What is a chief people officer job

Your chief people officer takes a leadership role in your HR team and is responsible for its overall management. They’re also responsible for overseeing your entire company culture, which can involve communicating your company values and policies to your workforce. Essentially, they handle the management of everything in you business that relates to people strategy, from recruitment to monitoring engagement, to talent pool management.

A good chief people officer strikes an effective balance between creating a company culture that inspires and benefits your employees, while driving productivity and growth. 

Why is it useful to have a chief people officer?

SMBs sometimes turn to hiring a chief people officer when they need to increase their employee’s engagement and retention. Perhaps they you are beginning to lose staff to companies who are offering more lucrative benefits or career progression opportunities. Your employees might be feeling like their company’s values are confused and their policies are hard to understand. A chief people officer can use people analytics to assess where a business’s people strategy has weak points and how to go about rectifying this. They might also create a people strategy where there wasn’t a definitive one before.

You might also want to hire a chief people officer if your business is growing and you need to scale your communication strategy to match this. If you are looking to adopt a hierarchical structure – perhaps moving away from a traditional horizontal to a more vertical management structure – having a chief people officer can help you to implement these overhauls. What’s more, businesses looking to implement remote or hybrid work policies can benefit from a CPO who is able to organise and communicate these to your entire team.

Chief people officers can help you to make strategic decisions that keep your company culture seeming modern and relevant to potential candidates. Staying aware of new trends in recruitment and company culture, they have an up-to-date understanding of what makes your employee value proposition enticing. They might look at creating a new parental leave offering or look into how you could offer more popular benefits to candidates (which might vary based on their age or other factors).

If you’re looking to digitally transform your HR team, a CPO can help make sure that any of the workflow changes you’ve suggested align with the needs of your team. They might be responsible for organising the right training so that your HR team can learn new technology, which is especially important if they are resistant to change. 

So, there are many reasons why it’s useful to turn to a chief people officer to manage HR operations and people strategy, especially when your current team doesn’t have the know-how or capacity. 

What is the difference between a chief people officer and a chief human resources officer?

Although these roles might seem similar, there are a few differences between them which are worth noting. Chief people officers are usually involved in your overall people strategy which can include both policy and workplace culture. Chief human resources management officers are usually more focused on implementing workplace policy. However, some businesses may use these titles synonymously. 

Some businesses prefer to use the title chief people officer because it sounds more personable than ‘human resources’. That’s because to some, human resources sounds more impersonal while chief people officer connotes an engagement in community and shared values. The title you choose for this role can therefore potentially effect your employee’s perception of the officer.

What qualities does a chief people officer have?

Being a chief people officer not only requires the ability to oversee your company’s people strategy, but also effectively communicate with your entire team. This means that the ideal candidate for this role has a broad skill set, with them having to be thorough, systematic and diplomatic to achieve their goals. 

Leadership skills

CPOs have a leadership mindset and are able to troubleshoot people-related conflicts within your company. They are able to collaborate well with others while remaining a key authority figure. These officers can work out the needs of your employees and what keeps them engaged, using HR metrics based on these to accurate implement effective people strategies. 

Communication

As a strong communicator, CPOs are able to bring your employees together, transforming your team into a community that understands your business values well. They’ll pay close attention to the wellbeing and professional development of your employees, covering the entire process of your career progression strategy.

Business sense

As well as having people skills, CPOs need business acumen to match. Usually coming from a background in business, CPOs are able to communicate just as well with the C-suite as the rest of your team. In fact, you might consider CPOs part of your C-suite as well, as they often report to the CEO. Chief people officers understand how a business works, like developing growth and assessing its success both culturally and financially. 

Data analysis

As being a CPO often involves being able to read and effectively implement HR metrics like employee engagement and retention into a strategy, they should ideally have a data analytics background too. They might not be responsible for the data collection themselves or might delegate the task of analytics to a specialist team. CPOs will often, however, benefit from being able to interpret this data themselves. This is so they can make effective decisions when it comes to people strategy. 

Talent management

Usually working alongside your talent acquisition team, chief people officers are great at spotting talented candidates whether that’s internally or externally to your business. They’ll be able to spot potential gaps in your talent pool and will work with talent acquisition to ensure that they are filled. This means that they’re involved with your succession planning too, making sure that any positions are filled appropriately when they arise in the future. 

Chief people officers are also able to make sure that your most talented employees are rewarded for their abilities, ensuring that there are career progression opportunities available to them. They can also spot when talent isn’t being utilised as effectively as it could be, or when an employee has hidden strengths. Not only does this talent management require recruitment and retention knowledge, it also requires long-term thinking and planning skills.

Building trust

As CPOs provide a link between your company leadership and your entire team, they should ideally be transparent and open with your employees. Employees feel like they are able to turn to them with important issues or questions about their role or their future in the business. They’re more likely to turn to your CPO if they feel like they are trustworthy and provide intelligent solutions or answers to their problems. CPOs are also useful if your employee has any questions about your business values or policies. Overall, therefore, these officers can help your employees feel heard and understood. 

Having a chief people officer can help your entire team understand company culture as well as feel heard and valued as part of your workforce. Their skill-set is broad, covering everything from business knowledge, to data analytics, to communications. This means that CPOs are versatile employees who are able to implement people strategies in a way that provides growth outcomes, keeping your employees engaged and on board with your business.