2021 CHRO Agenda Report: 10 Key Issues HR Needs to Act on Now | The Hackett Group

This report by the Hackett Group suggests that four emerging enterprise themes–1) People, 2) Risk, 3) Cost 4) Digital Acceleration–have influenced the 2021 HR transformation agenda in ten ways. The ten themes (a summary is on p.4) range from aligning workforce strategy with business strategy, accelerating enterprise digital transformation, improving HR analytical, modeling and reporting capabilities, and enabling HR agility, to name a few. Of the top 10 priorities, seven are assessed as critical development areas, indicating a substantial gap between the objective’s importance and HR’s ability to achieve it. In exploring the most dramatic shifts in enterprise priorities since the report’s inception a) Enterprise digital transformation rose five spots to become the top overall enterprise initiative, b) Diversity and inclusion rose seven spots on the enterprise agenda, c) Cost optimization, which was always among the primary initiatives, dropped from the top of the list to just third. Lastly, top challenges to HR transformation include HR staff deficiencies in critical skills, organizational resistance to change/overload, and technology/process complexity, to name a few. Firms can use this report’s insights to refine HR priorities for 2021. For more insights from The Hackett Group, visit their website.