Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

THE EDITOR

PATRICK M. WRIGHT, Ph.D., is the William J. Conaty GE Professor of Strategic Human Resources in the School of ILR at Cornell University. He teaches and conducts research in the area of strategic human resource management, with a particular focus on how HR practices, the HR function, and HR leaders can affect firm performance.

THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF HUMAN RESOURCES (NAHR) is an honorific organization where individuals and institutions of distinction in human resources are recognized for exceptional professional achievement by election as “Fellows of the NAHR.” In addition, the NAHR furthers the HR profession through the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) Academy and other philanthropic and educational activities. For more information visit www.nationalacademyhr.org.

Copublished with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the world’s largest association devoted to human resource management. The Society serves the needs of HR professionals and advances the interests of the HR profession. Founded in 1948, SHRM has more than 250,000 members in over 140 countries, and more than 575 affiliated chapters. Visit www.shrm.org.

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Praise for THE CHIEF HR OFFICER

The Chief HR Officer offers the most current thinking on the evolving role of the chief human resource officer (CHRO). An essential resource for experienced and aspiring CHROs, the book shows leaders how to best prepare for and perform this critical role.

This comprehensive book shows how, in today’s extremely competitive work environment, the job of the CHRO has expanded to encompass many important roles. Among other things, HR leaders must adapt to and address the demands of an increasingly diverse and demanding workforce, globalization, stricter regulatory requirements, increased accountability to the CEO and board of directors, and the complexity of leading the HR function with often limited resources.

This vital guide is filled with rare insights and practical guidance from some of the country’s most successful CHROs who have been in the trenches as well as top academics researching the field including Randy MacDonald (IBM), Eva Sage-Gavin (Gap Inc.), L. Kevin Cox (American Express), Mirian M. Graddick-Weir (Merck), and Dave Ulrich (Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and The RBL Group).

Sponsored by the National Academy of Human Resources (NAHR), the book covers a wealth of topics including how to develop a perspective and set of skills to effectively lead and perform in the role and how to approach strategy, management, leadership, ethics, and talent. In addition, the authors include information on forming and implementing activities that will further the firm’s strategy, advice for coaching and counseling the CEO, and much more.

Aus dem Klappentext

The Chief HR Officer offers the most current thinking on the evolving role of the chief human resource officer (CHRO). An essential resource for experienced and aspiring CHROs, the book shows leaders how to best prepare for and perform this critical role.

This comprehensive book shows how, in today's extremely competitive work environment, the job of the CHRO has expanded to encompass many important roles. Among other things, HR leaders must adapt to and address the demands of an increasingly diverse and demanding workforce, globalization, stricter regulatory requirements, increased accountability to the CEO and board of directors, and the complexity of leading the HR function with often limited resources.

This vital guide is filled with rare insights and practical guidance from some of the country's most successful CHROs who have been in the trenches as well as top academics researching the field including Randy MacDonald (IBM), Eva Sage-Gavin (Gap Inc.), L. Kevin Cox (American Express), Mirian M. Graddick-Weir (Merck), and Dave Ulrich (Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and The RBL Group).

Sponsored by the National Academy of Human Resources (NAHR), the book covers a wealth of topics including how to develop a perspective and set of skills to effectively lead and perform in the role and how to approach strategy, management, leadership, ethics, and talent. In addition, the authors include information on forming and implementing activities that will further the firm's strategy, advice for coaching and counseling the CEO, and much more.

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The Chief HR Officer

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

The chief human resource officer (CHRO) role has become one of the most important roles on the executive leadership team. Jack Welch, in his book Winning (2005), states of the CHRO role, "Without a doubt, the head of HR should be the second most important person in any organization. From the point of view of the CEO, the director of HR should be at least equal to the CFO" (pp. 99–100).

This has by no means always been the case. The HR function in general and the CHRO (albeit previously the director of personnel), traditionally played a largely administrative role in most organizations. However, over the past thirty years, the HR function, and especially the head of the function, has been elevated. With this increased status has comes increased pressure.

This chapter examines the trends that have led to the current state of the CHRO role and explores the current pressures that provide opportunities and challenges for those who hold the role. It also presents a guide to the rest of the book. Thus, we will first describe the evolution of HR from the 1980s to now, noting some of the major trends and events that have affected the profession and the CHRO role. Then we will provide an overview of the rest of the book.

Trends in HR The 1980s: HR Goes Strategic!

The 1980s saw the emergence of the concept of strategic HR. Right around the turn of the decade, James Walker (1980) revised his book on human resource planning in which he noted that one consideration in developing an HR plan was the strategy of the business. However, at that time, little knowledge of strategy existed in the HR community (even in the general manager community, strategy had only recently become a hot topic).

Over the course of that decade, the HR profession sought to align its activities with strategy, but it did so largely in a siloed manner. In fact, in one of the foundational books on aligning HR with strategy, Fombrum, Tichy, and Devanna (1984) organized the chapters around such concepts as strategic staffing, the appraisal system as a strategic control, and the strategic design of reward systems. This approach implicitly assumed that each area of HR should align itself around the strategy of the business and that the role of the CHRO was to ensure that this vertical fit existed and to coordinate across these areas to ensure their activities did not conflict with one another, thus creating the horizontal fit.

The 1990s: HR at the Table

Whereas the 1980s saw HR leaders talking about the need to be "at the table" (meaning part of the executive leadership team with responsibility for developing strategy), in the 1990s HR leaders increasingly achieved this position. Dave Ulrich's book Human Resource Champions (1996) defined the major paradigm that would guide most HR professional thinking during the decade. In particular, the role of strategic partner gained unprecedented popularity. Although this was not necessarily new in terms of defining the activities through which HR leaders could work with business leaders for the success of the enterprise, labeling the role caught the attention of those within and outside HR. In addition, Ulrich described a basic HR operating model structure that consisted of the business partners (field generalists), centers of expertise (such as functional specialists from the various HR silos), and shared services (the more transactional aspects of HR).

Although this model provided the foundation on which CHROs could build their organizations, the latter part of the decade saw the emergence of the war for talent, which would become the springboard for the increasing importance of the HR organization, and the CHRO more specifically. Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod's book, The War for Talent (2001), suggested that CHROs would become as important as chief financial officers to the extent that they could forge a link between business strategy and talent, act as the thought leader in understanding what it takes to attract great talent, facilitate the talent review and action plans, and become the architect of the development strategy for the top fifty to one hundred HR managers. Almost prophetically, they stated, "Today many more CFOs than HR leaders are on division management teams or corporate executive committees. Now that talent is so crucial to competitive success, look for that to change" (p. 33).

The 2000s: Failings Forward

While the previous two decades saw the CHRO role increase in visibility and importance for competitive reasons, the 2000s saw its visibility and importance increase because of a number of organizational failings. In the early 2000s, the dot-com bubble burst, and this was quickly followed by a rash of corporate scandals. No other company better exemplifies this transformation than Enron. In the late 1990s, Ken Lay, chairman and CEO of Enron, had stated, "The only thing that differentiates Enron from our competitors is our people, our talent" (quoted in Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod, 2001, p. 2). By the mid2000s, Enron was in bankruptcy, and Lay, his CEO successor, Jeff Skilling, and CFO Andrew Fastow had all been indicted and convicted. Company scandals at Enron, MCI-WorldCom, Qwest, and Adelphia Communications led to increasing regulatory pressure on companies' financial reporting requirements, particularly as exemplified by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This legislation, enacted in 2002, increased the public financial reporting requirements, created personal criminal liabilities for misreporting, and increased the required board governance.

Almost like a bookend, a second set of scandals rocked the business world at the end of the decade with the financial crisis spurred by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. Massive government bailouts of the financial and auto companies increased government oversight over many aspects of firm operations, not the least of which was executive pay. This government interventionism was mirrored, and to some extent spurred, by a public distrust of large institutions in general and corporate executives in particular. In addition to the existing TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) regulations, the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 imposed additional regulation of the financial industry.

Both of these traumatic events have further vaulted the CHRO role into the spotlight. The early company scandals resulted in increased board oversight of the succession, compensation, and performance management of senior executives. The more recent scandals have increasingly focused board attention on CEO pay and risk assessment. Consequently, the time that CHROs spend with board members has increased, and the critical role they play has amplified the risk inherent in their role. Those who effectively manage this new role can achieve new heights in status and impact; those who fail to do so will quickly be asked to leave the company.

Summary

This recap highlights some of the major trends and events that underlay the changing role of the CHRO. Although these events existed at discrete points...