Why Corporate America Joined the Battle Over Voting Rights

BY Stephen Koepp | April 05, 2021

Compared with their swift responses to the Black Lives Matter protests last summer and the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January, America’s corporate leaders seemed hesitant at first to take a stand over the growing political fracas over voting rights. Even those who made declarations in favor of protecting the right to vote tended to be hazy in their language. A statement by the Coca-Cola Co., for example, “sounded as though of team of executives worked long and hard to make certain their comments were undecipherable,” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote early last week. Was the Fortune 500 hoping to sit this one out?

Yet in a remarkable series of events that unfolded in just days, corporations came off the sidelines last week like athletes in a bench-clearing brawl. In particular, they were provoked by Georgia’s new elections law, passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature on March 25,  which contains a host of provisions that Democrats and voting-rights activists say will have a disproportionate impact on Black voters. Two Atlanta-based corporations, Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, found clarity after coming under increasing heat from activists, customers, and dozens of prominent Black business leaders. Late one night last week, a reportedly sleepless Delta CEO Ed Bastian drafted a fiery memo of his own, which he sent to employees the next morning: “I need to make it crystal clear that the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.” He added: “The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 elections. This is simply not true.” Hours later, Coke CEO James Quincey issued a statement using similar language: “I want to be crystal clear,” he wrote. “The Coca-Cola Co. does not support this legislation, as it makes it harder for people to vote, not easier.”

By week’s end, nearly 200 companies had signed onto a statement strongly criticizing not just the Georgia law but the wave of similar Republican proposals across the U.S. “There are hundreds of bills threatening to make voting more difficult in dozens of states nationwide,” said the statement, organized by Civic Alliance, a nonpartisan group of businesses focused on voter participation. The statement was signed by a Who’s Who of Corporate America, including Dow, HP, Salesforce, ViacomCBS, Twitter and Under Armour.

Then the situation escalated from words to deeds: Major League Baseball took the dramatic step of relocating the 2021 All-Star Game away from the Braves’ home field in suburban Atlanta. In a statement, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the after consulting with many stakeholders, he “decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport” would be to relocate the event. “Fair access to voting continues to have our game’s unwavering support.” While the move might have been expected from major-league basketball or football, which have been increasingly progressive on social issues, the protest from America’s Pastime seemed like a watershed moment.

The move drew sharp rebukes from Republicans, including a culture-war salvo from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that signaled a long battle ahead: “Today, Major League Baseball caved to fear, political opportunism and liberal lies,” he said in a statement. “Georgians–and all Americans–should fully understand what the MLB’s knee-jerk decision means: cancel culture and woke political activists are coming for every aspect of your life, sports included.”

The voting-rights fight is the latest turn in a historical realignment of business and political parties. Traditionally, big corporations have stayed out of the political arena unless the issues directly affected their bottom line. In the case of regulation and taxes, corporate interests mostly aligned with Republican and libertarian policies. But in recent years, corporate leaders have found themselves compelled to take stands on a growing list of issues that affected their employees, customers and communities: LGBTQ rights, gun control, climate change, and racial justice. As President Trump led the GOP into a deepening and divisive culture war, corporate leaders found they couldn’t go along without betraying their diverse stakeholders and their professed corporate values. “Republicans and corporate America are on the outs,” wrote NBC News political reporter Allan Smith.

A Different Kind of Fight

The battle over voting rights, however, is notably different from the earlier flash points. “An issue that both political parties see as a priority is not easily addressed with statements of solidarity and donations,” wrote New York Times reporter David Gelles. “Taking a stand on voting rights legislation thrusts companies into partisan politics and pits them against Republicans who have proven willing to raise taxes and enact onerous regulations on companies that cross them politically.” That point was demonstrated quickly in this case when the Georgia House of Representatives voted to revoke Delta’s state-tax break on jet-fuel purchases, a provision reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars annually. While the legislative session expired before the state senate could pass the bill into law, the threat was registered.

If the polarization is greater and the stakes are higher over this issue, is this fight worth it for Corporate America? Harvard Business School professor Rebecca Henderson, author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, makes the case that business can’t take democracy for granted and that business leaders need to speak up on issues like voting rights. Without good government, she argues, corporations wouldn’t be able to rely on free and fair markets, public infrastructure, and the other conditions they need in order to thrive. As she told From Day One via email last week: “Free markets need free politics!”

The Battle Moves to Texas and Beyond

In the aftermath of President Trump’s defeat, Republicans launched a campaign to change voting laws on a state-by-state basis. Legislatures in 47 states have introduced 361 bills that include voting restrictions as of March 24, according to research by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s Law School. While the rationale for the proposed laws is the Trump-inspired claim of election fraud, no systemic or substantial cases have been found. The real purpose of the blizzard of election bills, as Democrats have widely alleged and some Republicans have acknowledged, is to suppress the votes of people who tend to vote Democratic, notably people of color. While election analysts have argued that voter suppression is self-defeating for Republicans, the party generally fears that America’s demographic trend toward diversity is a long-term threat.

Democrats hope to supercede the state-by-state battle with a sweeping voting-rights law at the federal level, known as the For the People Act, that would set a national floor for ballot access, defang many voting restrictions imposed by the GOP, among other measures. However, since passage is by no means assured given the razor-thin Democratic edge in the Senate, the individual battles in the statehouses will be waged as a parallel campaign.

With the Georgia law decided, the spotlight has shifted quickly to Texas, the home state of 50 companies in the Fortune 500. As of late March, dozens of bills proposing election-law changes have been introduced in the state legislature, including restrictions on early voting, drive-through voting, and absentee ballots. To get the attention of corporations, activists have launched protests, including at AT&T’s Dallas headquarters.

Texas-based corporate leaders, seeing the criticism leveled at Georgia corporations for failing to speak out strongly until the Georgia law was a done deal, have been more pro-active in their comments. In a tweet, Dell CEO Michael Dell said that “governments should ensure citizens have their voices heard” and that one of the Texas bills, House Bill 6, “does the opposite.” American Airlines said in a statement: “We are strongly opposed to this bill and others like it. As a Texas-based business, we must stand up for the rights of our team members and customers who call Texas home, and honor the sacrifices made by generation of Americans to protect and expand the right to vote.”

Corporate leaders in other states spoke out against voting restrictions as well, including tech giants Amazon and Google, providing a sense of safety in numbers. But the fight will not be easy, given the potential economic impact of boycotts and other retaliation by either side. Baseball’s decision to move its All-Star Game from Georgia will cost the state $100 million in economic activity, a tourism official estimated. Even Georgia’s prominent voting-rights advocates acknowledged the sacrifice. “I can’t say that I like it, but I certainly understand it, and it is really probably the first of many boycotts of our state to come,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told CNN. The Georgia law, she added, “is a horrible example for the rest of the country and people are going to show us exactly how they feel by keeping their dollars out of this state.”

For CEOs, last week was a heads up that voting rights is yet another issue they can’t avoid. “If people feel like it’s a been a week of discomfort and uncertainty, it should be, and it needs to be,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who has been urging companies to get involved. They need to pay as much attention to issues that affect Black Americans, she says, as they do to those affecting their other stakeholders. “Corporations have to figure out who they are in this moment.”

Steve Koepp is a co-founder of From Day One. Previously, he was editorial director of Time Inc. Books, executive editor of Fortune and deputy managing editor of Time

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What surprised her is the urgency that CPOs expressed, and the evidence that CEOs are leaning so heavily on them for answers. CPOs are super-connectors, the report says, with demands on their attention coming from all sides. As a result, “progressive organizations are playing with their HR functional models,” Wilson said.From Day One spoke to HR leaders and the consultants who work with them about their plans for the new year. Among the myriad responsibilities on their plate, what will they focus on in 2025? This is what they told us they plan to do.Renew the Focus on Company CultureSpeculation about the future of work once conjured images of workers zipping around the office on hoverboards, said Dan Kaplan, senior partner at consulting firm Korn Ferry. 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They want to explore more things, and I think we can be savvy in leveraging that.”Maintain a Commitment to DEI, But Change the LanguageDespite recent high-profile changes in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs by the likes of Walmart and Ford in the face of anti-DEI activists, the overall corporate commitment to DEI’s principles isn’t dead. “Activists are overstating the surface-level changes many companies are making to get rid of the heat,” CNN reported this week based on a review of company policies. “Nearly all the largest companies in America still say they are committed to promoting DEI.”Companies are motivated to persist with the principles of DEI because, in an increasingly diverse population, it has been proven to be good for the bottom line, as well as employee retention and motivation. That said, companies still want to avoid the political flak, so they have shifted the emphasis of their language, focusing more on inclusion and belonging. The values have already been operationalized and, in some cases, leaders have asserted that they have not abandoned those values, but are waiting to see what the temperature will be under a second Trump Administration before speaking out more.How can HR make sure thier companies evolve their practices, and not just the labels? 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People ops no longer waits for requests, but goes problem-solving on its own. “We’re seeing agile teams form and disband for specific organizational issues,” said Wilson.Experiments abound. Some companies have moved all administrative tasks to a general shared-services center, leaving HR to “focus entirely on talent, leadership, succession, bench strength, organizational design, and [organizational development].” And, according to Wilson, this could be “a smart way to get HR out of the administrative chains that it’s been under for so many years.”Maybe it’s time for HR and people operations to get a new name? “Talent operations,” Wilson suggested, but then paused. Even that suggests the team is doing more admin than it really does, and the discipline continues to grow. “Maybe talent advisors?” Whatever the name, she said, it should demonstrate that talent is at the center of its responsibilities.“We’re like the lookout on a boat,” Becraft said about her team at Siemens Healthineers. “We see issues, challenges, and opportunities coming toward the company, and it’s our responsibility to bring those to the right people and make sure they understand what’s going on out there.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, and Fast Company.(Featured image: Photo by Kobus Louw/iStock by Getty Images)

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | December 18, 2024

How Companies Can Lead in an ‘Age of Outrage’

The nation is on edge. We’re anxious and angry, distracted at work, and eager to brawl out our differences in public. At the highest level, our presidential candidates have framed Tuesday’s election as “an existential battle for the nation’s character, its democracy and the safety of its residents.” Social media influencers on both sides of politics have turned pain and rage into a lucrative business model. More and more families are becoming estranged over disagreements great and small, while contempt and disrespect have become ingrained habits for many.The mood seems contagious, with “assuming the best in others” in rare supply. Boeing endured a costly, contentious strike by unionized machinists who demanded restoration of their pensions. In September, Fortune reported that employees at Amazon were “rage applying” for other jobs after their CEO ordered workers back to the office five days a week.Is this our new modern culture–or are there ways to reduce the rage? Karthik Ramanna, professor of business and public policy at the University of Oxford, describes the moment as an “age of outrage” in his new book, The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World, published last week by Harvard Business Review Press.As election season in the U.S. reaches its peak, rhetoric is sharpening (not to mention quite foul) and the public is feeling nervous and emotional. While tension and even anger over political, ideological, or values differences is nothing new, for the title of his new book, Ramanna chose the word outrage. There’s just something different about the current tenor of the moment: A hotter temperature and a higher pitch. For companies, dealing with this force is no longer a PR task, but a “critical capability,” he writes.Managing in the age of outrage is not the same as managing isolated incidents of disagreement, Ramanna told From Day One. It’s a mistake to treat corporate mishandling of these ongoing issues as mere PR problems or temporary. Those who do will find themselves playing defense day after day. “Tomorrow there’ll be a new issue, and the day after there’ll be a new issue. That approach isn’t going to work,” he said.The outrage Ramanna writes about is typically focused on leaders and institutions, and HR and business executives are preparing for stress and heightened emotions following the election season. Learning from embarrassing corporate gaffes, many firms have been increasingly proactive, institutionalizing their responses to angry employees and the public with social-issues working groups. These are cross-functional committees assembled to prepare for crises, both internal and external, and determine whether the company will respond–and, if so, how–when they arise.Ramanna warns employers against prioritizing processes over outcomes when preparing a response to outrage. Agree to rules of engagement, but “we don’t want to get too bogged down in that process. We want it to be more of an informal guidance to the way we operate. It’s more important that we actually trust each other than that we have written rules that say we trust each other.” The rules should be simple, he said, “things that people can recall in an instant. If people can’t recall what the rules of engagement are when they’re in the heat of the moment, then they’re not very useful.” For this reason, Ramanna is reluctant to overly formalize the process, “because that might actually kill what you’re trying to do.”As a leader, you should temper expectations. “No matter what you do,” he writes, “you can never fully address the demands made of you.” Remember also that “you will always be seen as part of the problem.” Instead of wrongly believing you have the power to solve all problems or quell all outrage, aim for “turning down the temperature.” In The Age of Outrage, Ramanna describes how.A Framework for Turning Down the TemperatureRamanna offers a four-part, cyclical framework for turning down the heat. First, identify the source of the outrage. That is, the deep-seated and underlying causes fueling the anger. Look beyond the inciting incident to the wound it has irritated, and manage your own preconceived notions of your antagonists and their motivations.Second, determine the extent to which the organization can effectively respond. What is within your responsibility to address, and what is within your capability to address? This is where your company’s values and mission can guide you. If you say you will protect reproductive rights, for example, then it’s imperative to step up when the issue arises in the public arena. In fact, moments of anger present an opportunity for clarifying an organization’s values, Ramanna writes.Third, take stock of the leader’s influence. Now that you’ve identified what is an attainable and appropriate response, how will the leader win the support of others in influential positions as well as the support of the workforce?And finally, build resilience. “A resilient organization (or system) is characterized by the delegation of authority,” Ramanna writes. “By situating decision-making close to ground realities, the organization both improves the informativeness of its decisions and diversifies its thinking and, as a consequence, can endure and even thrive amid negative shocks.”Are Corporate Values Outmoded?Values statements and public commitments to causes or communities may be useful guideposts for how to focus corporate response in the age of outrage, but they can also make it harder to deliver. Companies have caught themselves in dreadful thickets in the name of transparency and principles. When corporate behavior, or the behavior of business leaders, doesn’t reflect publicly stated values and beliefs, companies feel the pain. Ramanna cites Disney’s entanglement with Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill in 2022. Despite being a public advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, the company did not publicly oppose the bill and was at the same time writing checks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians who sponsored it in the state senate. NPR reported that “Disney employees shared their outrage on social media when the company did not denounce the proposed legislation.” (In 2024, Disney resumed political donations to Republican candidates in Florida who voted in favor of the bill.)Being publicly “good” and values-forward can indeed make you a target, according to New York University professor Alison Taylor, who, in her book Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World, points out that those seeking a target for their outrage will look for the companies and leaders most vocal about their principles.“Some companies can legitimately argue that these are not part of their value proposition. That’s not the case with Disney,” Ramanna said. “Part of why they got into the problem in the first place was when the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill was initially being proposed, they said, ‘Oh, we’re neutral in this.’ No, you’re not neutral. You’ve already established that you’re not neutral, and now it looks opportunistic to claim that you’re neutral.” Where the issues are directly related to the business or its stated values and identity, then you can’t step aside. You must proactively engage.Despite shifting political winds, “there is also little doubt that many institutions today have adopted a more progressive culture,” reported the New York Times this week. “They acknowledge bias and power imbalances between people of different genders and races. Despite efforts to roll back D.E.I. programs, few businesses or schools would doubt the importance of recruiting people from different backgrounds. A range of progressive causes—climate change reduction, workplace protections and higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans—remain popular.” Even so, in an age of outrage, corporate values aren’t as simple as they used to be. As belief systems diverge so severely, it can be tough to get people to agree, even in the workplace. Ramanna distinguishes between “opportunity values” and “outcome values.”While outcome values tend to divide, opportunity values can unify: Even if you can’t agree on the outcome, at least you can agree on the rules of engagement—how a group arrives at conclusions and makes decisions. “The commitment to the opportunity values is more meaningful than the commitment to outcome values, especially when you’re dealing with this outrage,” he said.Bracing for a Polarized Workplace Post-ElectionTo be clear, Ramanna isn’t interested in prescribing values or making ethics judgements, nor does he offer advice on business strategy. Companies have to do that on their own, he said. But when it comes to managing in an age of outrage, he does advocate a kind of corporate stoicism: Concern yourself only with what you can control.With the election and its aftermath upon us, Ramanna urges employers anxious about the workplace climate not to quit before they start, but make a plan to lead in an age of outrage. “Look, it’s never too late. On one hand, you might say, ‘Oh my God, I should have started this six months ago, five years ago,’ whatever it is. But on the other hand, if you don’t start it today, it’ll still be too late in six months.”Despite the outcome of the election, he said, leaders can count on two things. “No. 1, that we’re not going to have some magical healing on the day the elections are over or the results become clear. If anything, we’re going to be sharply divided. The second thing is, as a business, you have to figure out a way to work through that.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.(Featured photo by Solstock/iStock by Getty Images)

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | November 04, 2024

Who Are the Next CHROs? A High-Stakes Recruiting Task Gets Serious Attention

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Turns out, CEOs are far more proficient in CHRO selection today than they were a decade ago, says John Bremen, a managing director at consultancy WTW, where his job is to imagine the future of the C-suite. “People issues today are so much more pronounced and so much more prominent than previously.”From Day One spoke with CHROs in the Fortune 1000 and the consultants who recruit them to find out what it takes to be a CHRO at the world’s biggest companies. What do CEOs look for in an HR chief? And who’s next in line for the job? No one single formula emerges, but several key attributes emerge, including previous experience as a CHRO, demonstrated HR savvy plus a law degree, or a proven track record of adaptability across multiple industries.All Eyes on the CHROCHROs are experiencing unprecedented attention, thanks to their inestimable value confirmed by the pandemic, economic swings, social unrest, return to work, and now the global skills shortage. Dan Kaplan has spent 15 years recruiting CHROs at consulting firms like Heidrick & Struggles and Korn Ferry, where he’s currently a senior partner. He told From Day One that private-equity firms, in particular, have homed in on the position as they restructure companies, assessing not just CEOs and CFOs rigorously, but now the CHRO as well. Some PE firms replace the CHRO first, he said, “with a view that that person becomes the catalyst to assess and replace the rest of the leadership team.”Given the scope of the role, executives are appointing fewer first-timers than they have in the past, according to the CHRO Turnover Index by Russell Reynolds Associates. The number of rookie CHROs has been decreasing globally since mid 2022. Among S&P 500 firms, first-time appointments are down 19 percentage points since that year. 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Among the most coveted qualities in a HR chief is agility, and cross-industry work naturally develops that skill. Now companies recruit CHROs with much of the same criteria they use when recruiting business leaders: experience with mergers and acquisitions and the grunt work of combining workforces, knowledge of a P&L, plus familiarity with thorny issues like labor-union negotiations. “At a company juncture—say, a new CEO comes in and they’re tasked with some turnaround—they often need a different type of CHRO for that phase of the company,” said Jennifer Wilson, co-head of the global HR officers practice at Heidrick & Struggles. “With the amount of M&A and cost-cutting, and then getting back to growth, they want to find somebody who’s been through that cycle.” Why Your Next CHRO May Also Be a JDIf you’re looking for a CHRO with cross-industry experience, plenty of exposure to the C-suite, plus experience with assembling multiple companies and quelling labor disputes, a labor-and-employment lawyer often satisfies the brief. With greater exposure to risk (as a sample: reputational, environmental, technological, privacy, and supply chain) it’s reassuring to know there’s an attorney occupying the seat. “There’s the employee-engagement lens, and there’s the productivity lens, there’s the regulatory lens, and there’s the profitability lens,” said WTW’s Bremen. HR is no longer a static department, now it has to make things happen.Law practice also develops the confrontational confidence CHROs need. “You need to have had the experience of walking into a senior leader’s office, closing the door, giving them feedback, and challenging them on an issue where you think there’s a pretty good chance of getting fired today,” Korn Ferry’s Kaplan said. At times, it’s as diplomatic as managing the CEO’s personality and presenting even the most uncharismatic leaders to the workforce as people who can be trusted, which sounds a lot like what might happen in a courtroom.Before Claudia Toussaint became the chief people officer at the global water-technology company Xylem, she was the company’s general counsel. CHROs can’t afford to be intimidated by hierarchy, she said. They have to be prepared to tell the CEO that they’re out of line, and why it matters. The professional training of an attorney comes in handy too. Lawyers gather evidence, make conclusions, and present a case. “That skillset, I think, is far more valuable today in the HR function than five years ago or ten years ago,” Toussaint said. “I think that’s why people are increasingly saying, ‘These people that have a law degree and have been trained to think systemically, to take data, analyze data, reach conclusions from it, and then drive impact from those conclusions—that’s actually not a bad background for leading HR function.’”HR and the general counsel’s office have a natural relationship. Maral Kazanjian, the CHRO at the credit-rating agency Moody’s, felt she was effectively moonlighting as an HR professional while working as the firm’s attorney, applying the law to all kinds of employment matters. “I was really lucky because Moody’s is a very successful company and also has a really fast-growing information-services business within the traditional ratings agency. Because they were growing so fast, a lot of employment issues arose,” she told From Day One. “We were in different jurisdictions. We had different questions we wanted to answer about ‘How do we do hiring right? How do we handle performance management? How do we maintain a focus on being inclusive? How do we do promotions right?’ There are legal questions, then there are operational and human capital questions.” Kazanjian’s first time leading the people function was at WeWork during the dog days of the pandemic. In February 2022, she returned to Moody’s, where she occupies the chief people officer job today.Jennifer Manchester, the CHRO at Fiserv, is a relatively new arrival to the C-suite, and like Kazanjian, has jumped industries. Manchester first crossed paths with HR at her former employer, the Dow Chemical Co., where she worked in the general counsel’s office on mergers, acquisitions, and other corporate transactions. “I always loved the employment piece and the people side of things the best. That’s where I figured it out: That was really ultimately what I wanted to do.”Manchester moved over to Fiserv in 2015, working closely with HR as a labor attorney, and ascended to the CHRO seat last spring, “I’ve always gravitated toward people issues, trying to solve problems. It’s such a dynamic role.” But about this she was clear: You can’t just pluck any attorney out of the legal department and promote them to the chief position. “You have to have some substantive core expertise in HR or employment. HR is a real science, and I don’t think anyone can just do it.”Deep, Successful Experience in HR Counts TooA background in HR is hardly irrelevant. Among the 10 highest-ranked companies on the Fortune 500, most of their CHROs have spent decades as HR practitioners. Melissa Hagerman, CHRO at insurance firm Genworth, came up through the HR department, and, like many of her peers in the Fortune 500, has worked across industries, including consumer and automotive retail and healthcare. She joined the HR field when it was still known as the personnel department. Being an effective CHRO takes compassion and diplomatic agility, she said. And it can’t be done without a natural curiosity for businesses. “As a CHRO, you have to really genuinely care about what the business is doing and where we’re heading, and you have to care about the people that are on the path to get us there. That is something that I really try to embrace and live by every day.”Hagerman is also a keen scout, continually monitoring what’s going on both inside and outside the organization, “understanding what’s happening politically and socially in the markets so that I can weigh in, whether that’s with our executive team or with our board of directors, or being able to think about how those may impact eventually our workforce.”HR has far more credibility and influence than in the past, Hagerman said, reflecting on her decades in the department. “The world now understands that people resources are really fundamental to the bottom line. Succession planning, development of associates—the focus on those things is far greater now than they ever were. Of course, cybersecurity, protection of data–all of those things–are more in the limelight now than ever.”Yet Your Next CHRO May Not Be Working In HR Right NowA career in HR can win you the seat at the top now, but that may not be true for the next generation of CHROs. Today, businesses seldom want an HR executive who has spent all their time in the department, said Wilson at Heidrick & Struggles. “In the companies we work with, it’s often said that if you can find somebody with a business background who’s either been in management consulting or held either a P&L role or a functional role outside of HR, that’s more interesting to us.”The next crisis is always around the corner, Korn Ferry’s Kaplan told From Day One, and HR has to be there to meet it. He rattled off a list of recent trials, from financial and economic wobbles, political unrest, racial injustice, reproductive rights, return to office, artificial intelligence, and gun crime. “If you are not prepared to put on your dance shoes and figure it out, you can’t do this job. More than academic credentials, intellect, or experience, you have to be able to tap dance.” As a result, people aren’t exactly grappling for the seat, he said. It’s a big job and it’s tough to recruit for. Some people get too close to the sun and opt out; others don’t realize what they’re signing up for before it’s too late.Everyone is looking for agility in the role. Bremen at WTW speculated that consumer-oriented industries–like retail, fast-moving consumer goods, cosmetics, or fashion–may be developing tomorrow’s most coveted CHROs. Tech firms develop great HR talent too because they have to marry operational complexity with consumer demands. Regardless of industry, he believes the most successful future CHROs are schooling themselves in the application of new technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, and have analytical capabilities far superior to their predecessors.In case you were thinking of plucking your next CHRO from the Wharton School, however, Kaplan cast doubt on the wisdom of choosing an MBA for the job simply because they’re a whiz at business. “If someone says to me, ‘I’m not an HR person, I’m a business person,’ that is a sign that I’m wasting time. I’ve never heard a CFO say, ‘I’m not a finance person, I’m a business person.’”Disciplines like finance can be taught in school, Kaplan argued, but HR is learned through apprenticeship. Management consultants who spoke to From Day One predicted that the future chiefs who are coming up through the HR department are leading complex functions at the moment, as heads of talent or directors of compensation and benefits.As today’s CHROs consider their potential successors, what are they looking for? At Moody’s, Kazanjian wants someone who is open-minded, bold, and analytical. She imagines that person might be in law, or they might be in management consulting. Toussaint wants someone who deeply understands the company culture at Xylem as well as how the business makes money, someone who’s good at data analysis, and someone who is a “truth teller,” uncowed by hierarchy. Manchester hopes her Fiserv successor has financial acumen and an always-learning attitude. At Genworth, Hagerman wants a values-driven, business-minded leader with deep knowledge of HR and a knack for diplomacy. Someone who is willing to uphold integrity, “above all else.”“Once upon a time, it was possible to be the most senior HR leader in a company and not have a grounding in the business fundamentals,” Bremen said. “That skillset is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition.” Yet business acumen alone isn’t enough without a deep understanding of the CHRO discipline, though he’s seen it happen. “They struggle. Just as you would struggle if you put someone in a chief marketing officer role who did not have a background in marketing. Sometimes leaders take those HR skills for granted.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | September 24, 2024