In a survey conducted by Hunt Scanlon Media, 76% of the Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) interviewed recommended that new-in-role CHROs make changes within their team in the first six months of their tenure.
The survey highlights the importance of the very first few days for anyone stepping into the role of a CHRO. Given their guiding role in an organisation, it is important that new CHROs start their time in their new workplace in the right way.
The first 90 days in any job are crucial for what comes next, and doubly so for the person responsible for managing the employee needs of everyone in the workplace. With the right steps, both the CHRO and the company can ensure that they make the best of the change that is bound to follow.
Phase 1: Days 1-30 | Get to Know the Company
In the first 30 days, focus on understanding what makes your new company tick. Find out more about the company’s business, people, and culture instead of rushing towards any grand announcements.
Meet the Business Leaders
The first order of business for a CHRO should be to familiarise themselves with the other members of the leadership team. Even over a cup of coffee or during business visits, ask them, “What keeps you motivated?” “What change would you like to see?”
Get to know the ideas that other C-suite members might have regarding the business priorities as well as employee expectations. Combined with their concerns, it can give you a realistic understanding of the company’s past and future.
Audit the HR Function
As the new HR leader of the company, take a good look at the policies and practices already in place at their new workplace. Review the existing processes, technological tools, and in-place metrics to see what already works and what needs to change.
Understand the Culture and Employee Sentiment
As the CHRO, you need to be well aware of what your employees feel and want. This can be done by conducting meetings with members of varying hierarchical levels and taking part in office-wide tours.
Alternatively, employee feedback surveys, online reviews, and exit interviews can point towards the honest sentiments of the employees.
Quick Wins
Starting any journey on a positive note is always a good idea. So, grab your quick wins both hands and make sure that the happiness spreads across the company. This can not only boost morale but will also instil trust in your leadership.
You can do this by finding easily solvable issues within the existing HR operations. It could be a simple technical bug or a small request employees may have made. Any positive change, at the end of the day, should be celebrated with gusto.
Phase 2: Days 31-60 | Reflect and Strategise
Now that you are aware of how the company’s HR operations work, you, as the new CHRO, need to create a strategy around the same. During your second month, reflect on all that you learned and plan what should and shouldn’t be changed.
Internal Stakeholder Alignment
Any strategy and change that you come up with should be communicated to the company’s key stakeholders. By presenting early findings to other members of the C-suite, including the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), you can establish the strategic importance of HR.
Moreover, prompt communication helps you in creating a positive image of your working style. It also highlights that you want to walk together with your fellow executives and hope to keep them involved in all that you do in the future.
Build or Refine the HR Strategy
Based on what they have learned and observed in the first 30 days, you should build or refine the company’s HR strategy as needed. The changes should align with the company’s business strategies, growth plans, market expansion, and digital transformation.
Consider metrics such as talent acquisition, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), leadership development, employee engagement, and artificial intelligence (AI) integration when developing the company’s new HR direction.
Data-backed decisions
With the current technology, data analytics is one of the most useful tools available to any working professional. Use this to the fullest extent when creating your strategies.
Data analytics can easily help you identify attrition hotspots, engagement patterns, or pay inequities. For example, data analytics can help predict the time after which most analysts in your company end up resigning. You can institute a strategy around the same to increase retention and maximise efficiency.
Phase 3: Days 61-90 | Implement and Observe
Once you have your plans in mind, the third month can be used for implementation to see just how effective your strategies are in reality. Based on the changes that come about, you can gain first-hand experience in how the company works and what it needs.
Launch Key Initiatives
Start with pilot programs that can help a new CHRO assess the efficiency of a strategy. You can institute a new performance management model, or you can overhaul the learning and development strategy. Perhaps tweaking the existing work model policies could yield better results?
While keeping digital transformation in mind, you need to ensure that your company remains in step with the newest trends in AI and automation. Focusing on key metrics can boost productivity significantly and highlight to the employees the kind of change you wish to bring.
Culture Shaping and Leadership Influence
HR Leadership is not just about boosting productivity. It also constitutes the responsibility of actively shaping the workplace culture. Work alongside the other members of the leadership team to introduce cultural changes throughout the company.
The new initiatives should be transparent in their approach and prioritise the people-first idea. Take into account what the employees want and what the company’s values are to find the path that suits everyone.
Establish Key Metrics and OKRs
Within the HR framework, you can introduce a new set of key metrics, as well as Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). By measuring the data surrounding time-to-hire, internal mobility, and DEI metrics, you can redefine what success means for the department.
Communicate the Vision
More than anything, it is important for you, as the new CHRO, to convey your vision before the 90-day mark. As the leader of the department that handles talent-related matters across the company, you should ensure that every employee is aware of the intended changes and how the HR department will function under your purview.
Through company-wide town halls, newsletters, and online channels, CHROs can convey the HR department’s new directions and what they intend to prioritise. Ensure that employees are aware that HR now aims to be visible, accessible, and future-ready.
In the End…
What a CHRO does in their first 90 days at a company can set the benchmark for the expectations throughout their time at the new workplace. Making effective and practical decisions can highlight how dedicated you are to ensuring feasible solutions for all.
Through data-based insights, trust, leadership development, business alignment, and a people-first approach, CHROs should establish their vision and working model seamlessly throughout the organisation.
