CHRO Leadership Perspectives

COVID-19 has had an enormous impact on businesses and organizations around the world in 2020. Business leaders have had to rethink products, processes, supply chains, and workforce and business models. They accelerated digital transformation -- if they hadn’t already -- as a survival strategy. 

In the midst of this disruption, C-level leaders connected virtually with their peers in Evanta communities to share ideas and collaborate on rebounding and leading their teams through the crisis. They offered their perspectives in one major survey and several pulse surveys, enabling us to compile and share sentiments among all CHRO peer communities. 

Here, we explore the topics that are driving conversations among the most influential CHROs in the world. 
 

Mission Critical Priorities

Despite the upheaval of 2020, CHROs remain focused on these top 5 priorities for the second half of the year.

In early 2020 before the pandemic, CHROs’ priorities were similar. Leadership and employee experience were already top of mind, while creating a culture of inclusion has been propelled to the top of the list.

1. Developing the current and future leadership bench
2. Creating an engaging employee experience
3. Developing critical skills and competencies among your workforce 

Their planned business spending and investments are in areas that address their top priorities.

For their top priority of creating an inclusive culture, CHROs cited specific goals in our survey. Here is a sample of what they set out for their teams and organizations to pursue:

• Creating an action-oriented D&I policy
• Expanding inclusion beyond race and gender
• Impacting our hires, promotions, and pay equity
• Ensuring leadership reflects the diversity of workforce
• Establishing consistent reporting
   

CHROs also told us what challenges they anticipated when it comes to driving toward those goals. Here is what they cited as the challenges to creating an inclusive culture  in their organizations:

• Making D&I a company-wide initiative, not just HR
• Increasing management understanding
• Creating the appropriate level of engagement
• Maintaining focus during business recovery efforts
• Attracting diverse pipeline of talent
   

CHRO Profile

A snapshot of what human resources leaders are thinking about going into the 4th quarter of 2020.

As business leaders head into 2021, there is continued uncertainty around the pandemic, the economic impacts, and the organizational effects of the distributed, remote workforce. To join conversations with fellow CHROs on these topics and more, find your local CHRO community or view the calendar for upcoming opportunities to connect virtually with your peers.

_{Mission Critical Priorities are taken from Evanta’s proprietary Leadership Perspective Survey of 2020. 
CHRO Profile results are taken from Evanta’s monthly pulse surveys conducted from April-August 2020.}