A New Strategic Vision for HR’s Expanding Role | Gartner

Last week, I reshared 15 CHRO resources aimed at helping Chief HR Officers enhance personal, team, and organizational effectiveness. These resources encompassed a wide range of topics, including AI in HR, transitioning into a new CHRO role, and HR strategy. To add to this list, this new paper by Gartner delves into how the rapidly evolving workplace landscape is pushing HR to support areas where it may not be the primary expert or provider—such as AI, mental well-being, and social issues. It highlights the growing need for CHROs to equip their functions to collaborate with leaders and experts from across the organization to find innovative solutions for emerging and diverse challenges. This role requires HR to continue the transition from an “own-and-operate” mindset to a “convene-and-catalyze” approach—where the focus is on bringing together the right stakeholders, orchestrating decision-making frameworks, and inspiring new ideas and ways of working. The paper provides three main ways HR can boost its effectiveness by acting as a convener and catalyze, such as augmenting HR expertise with an understanding of a wider range of novel issues. A related Gartner article suggests that the HR function can augment non-HR expertise by having more flexible movement of talent into and out of the function. What is your strategy for integrating non-HR expertise into the HR function?