The CHRO of The Future

2. Decode the New Employee Mindset

The best HR leaders have always been intuitive. But as the workforce and workers’ expectations evolve, that depth of understanding becomes increasingly important. 

For example, when Nichole Oocumma, chief learning and culture officer at MetroHealth in Cleveland, began working in employee engagement in 2010, “engagement” was still a relatively new concept — driven by a rising generation of workers who no longer expected to spend 30 years with the same employer. 

“Now, we’re in the next shift, with a new generation of employees who believe ‘Work isn’t everything I am’ or ‘I can go somewhere else or start my own business and be fine,’ ” Oocumma said. “After the pandemic, people recognized there was more to life than work, and many of them made different decisions when they came back.” 

To respond to the changing demands of the workforce, HR leaders need empathy and openness. “We need to recognize the things that are happening in the world are not just on the news; they’re happening to us,” Oocumma said. “We need to focus on our organizational mission and how we’re living it out. This generation cares about those things more than work.”

In addition to understanding what workers want, the CHRO also needs to understand and tackle business challenges, including the ongoing worker shortage. According to SHRM’s 2025 Talent Trends survey, 69% of organizations reported difficulty recruiting for full-time positions in the past 12 months, up from 50% in 2013. To address these challenges, CHROs will need to combine strategic business insight with a comprehensive understanding of workforce dynamics.

“Attracting talent alone is no longer enough,” Moy said. “HR leaders must create environments where employees feel supported, engaged, and motivated to grow their careers.”

As the war for talent continues and workforce motivators shift, CHROs will need to understand what makes the workforce tick, Zier said. They must be prepared to strategically develop talent acquisition and retention plans that combine performance, compensation, and generational needs “to ensure that their organizations have engaged, invested workforces rather than transactional ones,” Zier said. “The companies that master this will perform the best.”

3. Speak Truth to Power

Increasingly, executives value the HR leader’s role as a voice for the workforce, bringing fairness and candor to inform decisions.

“The executive HR leader’s ability to be a lead voice in the room is a critical skill set,” Oocumma said. “You have to speak up with confidence where your voice is heard and demonstrate that what you’re saying has real value to the organization.” 

For example, to sway executive decisions, Oocumma might share data about the costs of turnover, revenue associated with retention, or research about how engaged employees serve customers better. 

During Zier’s tenure as a CEO, she said she viewed the CHRO as “the chief truth teller” and depended on her to candidly explain what was and what was not working from an organizational and culture perspective. 

“A CHRO must be willing to tell the CEO, leadership, and — at times — the board things they may not want to hear,” Zier said. “They have to constantly be checking the pulse of the organization and looking for things that might be eroding the culture or corporate trust.”

4. Gauge External Threats

Along with a deep understanding of the organization’s internal culture and business needs, the successful CHRO of the future will need to stay informed about external happenings and risks. For example, today’s forward-thinking leaders are tracking and advising their organizations on the potential impacts of executive orders, trade negotiations, and economic uncertainty. 

“Right now, keeping up with what’s going on in the world requires a lot of competence,” Link said. “The best thing to be known for is an ability to think through a problem, see it from multiple angles and lenses, and make good decisions. Organizations need an HR leader who will critically think through the threats and determine what needs to be done for the business.”

Developing the Skills of the Future

Continually building and sharpening forward-looking skills doesn’t happen by accident. Tomorrow’s top leaders will proactively and deliberately take steps today to invest in themselves and their careers, including:

Embrace Multiple Learning Methods. Learning comes in many forms, and preparing for future challenges means adopting a variety of training and development options.  

Fincher-Crusan recommended that leaders find the learning formats that work best for them. In most cases, that will include an assortment of formats, including formal education and ongoing interactions with other professionals. 

For example, because Fincher-Crusan’s employer is working to improve its culture, he’s been listening to a workplace culture podcast while working out. He interacts regularly with his mentors via virtual meetups and has learned much by serving as a mentor for an HR professional at a different organization. Finally, he builds in time for self-reflection for ongoing growth. 

“One of the best skills for HR is self-awareness,” Fincher-Crusan said. “I journal a lot as I go through different experiences and later take time to reflect on what I learned and what I could do better next time. … If you haven’t taken time to reflect, you don’t learn what you could from each experience.”

Prioritize Relationships. Building and nurturing relationships — with employees, executives, mentors, and others — is an ongoing habit that can sharpen skills and also prepare HR leaders for future conversations. In Oocumma’s 35th year as an HR professional, she said her relationships with mentors continue to be critical. 

“Relationships and openness to collaborate is more important than the work you get done,” Oocumma said. “The newer generation of leaders is not as comfortable with one-on-ones. But there’s nothing better than face time, collaboration time, conversation time. Relationships are really big for up-and-coming leaders. When you have strong relationships, you can explain things and challenge executives’ thinking.”

Those relationships will be especially important during challenging times, Link said.

“You can be paralyzed by knowing you need to move forward, or you can be motivated by it,” he said. “Rely on your network of advisors and your own core intellect. Navigation may not occur with the same level of confidence as before, but we will navigate through it together.” 

Focus on Strategic Development. HR tactics remain important, but HR leaders will need to add more strategic skills as business becomes increasingly complex. 

“Gone are the days when HR can be viewed as an administrative function that can be outsourced,” Zier said. “Chief people officers need to be strategic partners to the CEO. They need to help the leadership team think about how to maximize productivity and engagement across the organization in a way that promotes healthy ways of working with zero tolerance for toxicity.”

A vital part of that strategic development must include determining the impact that technology will have on roles and functions and figuring out how to redefine and reimagine them, Zier said.

Moving from a job-based mentality to a skills-based mentality will enable you to upskill and retool teams. This may involve cataloging different types of information into talent databases that can be used across the organization to create growth and mobility. 

Adopt a Learning Mindset. Change is inevitable, so ongoing learning is a requirement for those who want to keep up. That means adopting a mindset of continual learning through actively listening to others and seeking opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills needed next.

“If we’ve learned nothing else since the pandemic, it’s that effective change management skills are crucial,” Link said. “We need to understand that change is a requirement and upskill ourselves. We must form and build cohesive networks within our organizations or networks so we have a sensing mechanism to understand what’s going on and plan ahead. Then we can rely on a vast network of people, tools, and technology to be prepared for what might lie ahead.”  

Nancy Mann Jackson is a freelance journalist who writes regularly on finance, HR, health care, and education. Her work has appeared in Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, and other outlets.