APRIL 2, 2024
Going into 2024, the changes and fluidity in how and where employees work continue to significantly impact CHROs. HR leaders have focused on creating an employee experience and organizational culture that resonate with employees regardless of where they work. Now, CHROs are engaged in organizational design and change management as they continue to enhance the culture to retain employees and attract talent that will contribute to enterprise-wide objectives.
In addition to their C-suite peers, CHROs are exploring how AI and generative AI can improve productivity and create efficiencies for their organizations. As the Gartner Organization Design and Change Management Primer for 2024 notes, “In 2024, HR leaders will encounter an extensive array of changes fueled by the transformative potential of generative AI and still unsettled questions associated with hybrid work.”
Each year, we ask CHROs across our communities about their top priorities and investment plans in our proprietary Leadership Perspective Survey. Their responses inform the topics and agendas at community events – and they enable us to highlight changes and trends we observe year over year.
Based on more than 500 responses, here is a snapshot of CHROs’ functional priorities and how they have changed in the past three years.
1. Organizational Design & Change Management vaulted to the #1 spot this year despite not appearing in the top five for HR leaders for the past two years. CHROs are determining how to align the workforce with the company’s evolving objectives and initiatives – particularly digital initiatives. As the same Gartner report notes, “Their ability to foster a workforce that is ready to transform is pivotal to achieving their goals.”
2. Workforce Strategy & Planning also moved into the top five priorities for CHROs – which seems closely aligned to organizational design. CHROs are managing acquisitions, reductions in the workforce, and how to meet the needs of the business. One HR leader said, “How much of your workforce needs to be full-time versus utilizing contractors and the gig economy?”
3. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is no longer in the top five priorities for CHROs for the first time in three years. This could reflect a somewhat uncertain economy, as well as emerging technology and digital priorities, that are requiring CHROs to focus on their workforce strategy over other initiatives.
Below is an overview of CHROs’ priorities across the enterprise, where they are continuing to emphasize increasing operational efficiencies and improving productivity.
4. Similar to their C-suite peers, finding efficiencies and improving productivity is the top enterprise priority for CHROs. This focus on efficiencies in 2024 may be driven partially by the opportunities to reduce redundant tasks and create more efficient processes using artificial intelligence.
5. Driving growth and increasing revenue remain in the top five for the second year in a row – possibly demonstrating how CHROs have increased their prominence as business leaders and are aligning their functional priorities to enterprise initiatives.
Fifty-one percent of CHROs report their planned spending for 2024 remains the same, and 29% indicate it will increase. About 21% of HR leaders say their spending will decrease year over year. Here’s a look at where they plan to invest.
6. Thirty percent of CHROs plan to spend on Recruiting, compared to 35% who said that last year in the survey.
7. Twenty-seven percent of HR leaders say they will invest in AI Solutions – a spending area that was not on the survey last year and has now jumped to the second highest investment priority for CHROs.
Like their peers across the C-suite, CHROs are focused on AI in addition to these top trends. For the first time, we’ve added HR Technology (including AI) as a functional priority on our leadership perspective survey, and it currently ranks at #7. It’s clear to CHROs there is work to do to realize the opportunities with AI and generative AI for the HR function.
For the latest insights on what CHROs from the leading organizations around the world are focusing on, join a CHRO community near you. Or, if you are already an Evanta community member, sign in to MyEvanta to find and sign up for opportunities to get together with your CHRO peers.
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