A New

Strategic
Vision for HR’s
Expanding Role
by Piers Hudson

The new world of work demands HR supports

areas where it is no longer the primary expert or
deliverer. Increasingly, CHROs need to equip their
functions to bring together leaders and experts
from the whole enterprise, and orchestrate
solutions for novel problems.

Excerpt from HR Leaders Monthly August 2023

Since the beginning of the pandemic, HR functions have faced greater » Figure 1: Percentage of HR Leaders Rating Barrier to Effectiveness as More Difficult Since the Pandemic
demand for support: Fifty-five percent of HR leaders say they receive more
requests for help on a wider variety of topics. These demands are also HR Employee
getting more complex.1 71%
Burnout

In many ways, this is an opportunity for CHROs. CEOs now identify

workforce issues as their third most important business priority, up from Retention of HR
54%
fifth in 2020.2 Fortuitously, this means HR is being asked to provide support Employees
for critical strategic work that it has long argued it could contribute more
to. For example, 63% of HR leaders say they are seeing increased demand
Recruiting of HR
for change management support, and 61% say their function is getting 53%
Employees
more requests to support leader, manager and team effectiveness.1 This is
giving HR functions the chance to have an influence in areas where HR has
been telling the organization for years that it could have an impact. Limited Financial
50%
Resources
At the same time, HR leaders are worried about their ability to deliver
against these new demands, citing a variety of barriers to effectiveness Limited Budget to
that have become more challenging since before the pandemic (see Spend On Long-Term 50%
Figure 1). Seventy-one percent of HR leaders say they are more worried Functional Improvement
about HR employee burnout, and 50% say limited financial resources
are more of a challenge.1 Given this context, it is unsurprising 75% of HR 0% 40% 80%
leaders report they have either restructured the function in the past two n = 217 HR leaders
years or are currently doing so.3 Source: 2023 Gartner HR Functional Excellence HR Leader Survey

2 Excerpt from HR Leaders Monthly August 2023

From Owner and Operator
to Convener and Catalyzer
Because HR is being asked to address a
wider range of issues, CHROs need to think
differently about how their function works
with the wider organization. We believe HR
needs to move from a predominantly own-
and-operate mindset to one where it plays
a convene-and-catalyze role. This role
involves bringing the right organizational
resources together and helping to establish
an appropriate framework for stakeholders
to make decisions or find solutions.
The shift in demands on HR helps explain
why HR needs to play a different role. In
areas such as personnel administration,
payroll and employee policies, HR both
controls and delivers the resources. It also
has greater expertise in these areas than
any other function in the organization.
3 Excerpt from HR Leaders Monthly August 2023
HR’s remit was already extending beyond these areas » Figure 2: Types of Issues Arising in HR’s Expanding Mandate
before the pandemic: HR has always had to draw on
Outside HR
some resources from the wider organization in areas like
Mental Health and Integrated Work Well-Being
performance management or leadership development.
However, what changes in the postpandemic world is Human-Centric EVP
Who Delivers the Work?
the extent and breadth of demands where HR is neither Hybrid-Work Productivity
the primary vehicle for the desired change or even
Frontline-Worker Flexibility
necessarily the primary expert.
For example, HR is asked to help improve employees’ Digital Workplace
mental well-being, but the desired outcome will depend
primarily on leaders’ behavior and their ability to
Office Work Design
integrate well-being into their teams’ daily workflows.
Mostly HR
HR is also asked to develop organizational stances
on issues like AI’s impact on employee privacy, trust AI Augmentation
and organizational ethics, even though HR has limited
expertise in AI. The demands on HR stretch from
Mostly HR Outside HR
diversity, equity and inclusion to organizational stances
Who Has the Experience?
on social issues or securing greater hybrid-worker
productivity. In these and other initiatives, HR is asked Source: Gartner
to play a leading role where it can no longer be the
owner and operator (see Figure 2).
CHROs need to recognize this shift and prepare their Functional excellence is defined here » Figure 3: Impact of Current Approaches on HR Functional Excellence
functions to play a different type of role in these by the HR function both operating
spaces. To succeed, HR must be more than an owner efficiently and being aligned with the High Alignment Very Few Achieving
High Functional
With Organizational Functional
and operator, it must be a convenor and catalyzer. organization’s needs (see Figure 3). To Efficiency
Needs Excellence
As convenor, HR must bring the right organizational measure these indicators, we asked
resources together. And as a catalyzer, HR must HR leaders and employees to answer Examples: Examples: 9%
either draw stakeholders’ attention to important questions in two main areas. We asked • Reduced manual • Awareness of business Excellent HR
processing priorities Functions
issues it neglects or inspire the flow of new ideas to about multiple aspects of efficiency
address issues with no existing proven solutions. (such as the presence of duplication, • Employee tasks • Understanding of how
errors or manual processing). Secondly, matched to experience HR strategy aligns with
and skill business priorities
Convene and Catalyze we asked about business alignment
(such as being able to identify changes • Limited errors in work • Flexible movement of
Requires a New HR Toolkit HR resources to meet 91%
in business needs and mobilize HR
changes in business All Other HR
HR’s growing role as a convener and catalyzer resources to meet them). Judging priorities Functions
needs to be balanced with its role as an owner their current delivery of operational
n = 217 HR leaders
and operator. It will still need to deliver against its efficiency and business alignment, only Source: 2023 Gartner HR Functional Excellence HR Leader Survey
previous mandate and continue to become more 9% of HR leaders and 10% of HR staff
effective and efficient. The problem is that many of say their functions are excellent.1,4
HR’s current approaches to functional improvement
follow the own-and-operate logic. They are therefore
insufficient to help it succeed in its new remit, and
this is undermining HR’s overall functional excellence.

4 Excerpt from HR Leaders Monthly August 2023

Many HR functions have tried to improve A New What, How and » Figure 4: New Approaches to Meet Convene-and-Catalyze Opportunities
their efficiency within the traditional own-
Who for HR Functions Valuable Additional Convene-
and-operate model, focusing on improving Insufficient Alone
Own-and-Operate and-Catalyze
their internal coordination, automating HR HR needs to rethink what it focuses on, Because …
Approaches Approaches
processes and building up their internal how it works with and through others,
capabilities. These efforts have worked and who it needs to have in the function Conflicting demands
Enhance Internal generate difficult trade- Participatory
to an extent. However, the new issues HR in terms of expertise and knowledge. What?
Coordination offs and potentially Prioritization
faces are more conflicting, interdependent Three main ways HR can upgrade its unlimited demand.
and novel than those of the past. Where effectiveness by acting as a convener and
HR’s stakeholders disagree on the course catalyzer are summarized below and in Interdependent issues
of action, HR’s internal coordination efforts Figure 4: Digitalize HR require that HR enables Business-Enabling
How?
Processes and engages others to Digitalization
will have limited effectiveness. Where HR
• Participatory Prioritization — To deliver.
must coordinate and deliver with other
overcome the conflicts that arise out of
functions, digitalizing HR processes alone
competing demands from a variety of Novel issues require
won’t improve the employee experience. Grow HR Internal Expertise
stakeholders, HR needs to coordinate Why? both innovation and new
And where issues are new, just building Capabilities Augmentation
both internally and with its partners learning in HR.
capabilities from HR’s existing knowledge
outside the function in setting priorities.
will only go so far. Source: Gartner

5 Excerpt from HR Leaders Monthly August 2023

• Business-Enabling Digitalization — As technology » Figure 5: Impact of Different HR Approaches on Functional Excellence
becomes increasingly essential to HR delivery, HR 60%
functions must work with end users to ensure their 30% 53%
digitalization initiatives are driving business goals, not
just streamlining HR processes.
• Expertise Augmentation — Because so much expertise
relevant to HR’s agenda lives outside the function, HR
leaders must find ways to augment expertise. They can
do so by bringing in external people and ideas, and by
30%
working with the wider organization to experiment on
23%
novel issues.

When HR functions address the what, who and how of

their new role as conveners and catalysts, this has a
significant impact on functional excellence. HR functions
employing these convene-and-catalyze approaches can
increase functional excellence by up to 30 percentage 0%
points, on top of the gains achieved by upgrading its Own-and-Operate Convene-and-Catalyze Own-and-Operate and
own-and-operate approaches (see Figure 5).4 Approaches Approaches Convene-and-Catalyze
Approaches
n = 531 HR employees
Source: 2023 Gartner HR Functional Excellence HR Leader Survey

6 Excerpt from HR Leaders Monthly August 2023

This will only become more important as
the rate and pace of change increases.
HR will have to strike a new balance
between the areas where it delivers and
holds expertise, and those areas where it
convenes and catalyzes the work.
1
2023 Gartner HR Functional Excellence HR Leader
Survey. This survey was conducted to understand
leader perspectives on how HR functions can thrive
in a new world of work. The research was conducted
online from 6 February 2023 through 28 February 2023
among 217 respondents from various geographies and
industries.
2
2023 Gartner CEO and Senior Business Executive
Survey, Wave 2. This survey was conducted to
examine CEO and senior business executive views
on current business issues, as well as some areas
of technology agenda impact. The survey was
fielded from July 2022 through December 2022, with
questions about the period from 2022 through 2024.
One-quarter of the survey sample was collected
in July and August 2022, and three-quarters was
collected from October through December 2022. In
total, 422 actively employed CEOs and other senior
executive business leaders qualified and participated.
7 Excerpt from HR Leaders Monthly August 2023
The research was collected via 382 online surveys
and 40 telephone interviews. The sample mix by role
was CEOs (n = 277); CFOs (n = 95); COOs or other
C-level executives (n = 19); and chairs, presidents or
board directors (n = 31). The sample mix by location
was North America (n = 169), Europe (n = 105), Asia/
Pacific (n = 102), Latin America (n = 29), the Middle
East (n = 11) and South Africa (n = 6). The sample
mix by size was $10 million in revenue to less than
$50 million (n = 3), $50 million to less than $250
million (n = 51), $250 million to less than $1 billion
(n = 102), $1 billion to less than $10 billion (n = 190)
and $10 billion or more (n = 76). Disclaimer: Results
of this survey do not represent global findings or the
market as a whole, but reflect the sentiments of the
respondents and companies surveyed.
3
2022 Gartner Q4 CHRO Survey. This survey was
conducted online from 24 October 2022 through
2 December 2022 and had 74 HR leaders as
respondents with representation from various
industries across 14 countries.
4
2023 Gartner HR Functional Excellence HR Employee
Survey. This survey was conducted to understand
HR employees’ experiences and opinions regarding
their HR functions. The research was conducted
online from 27 January 2023 through 6 February 2023
among 531 respondents from various geographies,
industries and functions.
How Gartner is helping HR leaders adapt and stay ahead
The decisions HR leaders make today can impact their
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have trusted support. With our insights, actionable tools Diagnostics and Guides and Expert Expert In-person
and advice, we help HR leaders adapt their strategies benchmarks toolkits inquiry research events
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Benchmark your current improvement efforts against See in-depth case studies of how Providence, GSK, IBM Review How to Fix Change Fatigue in your HR
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8 Excerpt from HR Leaders Monthly August 2023

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