Current dispatches from the job market describe an exhausting scene. On one side are overloaded recruiters, shuffling thousands of applications for a single role with limited resources and little time. On the other side are weary applicants feeling defeated and devalued by impersonal, drawn-out interview cycles and unresponsive employers.

One particular point of tension is the candidate test project. To evaluate applicants’ skills and narrow the talent pool, employers are now frequently asking job candidates to complete test projects or evaluations in the form of strategy proposals, presentations, blog posts, research projects, and video-editing tests, to name a few. But job seekers are getting burned out, sinking hours into unpaid projects with seemingly little relevance to the role, only to be ignored or rejected by an automated email.

It's rough out there, especially for well-paid office workers seeking a new job. “Welcome to the white-collar recession,” declared Business Insider. Reports Wall Street Journal columnist Callum Borchers: “I hear from a lot of white-collar workers on the job hunt who say it’s much harder to get hired than the unemployment numbers make it sound.” Said Bloomberg: “Take-home assignments during the interview process are on the rise, irking candidates.”

While employers may have the advantage at the moment, they should avoid overplaying their hand, since their reputations are at stake. Job seekers who spoke to From Day One describe growing cynical and suspicious of companies that request burdensome projects, and especially of those that don’t compensate candidates for their time. Yet it may be the delivery and design of these projects, not their intention, that is souring relations between candidates and companies.

How Test Projects Go Wrong

Beth Miller (not her real name)* has built a 20-year career as a writing instructor and communications practitioner in higher education and nonprofits, and for the last year, following a layoff, she has been on the job hunt.

After submitting an application for a job in a university’s development office, Miller received an automated email inviting her to complete a performance task: an asynchronous video interview that was expected to take 30 minutes. Uncomfortable on camera yet eager to do it well, Miller sunk four hours into the project.

A week later, at about 9 p.m. on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, Miller received an email with another request: a full grant proposal to be completed over the holiday, due Monday, she told From Day One. When Miller replied with questions, her emails quickly bounced back with out-of-office messages.

“The most difficult thing is that the emails were not coming from a person,” she said. They were addressed to ‘dear applicant,’ and signed, ‘the hiring team,’” she said. Unable to get a new due date for the assignment, Miller gave up her weekend to the project.

Miller’s story is like that of many job seekers right now. Unwieldy evaluations are popping up across industries and job types, and in a labor market where the competition is often among the applicants, rather than the employers, candidates are getting burnt out by the requests, sometimes completing several projects before they even speak to a recruiter.

“These are, by no means, simple and easy,” said Liane Paonessa, who was applying for director-level roles in corporate PR earlier this year. “They’re complex, detailed, and basically provide the company with a free strategic plan and content from every candidate.”

Further, they seem to be redundant. Some employers require a portfolio of prior work samples in addition to test projects. “In most cases, I [got] no feedback whatsoever on the projects, other than a ‘Thank you for your excellent work,’ before ghosting me and later sending me the standard form rejection email,” said Paonessa.

Many job applicants who spoke to From Day One believe that employers use unpaid test projects to get free work from desperate applicants. Job seekers describe being asked to draft 12-month strategy plans, make hour-long presentations, pitch detailed article ideas, write website content, produce fresh code, and even provide names of other people who might be good additions to the company.

As exhausted applicants churn through these often unacknowledged projects, it reinforces their cynical beliefs about employers’ attitudes towards job seekers. “It’s so dehumanizing to constantly be putting yourself at the feet of an organization and trying to tell them why you’re worth hiring,” Miller said.

How Test Projects Go Right

Job seekers don’t object to test projects in principle–workers know they have to demonstrate their skills to land a role, and many are glad to show off what they can do–but they do want a better experience: one with boundaries, respect, and communication.

When recounting good experiences with test projects, job seekers describe assignments with clear, limited scopes that teach them something about the role responsibilities, an ability to get feedback on their work, and some kind of compensation.

Last spring, Tori Zhou, a content-marketing professional in New York City, was in the running for a content-writing role at a tech company when she was asked to complete an assessment that changed the way she thinks of test projects. Not only were the instructions crystal-clear, the project came with a disclaimer, assuring applicants their work wouldn’t be used beyond the hiring process. “I thought it was so considerate that they said that,” Zhou explained. “I also believed it because of the structure of the test.”

The assignment included copy-editing a few pieces of content and writing a new introductory paragraph for an existing blog post. But don’t worry, we’re not going to update it, the request read. And even though she didn’t get the job, the company offered constructive feedback on her work.

“This is such a positive memory for me. I feel like it’s the best test I’ve ever done,” Zhou said. “I still look at their job careers page, even today, because I’m like, ‘Wow, that just left such a positive impression on me. I would just happily apply with them again.’”

Candidates also want to learn something from the evaluation process. Olivia Ramirez, a job seeker who interviewed for a role at a financial services company, said test assignments have helped her decide whether she wants to pursue the role. When the hiring manager assigned a lengthy and technical writing project, “it definitely made me question whether I was the right fit for the company,” she said. “I wasn’t having the most enjoyable time writing about this topic. It’s a good way to understand what the actual day-to-day grittiness of the work is like.” And even though the assignment was a tough one, Ramirez said she liked having the chance to show the work she’s capable of doing.

Zhou once completed a test project that was much more technical than she imagined the job to be. “That helped me think about, ‘OK, is this job really right for me?’” she said.

How to Improve Interview Test Projects

Frank Hauben is the global VP of product management at technical-interview platform CoderPad. He believes that sound candidate assessments have three characteristics.

First, evaluations should be time-bound. “By time-bound, I don’t mean 40 hours,” he said. “On the order of 30 minutes to two hours is what we find to be a reasonable sweet spot.” Not only do boundaries limit the scope and complexity of the assignment, it helps make the interview process more equitable. As a parent of two young girls, Hauben said there’s no way he has 40 hours to spend on a project, and couldn’t compete with someone who does.

Time boundaries are different from time estimates, and both matter. Employers should assume that applicants will exceed the time estimates attached to these assignments. When applicants need the job, they’ll sink their teeth in. One company told Tori Zhou not to spend more than two hours on the project. A self-described perfectionist, Zhou invested four, and estimates she has spent seven hours on another assessment. Ramirez describes spending upwards of 12 hours on a single take-home project.

Next, instructions should be clear, said Hauben, and applicants should be given the opportunity to ask questions and receive responses about the evaluation.

And finally, evaluations should give candidates the clearest possible picture of what the job is, said Hauben. But they don’t need to represent the entirety of the job. “What would you be walking somebody through on their first day or week? You want to give somebody something that is obviously realistic and relevant, not something out of a textbook or the most complex problem.”

Consider, for example, asking candidates to come up with a solution to a problem you’ve already solved. “You know what the answer is, or what one answer could be,” Hauben said. And when you acknowledge that the problem has already been resolved, applicants don’t have to wonder if their work will be used after they’re ejected from the interview process.

Compensating Applicants for Their Time

Every job seeker who spoke to From Day One said that they want to be compensated for the time they spend on test projects. When they’re sinking multiple hours or days on an assignment, one that could ostensibly be exploited by the employer, they said, payment only feels fair. Many employers don't agree, which has created its own social-media debate.

Applicants seldom have the luxury of turning down a test project when they really need the job, Miller said. “When you’re seeking employment, you’re really not at liberty to pass anything off. I know that companies take your work and use it. I know that they do that. To not be compensated for it is just validation that your concerns were right.”

Miller, who’s still in the running for the job in college development, said that the hiring team asked about her experience with the test project, but as long as she’s a candidate, she feels that she can’t be completely candid.

Ramirez, who was once compensated for a tough test assignment, said she thinks twice about companies that require unpaid test projects as part of the interview process because, ultimately, the candidate experience reflects the employee experience.

“It would make me think about what their culture is like and what they’ve been implementing to be at the forefront of companies today, in terms of equity in the organization and advocating for their employees and potential employees,” she said. “If it’s paid, then I think that’s a great signal that the company is considering best practices and trying to stand up with the best of the best in the space.”

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 Amenic181/iStock by Getty Images)

*Editor’s note: Because she is still interviewing with the organization described here, Beth Miller asked that she not be identified by her real name.

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)

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

Not long ago, if you’d asked someone what the most conservative part of an organization was, chances are the answer would be the HR department. Well, maybe tied with the general counsel’s office, but the image of the top HR officer as a high-ranking paper-pusher or disciplinarian carried on for decades.No longer. In the information age, when companies are increasingly investing in human capital over physical capital, the chief HR officer plays a pivotal role in a company’s fate. Today’s CHRO is a business leader, operating what Deloitte named “boundaryless HR,” in which “the traditional people discipline itself starts to merge with other related disciplines like decision science, behavioral economics, and academic disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology.”The question now becomes: Where can companies find a person like that for such a high-stakes role? 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. This is even more true for FTSE 500 companies–the UK’s answer to the S&P 500–where for nearly a year in 2022-23) every incoming CHROs was a veteran of the role.Maral Kazanjian, the CHRO at the credit-rating agency Moody’s (company photo). Featured photo at top: Kate Gebo, CHRO of United Airlines, spoke at From Day One’s Chicago conference this springThere’s also an appetite for highly varied professional experience. The lion’s share of CHROs today are cross-industry hires. Analysts at Heidrick & Struggles examined the 2024 Fortune 1000 companies and found that more than 77% of external CHRO hires were from other industries. With a few exceptions, the CHRO is an “industry agnostic” role, said Kaplan, and HR chiefs tend to glide easily between industries. 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.

Election Stress in the Workplace: How Leaders Can Respond Without Taking Sides

Business leaders don’t need outside research to tell them that anxiety around the coming Presidential election is high–and that the stress can impact employee well-being and productivity, but here are some sobering stats:•73% of U.S. adults say they are anxious about the election, according to the results of the 2024 American Psychiatric Association’s annual mental health poll.•55% of Americans surveyed by Pew Research always or often feel angry about politics.•8 of 10 in the Pew survey used a negative word or phrase to describe how they feel about politics, with “divisive” being the most used.•Nearly two thirds of workers (65%) surveyed this summer by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) said they have experienced or witnessed incivility in their workplace within the past month. And more than a third of workers (34%) said they believe the November election will trigger additional incivility in the workplace.In fact, psychologists and researchers are now studying a distinct form of anxiety called “political anxiety” and the unique way it harms both physical and mental health. The stress has been building since the 2016 election.The good news: executives, HR teams, and managers can—and should—prepare (now) for the November election. With just a few weeks until workers head to the polls, From Day One reached out to HR experts to learn about their strategies to diffuse stress and political polarization in the office, and, if necessary, address conflicts that may arise. Among the takeaways:Encourage Employees to VoteOne simple and non-controversial step companies can take is to promote voting. While there’s no federal mandate that employers give workers the day off to vote, some states do, and many companies provide flexibility on election day. Encouraging workers to vote is a good way to acknowledge what’s on their minds without taking a political position.If you’re curious about what other organizations are doing or need to back up a recommendation to leadership, check out Time to Vote, a non-partisan business group launched in 2018 that believes “workers shouldn’t have to choose between earning a paycheck and voting.” With more than 2,000 member companies including VISA, P&G, and Target, the organization is attempting to bridge the legislative gap and increase voter turnout. Patagonia, one of the companies that founded Time to Vote, has been giving its employees Election Day off since 2016. This year, the outdoor apparel company will close stores, offices, and warehouses on Oct. 29, national Vote Early Day, to allow workers to vote and volunteer in support of the election.Acknowledge Political Differences, But Don’t Take Sides“Some leaders want to take a stance, but I would caution them not to impose their political views. Your job is to stay neutral,” says Deb Josephs, an HR consultant and executive coach. You can take a stand, without taking a side, she adds, “as long as you support the individual as opposed to an issue.” When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, for example, one of her HR colleagues said their company put out a statement to let employees know that they could come to HR if they needed support for reproductive health. Large employers like JPMorgan Chase and Meta and others announced they would cover travel costs for employees who are seeking legal abortions out of state. Keep the Focus on Empathy and Employee Support “Organizations need to say it’s a polarizing time, and that could be impacting how you show up at work,” offers Tracy Avin, Founder of TroopHR, a human resources peer group with more than 1,300 members and 15,000 LinkedIn followers. Avin says the topic of how to address the election has come up often in the TroopHR message boards, so much so that she decided to host a fireside chat called “Leading with Empathy in Polarizing Times” with an outside expert this September. One piece of advice from the virtual session: Develop an "Allyship Series" or similar educational program to foster understanding and empathy for different experiences and perspectives within your organization.She advises HR leaders to do what she does for her members: create a supportive environment where all viewpoints are welcome. “It’s an opportunity for managers to know how to respond. It’s not about opinions,” she said. “You can say something like, ‘It seems like you’ve been upset lately,’ so that person can express that they are stressed out. Then you can tell them to take a day off or provide mental health resources as needed.”Additional outlets for employees might include a moderated Slack channel or an employee resource group (ERG). “What’s most important is that employees know where they can go for support,” says Leonora Wiener, an executive leadership coach and former chief operating officer of Consumer Reports. Communicate Early and OftenAt Consumer Reports, Wiener helped lead teams through the 2016 and 2020 elections, the racial-justice reckoning after George Floyd’s murder, as well as the pandemic. She stresses the importance of listening to employee concerns and actually asking your staff what kind of support they are looking for. “Oftentimes organizations aren’t that good at finding out what their ‘internal customers’ need,” she said, adding to make sure any feedback groups are diverse and include representatives from all generations and backgrounds. In terms of communications, her philosophy is lather, rinse, repeat. “People need to hear the same message many times, and it needs to be said through different channels. Not everyone reads Slack or emails, and not every manager delivers the message in the same way.” Start that election communications drumbeat today, she says.Don’t Go It Alone Josephs echoes that sentiment, recalling how much “over communication” was required during the pandemic and other recent events. She also points out the added pressure and increased responsibility borne by HR and people leaders as social and political issues continue to divide the country and tensions spill over into the workplace. Her tips: find support, leverage your professional networks, and share information with your peers. They are likely also engaged in scenario planning and reviewing their employee handbooks to ensure current policies are being followed. Revisit and Reinforce Your Corporate Values Speaking of employee handbooks, now is the time—not the day before the election—to take a good look at your organization’s values and what employee behaviors are and are not tolerated. “You want to support employees,” said Wiener, “but you also need to be prepared for [how you will respond to] conflict.” Once you review your employee handbook, it’s important to figure out how the company will act if one of those values is violated. “Leadership needs to decide if they have zero tolerance or if they will put an employee on probation, and they need to be consistent.” Get Input From the Legal Department But Don’t OvercorrectShould you involve legal? Yes, says Wiener. “It’s important to be prepared and understand what you can and cannot do.” Scenario planning, she says, is critical. Ask yourself: How will either election outcome affect my products and services (supply chain, tariffs)? What are the risks and mitigants (for any immigrant workers)? How will employees be impacted (job productivity, mental health)? How might you handle immigration issues, or a harassment claim? But don’t go down a legal rabbit hole. Alison Taylor, a clinical professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and author of Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World, weighs in with a word of caution:“The main thing I’m seeing out there is that corporations are overreacting to advice from their legal teams, and dialing back on DEI and ESG because they fear legal retaliation under a Trump presidency,” said Taylor. “But they seem to have forgotten how angry the public and employees were over issues like climate change and racism under the last Trump presidency.” She continued: “A laser focus on legal risk is not a good idea. There needs to be broad scenario planning, certainly caution over sustainability commitments, but also care and restraint about overreacting to rhetoric from either side.”Jenny Sucov is a journalist and editor who focuses on health and well-being. She has worked for companies and publishers including Hinge Health, EverydayHealth.com, Canyon Ranch, Real Simple, and Prevention.(Feature photo by Adamkaz/iStock by Getty Images)

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