Adecco : Chief People Officers Set to Become Both Guardians of Change and Culture, as well as Data Scientists

The Chief

People Officer

of the Future

How is the top

people management role

changing as the

world of work evolves?

Acknowledgements

Our genuine gratitude goes to all respondents who took part in this global survey.

We thank Prof. Dr. Lauren Howe, CLFW Head of Research, for leading the CPO of the Future research project and writing this report.

We would also like to extend our sincere appreciation to all partners for their contributions to this report:

The Adecco Group: Gordana Landen, Chief Human Resources Officer

The Innovation Foundation:

Cynthia Hansen, Managing Director; Liana Melchenko, Global Head of Innovation and Insights.

University of Zurich, Center for Leadership in the Future of Work:

Prof. Dr. Jochen Menges, CLFW Director

Prof. Dr. Lauren Howe, CLFW Head of Research

Perrine Lhuillier, CLFW Head of Partnerships and Communications

Patrick Hürzeler, CLFW Research Assistant

Timon Hüsler, CLFW Research Assistant

For more information visit www.leadthefuture.org

The Chief People Officer of the Future:	2
How is the top people management role changing as the world of work evolves?

Foreword

In this rapidly changing world, employers and employees are re-thinking not only where we work but fundamentally how we work. People must remain at the heart of this transformation as they are literally the lifeblood of any organization. The Global HR Valley initiative, housed in the University of Zurich's Center for Leadership in the Future of Work, brings together leaders and practitioners from business, government, civil society, and academia in an innovation ecosystem, to understand the changing needs of people at work and the role of HR practices in supporting them, with the goal of creating novel, practical solutions. The Adecco Group is pleased to be a founding member of this initiative, collaborating with the University of Zurich to forge a positive and human-centric future of work.

Chief People Officers (CPOs) sit at the crossroads of strategy, technology, competitiveness, and culture in any organization. Ours is a pivotal role, and one that is undergoing its own rapid transformation, further

accelerated by the COVID pandemic. To drive good decision-making about people management, we need to understand the current state, the drivers of change, and the implications for the future. The Adecco Group is pleased to partner with the University of Zurich to bring you the results of our in-depth survey of Chief People Officers. This focuses on how companies are changing their approaches to talent and how the very role of the CPO is evolving. By understanding the CPO role of today, what is already in transformation, and the significant changes that

are foreseen, we can better forge the CPO role of tomorrow as a strategic driver of change to benefit organizations and the people within them.

Alain Dehaze		Gordana Landen
CEO, The Adecco Group		Chief Human
		Resources Officer,
		The Adecco Group

The Chief People Officer of the Future:	3
How is the top people management role changing as the world of work evolves?

Introduction

The pandemic put the value of human talent into the spotlight, making it a core strategic priority for companies. As the globe navigates rapidly changing, stressful, and uncertain times, how can leaders across all kinds of employers support their employees to do their best at work, take action to help companies thrive, and create a better world of work? What is the role of people management professionals alongside other types of executives in doing so?

Looking into the future, all signs suggest that Chief People Officers (or Chief Human Resources Officers, CHROs) and other top people management executives will be held ever more responsible for meeting a myriad of human challenges inherent in the future of work: from managing an increasing amount of data and rapid developments in technology, to promoting employee emotional well-being, to winning the war for talent, to creating a company culture that is flexible and agile, to fostering greater diversity and inclusion. To successfully navigate these challenges ahead, people management executives will need to develop new skills and implement innovative processes and policies in their companies.

How do top people management executives envision an effective response to these challenges? To address this question, the Adecco Group and the University of Zurich's Center for Leadership in the Future of Work partnered to conduct a joint study, entitled The Chief People Officer of the Future: How is the Top People Management Role Changing as the World of Work Evolves? The study tackled three key questions related to core human-centric challenges in the future of work. Results illustrate how the Chief People Officer role is evolving to become more human-centric as these challenges loom and offer insight into concrete solutions for tackling these challenges. In this report on the findings, we break these results down into three core questions.

1	First, we ask: How will Chief People Officers spend their time in the future and what kind of
competencies will they need most? The research reveals that there is a tension in the future CPO role
between a focus on understanding tech and data, and a focus on leading people and developing culture.

Further, while there is ample noise around the need for future HR to focus more on tech, the research shows that there is a risk of neglecting key social and emotional competencies in this future, especially if executives take a short-term lens to the future of work.

2 Second, building on this, we then ask: Given an increasing need for social and emotional competencies in the future of the role, how do Chief People Officers engage with the topic of employee emotion at work - as one core competency relevant to future people management - and how could employee well- being be promoted by focusing more on emotion in the future? We identify the strategies that people management executives are using to address how employees in their organization feel and discuss how this could be improved to foster greater well-being in the future of work.

3 Third, given that diversity and inclusion is important for future well-beingin organizations and in society more broadly, we examine a concrete solution that can be adopted to foster DE&I: returnships. We ask: How can Chief People Officers create a positive company culture that supports diversity and inclusion by attracting and retaining professionals with non-traditionalcareer paths?

The Chief People Officer of the Future:	4
How is the top people management role changing as the world of work evolves?

The joint study surveyed executives who work in human resources across the globe. Conducted during the summer of 2021, the survey asked these top people management executives to imagine how the world of work, with a particular focus the function of people management, would look in the future. Answers shed light on key people challenges for Chief People Officers in the future.

To gain a global perspective, people management executives were recruited to participate in the study from a variety of countries representing a total of four continents. Executives who responded to the survey represented Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S.

The 122 people management executives who completed the survey were responsible for a total of 3,110,419 employees. Executives had on average 11.9 years of

experience in the field of human resources. The group of executives included 86 men (70.5%) and 36 women (29.5%) and spanned the ages of 24 to 63 years old, with an average age of 40.6 years in the group. The companies that executives led employed anywhere from 100 to over 500,000 employees and were located across a variety of industries, spanning finance, technology, agriculture, education, retail, aerospace and defense, and more.

The best way to gain insight into how the landscape of people management is changing, and what will prepare these leaders best to tackle human challenges in the future of work, is to ask those in the top executive role. The Adecco Group and the University of Zurich aim to share the perspectives of these global thought leaders to foster deeper conversations about the role that people management executives can play in shaping the future of work.

The Chief People Officer of the Future:	5
How is the top people management role changing as the world of work evolves?