Creating Thriving Workplaces
For much of the past century, the role of human resources has been a relatively back-office function within organisations, focused primarily on payroll management and employee complaints. This is now well and truly behind us; today, the Chief Human Resources Officer is among the most influential members of the leadership team, right up there next to the CEO and CFO in terms of shaping the future of the business.
There is no doubt that change has come about for multiple reasons: the emergence of the knowledge economy, the disruptive effect of digital transformation, the ongoing battle for talent, and a new understanding of the connection between people and performance. The role of the Chief Human Resources Officer is no longer limited to the management of processes – they are a creator of organisational capacity.
From Personnel Manager to Strategic Partner
It could be said that the traditional HR role consisted mainly of its transactional characteristics. The hiring, firing, benefits, and compliance issues formed the core of their job. The Chief Human Resources Officer of today is supposed to operate at the strategic level, where issues such as building the right corporate culture and creating a long-term talent pipeline take center stage. Instead of wondering how they can fill the empty position, they are expected to ponder what kind of human capital structure will allow the company to succeed in the coming years.
Such a change necessitates a completely new approach. The CHRO of today is required to demonstrate competence in data analytics, organizational psychology, and a deep knowledge of business strategy that allows them to turn personnel decisions into tangible achievements. At the same time, the individual should be capable of maintaining a productive tension between the well-being of employees and business results.
The Indian Context: CHROs at the Forefront
This is most evident in the case of India’s scaling businesses. With Indian businesses growing in complexity and increasing their international ambitions, the role of Chief Human Resources Officer’s in these firms has risen from that of a service role to a strategic position on boards.
Take the example of Infosys, an Indian IT services giant. With the organization facing severe problems related to attrition and its return to work strategy, its HR leaders were key to restructuring the organization’s talent offer. The CHRO’s office led efforts to revamp the career structures, introduced massive reskilling programs focused on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing, and created an employee experience framework to mitigate voluntary turnover – which had become an issue of concern for all organizations in the Indian IT industry.
The second interesting case is that of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). TCS currently boasts of being one of the biggest companies within India’s private sector when it comes to workforce size, with more than 600,000 people working for the company worldwide. The HR management of Tata Consultancy Services has always been well-regarded for their ability to plan effectively. When the company decided on adopting a hybrid working model while ramping up the pace of recruitment in the field of emerging technologies, their CHRO played an important role in decision-making.
The CHRO as Culture Custodian
In addition to being responsible for strategy and operations, today’s CHRO has become a culture guardian for his/her organisation, something not necessarily thought about decades ago. Given the current reality of corporate cultures becoming more important than ever in determining an employee’s career choices, and in terms of branding an organisation in today’s world, culture has ceased to be something ethereal.
Culture has become an organisational resource; something worth recording in an organisation’s balance sheet. As such, it is the responsibility of the CHRO to ensure that his/her organisation is living up to what it says it stands for.
Looking Ahead
It is plain where we are headed. As artificial intelligence changes the shape of jobs and the changing generations influence employee expectations regarding their workplace, the challenges for HR will only continue to mount. Planning for the workforce will demand scenario planning. Talent development will become intrinsically linked with technology strategy. And the CHRO will be expected to guide it all – not on the sidelines, but at the decision-making table itself.
The age of HR being a backroom office function is gone. The time of the CHRO as one of the leading architects of organizational resilience has come.
