LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS

One of the defining characteristics of a high-performing HR function is a willingness to trade the comfort of service for the discomfort of strategic challenge. It requires CPOs to move beyond simply delivering what's asked of them, and instead make the case for where time, capability and investment should go. 

 

It's a shift that was very much on the table at Criticaleye's recent CPO Forum, held in Partnership with LACE Partners and Simplyhealth, where Chief People Officers and Board members debated what's really holding HR back from high performance — and what a genuinely strategic function looks like in practice. 

 

Tom Darby, Chief People and Technology Officer at waste-to-energy business enfinium, starts any productivity conversation in an unglamorous but essential place: the data itself. "If you can get good quality data out of your systems and run them through the processes, you can look at where your productivity is low, look for patterns... and then take the process apart and understand how to improve it." 

 

Productivity, in Tom's view, is never one number but the sum of many smaller ones. "What makes up those productivity numbers is a big tree of other things — anything from making sure we've got the right people in the right place with the right skills, to making sure they're managed well... to whether we're doing it in a safe and reliable way."  

 

The scale of that challenge was evident in a poll taken at the Forum, where 47 percent of HR leaders cited capability gaps in data, AI and analytics as the single biggest thing holding their HR function back from high performance — well ahead of prioritisation and resourcing (32 percent) and an outdated operating model (21 percent). 

 

 

Jane Pateman, NED at Knights and Criticaleye Board Mentor, knows to ask what's underpinning  the information presented to the Board. "Underneath those headline numbers, there's a whole load of things that can influence those results.  

 

"You're not going to get high productivity and performance if you haven't got committed and engaged employees," she explained. 

 

"You don't just focus on the outputs — you focus on those inputs that [motivate] people to do the best job they can, that they're getting the feedback, the development and the support they need to make that difference," said Jane. "Most people come to work wanting to do a good job, and if you start from that premise, then let's help them do that, rather than criticise and give them targets that are just not achievable." 

 

Lawrence Chan, CEO of Singapore-based business NETS, broke the same challenge down into a simple framework he uses with his own Board. "We address people, process and tools," he said. 

 

"It's not just from a people standpoint, but what processes we have in place and what tools we can use to make our team more productive — and, of course, from a tools standpoint, whether it's automation or now AI, is something we're exploring and using more progressively." 

 

High-performing HR 

 

Proximity is what makes the difference for Kat Bernardes, Executive Director, Head of HR Transformation at LACE Partners. "When I've seen CPOs get very close to not only the CEO but the CFO, the Chief Strategy Officer or the Chief Transformation Officer, and really understand what the business is trying to achieve, that's when they start to shift their mindset away from just delivering the performance of the function itself. 

 

"They start using data more effectively to influence decisions and free up capacity within their teams to go after some of these challenges." 

 

Kat admits the hardest part isn't the strategy but the discipline to step back from delivery long enough to exercise it. "It's really hard in the day-to-day grind, when you've still got to manage the machine, to feel like you can step back," she said. "Building that prioritisation muscle is something we're seeing become more and more important in the function." 

 

Polly Prestidge, CPO at Bridgepoint, frames that same shift as a change in HR's underlying purpose. "For so many years, HR and people teams have been about being service oriented, and that's a great thing — it really is important. 

 

"But the phase now is slightly different – it’s how do you work hand in glove with the C-suite? How are you driving performance? How are you orchestrating the right outcomes? Within that, there needs to be a conviction and clarity of decision making to say: 'Look, no — and it's no for these reasons'." 

 

Polly added: "If we want to build a scalable business, you need to be quite thoughtful: what's got us to where we are is not going to get us to where we want to be. So really taking people on that journey has been my focus. 

 

"We need to be ruthlessly caring — really caring about the right things — and that only comes from really understanding the strategy." 

 

Whether the entry point is data, execution or Board-level scrutiny, the direction of travel looks the same: away from HR as a responsive service and towards HR as a strategic function willing to make the case for where time and investment should go. With 41 percent of HR leaders at the Forum naming cost efficiency versus workforce investment as the sharpest tension they face, making that case is no longer optional.

Bridgette Hall, Senior Editor, Criticaleye