solutions that are aligned to the ultimate goal of getting business into the kitty. However, given that the resources we are dealing with here are people, it is important for the CHRO to balance the latency of data with the recency of events to get the true picture.
What lies ahead?
Inherently, the CHRO should be aligned with the CEO when it comes to protecting the organization’s interests. It is but natural that tension could prevail between them and their respective functions, but the CEO should ensure that it is a constructive push-pull relationship, and not a destructive one. Competence earns respect, and respect, in turn, garners collaboration and synergy. Conclusively, great CHRO-CEO cohesions gets made when they play the distinct roles that the organization requires them to at times—communicating the whys of tough decisions while charismatically painting the organizational vision to key stakeholders.