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Jamie Lawrence

Wagestream

Insights Director

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Is your senior HR leader undervalued by the CEO?

statattack_0

Stat attack gives you the facts, figures, numbers and survey results you need to keep on top of developments and changes in sentiment in the HR and L&D industries, all in an easy to digest format. It’s your regular dose of facts and figures, parcelled up for easy reading.

Context:

These statistics are from research from taken from the Harvey Nash HR Survey 2016, on the attitudes of CEOs towards senior HR staff compared to other senior leaders, the focus for senior HR staff in the year ahead, and the direction strategic HR should be moving in. The suvey questioned 1,253 HR leaders in 30+ countries.

Key findings:

  • Two thirds of HR professionals believe the chief HR leader is undervalued by the CEO
  • Half believe the HR leader is considered less important to the board than the top financial leader such as the CFO.

Other related findings:

The survey reveals differences in approaches between the HR leaders who feel valued and undervalued by the board, with the valued leaders being more likely to:

  • Focus on employee engagement as a strategy (64% v 58%)
  • Develop strong working relationships with Business Operations (62% v 50%) and Sales (39% v 28%)
  • Consider ‘culture and values’ the single most important function of HR (27% vs 22%)
  • Want HR to assume direct responsibility for HR activity, rather than empower the business to do ‘more HR’ for itself (52% vs 44%)

Key questions to ask yourself:

  • Does the HR function perceive top-down support for both HR generally and specific HR initiatives?
  • How does this perception affect their ability to push the HR agenda and engage with the wider business?
  • How does this perception affect HR’s ability to connect and collaborate with other parts of the business? How strong is its mandate?
Author Profile Picture
Jamie Lawrence

Insights Director

Read more from Jamie Lawrence
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