Uprooting the deep-seated belief of “HR as cost-center” within your first 90 days on the job and establishing yourself as the CHRO who can turn it around is critical to your success.
1. Build a great relationship with your C-suite colleagues
Every relationship is built on communication. So, talk, listen, and listen some more.
Make it a point to initiate frequent and honest conversations with your C-suite—especially your CEO and CFO. Talk about everything from their goals and vision for the company to talent, budget, resource planning, employee satisfaction, culture, and more.
Boldly ask questions. What does the data say? What do your people say? What’s worked and what hasn’t? This will help you determine where the gaps are and how to build them into your people strategy.
2. Define your HR business goals
Leverage the conversations you’re having with the C-suite and others across the organization to map the overarching business goals. In parallel, map your own vision and objectives for the people organization.
In today’s global, fast-paced, and constantly evolving world, people's goals must be agile enough to quickly and easily adapt to changing economic conditions, business challenges, and workforce trends.
These five people goals are a good place to start:
- Develop a company-wide change management strategy
- Improve leadership training and effectiveness
- Invest in a people-centric, flexible work culture
- Ensure your compensation and benefits are competitive
- Automate processes with modern HR tech to increase efficiency
3. Identify the HR metrics that matter
HR data is what helps keep your organization competitive and attractive to top talent. It’s also fundamental to helping you establish that people metrics and KPIs are just as critical as traditional business KPIs.
Lean into those critical conversations with your colleagues to determine what people data you need. Now is the perfect time to dig in and understand what HR metrics your organization currently tracks and identify which ones are missing.
- Recruitment metrics like quality-of-hire and time-to-fill and time-to-hire, and employee growth rate.
- DE&I metrics like gender pay gap and gender diversity ratio
- Retention metrics: (eNPS), career path ratio, salary change, L&D, and absenteeism rates
4. Leverage HR tech to interpret the data
There’s a lot of data out there, and it’s easy for critical insights to get lost in the noise. This is just one instance where investing in HR tech can help with the heavy lifting.
What does your new company’s HR tech stack look like? Are they already using an HCM/HRIS? Does the company rely on a single HR platform or multiple point solutions?
5. Build your HR action plan
It’s common for HR professionals to meet resistance when it comes to securing a budget and gaining the confidence of high-level stakeholders in the business.
As CHRO, this is your time to shine. You know how people programs serve as fundamental, cost-effective solutions to existing business challenges. The challenge for you is to craft an HR roadmap that achieves buy-in by speaking directly to your C-suite colleagues, especially your CEO and CFO.
Tell us how you prepared for your first 90 days in the comments below! You might just inspire someone :)