Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #293

AI & workforce planning, critical role identification, the changing role of the CHRO, redeploying resources to critical priorities, and HR tech.

Author

Brian Heger
April 27, 2025

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

A shout-out to Sherri Coxon, Chief People Officer at Cerio, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Sherri, for your support of this newsletter!

Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Subscribe here for free!  

Overwhelmed by too many HR software options? You’re not alone. That’s why HR leaders use SSR’s free HR software matching service — to quickly find the right systems that actually work for their teams.

Why HR Teams Trust SSR:

✅ 100% free, with zero sales pressure
✅ 2–3 tailored recommendations from 1,000+ options
✅ Rated 4.9/5 by HR teams and trusted by 15,000+ companies

Find the right HRIS, ATS or Payroll software for your team—in just a few clicks, and totally free.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week.

💡 Check out my new community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle. This week, a limited number of new members will be welcomed!

Let’s dive in! ⬇️

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

AI AND WORKFORCE PLANNING

Highlights how AI is reshaping organizational structures and why rethinking human-AI agent collaboration is critical for workforce planning.

Organizations have historically boosted workforce capacity by hiring more people. However, AI now offers additional paths: unlocking workforce capacity by automating tasks, reducing low-value work, and expanding human impact. As noted in this new report, AI will not only unlock workforce capacity—it will fundamentally reshape how work is structured and how organizations operate, with major implications for organizational design and workforce planning. The report highlights how Frontier Firms—organizations that rapidly integrate hybrid human and AI agent teams—are organizing their structures dynamically around outcomes rather than rigid functions, such as finance, marketing, and engineering. Stated differently, traditional organizational charts are giving way to dynamic “Work Charts”—fluid team structures where expertise is accessed on demand and teams assemble quickly around specific goals. This shift challenges organizations to rethink not just workflows but entire workforce and talent strategies, including workforce planning. Leaders must ask: How many AI agents are needed for each role and task? How many humans are needed to guide and oversee them? Managing the optimal human-AI agent ratio, redesigning roles, and preparing employees to lead and collaborate with AI colleagues will be essential. The report also discusses the three phases of becoming a Frontier Firm.

CRITICAL ROLES

Summarizes how firms identify and manage critical roles, highlighting opportunities for improving these practices to achieve greater impact.

Identifying and planning for critical roles remains fundamental to effective talent management. As I've written previously, organizations often stumble into pitfalls when determining role criticality, such as the hierarchical trap of assuming higher-level jobs are automatically more critical, the recruitment fallacy of assuming hard-to-fill positions are critical, and the incumbent bias of basing criticality on the person rather than the position’s strategic value. This new report provides survey insights on how organizations identify and manage critical roles. The good news is that 86% of responding companies identify critical roles, with most using valid criteria; however, only 57% say they place high-potential or high-performing employees in critical roles—a missed opportunity, considering these employee segments can have a disproportionate impact in value-creating positions. Additionally, only half report having "ready now" successors, and just 25% have a development plan for the incumbent. These data points reinforce that unless critical role identification is followed by deliberate talent actions, the entire exercise becomes a wasted effort and a missed opportunity to maximize organizational value. With this in mind, here’s one quick action: identify the percentage of critical roles filled by high-potential and high-performing individuals, and if gaps exist, address them at your next talent review. The actions you take could be the difference maker in business performance in 2025 and beyond.

CHIEF HR OFFICERS

Addresses how the CHRO role is expanding in scope and complexity, requiring mastery in analytics, regulatory expertise, and business management.

The Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) role continues to undergo profound transformation. A new Deloitte analysis—based on 748 CHRO job postings and interviews with CHROs across 20 industries—found that the number of unique skills CHROs are expected to bring has increased by 23% over the past five years—the highest among C-suite roles. More specifically, the CHRO role demands mastery in three pivotal areas: analytical capabilities (with demand for policy analysis skills surging 60%), regulatory expertise (with labor compliance skills soaring 90%), and business management (now required in 64% of job postings). Beyond these technical areas, CHROs must balance competing stakeholder needs, invest in workers’ long-term well-being and development, and connect workforce initiatives to broader business success. Former Johnson & Johnson CHRO Peter Fasolo captures this evolution well: "If you're a profit and loss leader or a CEO, you're thinking about growth, innovation, and capabilities needed to deliver shareholder expectations—and a CHRO needs to think along those same lines." Fasolo also emphasizes that CHROs should focus on delivering value based on what stakeholders—employees, investors, customers, and communities—actually need and expect, rather than how HR traditionally defines success internally. With that in mind, I’m resharing a recent article by Dave Ulrich, where he outlines six key actions to help HR leaders and their teams shift from activities to outcomes that deliver stakeholder value.

ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

My one-page worksheet to help managers and leaders identify opportunities to redeploy resources—talent and financial— to high-priority areas.

Now that we are at the end of April 2025 and one-third of the year is complete, leaders have a timely opportunity to reassess, realign, and make thoughtful adjustments to stay on track with annual objectives. One practical way to support this effort is to ensure that resources—both financial and human—are allocated effectively to the most critical areas. My one-page worksheet assists managers and leaders in evaluating key factors for resource deployment by enabling them to 1) list ongoing projects or initiatives, 2) prioritize these based on stakeholder value and alignment with objectives, 3) indicate project status (e.g., on track, behind, ahead, completed, on hold), 4) note the percentage of the project’s budget already used (e.g., $25,000 of a $100,000 budget represents 25% utilization), and 5) track talent utilization for each project (e.g., if 3 of 4 team members allocated to the project are actively working on it, this equates to 75% utilization). With this information, leaders can make informed decisions to shift resources and optimize performance as the year continues. While this worksheet isn’t sophisticated, it can spark meaningful conversations that drive decisions with a tangible impact on performance results.

HR TECHNOLOGY

Shares tactics on how HR leaders and their teams can unlock greater business value through HR tech investments.

In this Gartner article, Piers Hudson explains that while HR technology holds the potential to transform HR’s business value, many CHROs remain stuck in a capacity-focused approach—using technology mainly to free up HR staff time rather than enabling new, strategic contributions. This narrow focus leads to three traps: a vicious cycle of fixing foundational systems, HR staff resistance to technology, and competing HR technology solutions. To address these challenges, Hudson recommends an augmented HR approach—using technology to enable HR to do new work in new ways. Three key actions include: 1) Engaging stakeholders through a "building blocks" technology roadmap that links foundational and transformational efforts to business outcomes, helping both skeptical and ambitious stakeholders see the longer-term vision; 2) Broadening HR staff’s perspectives by fostering regular engagement with vendors, exposing HR teams to future capabilities, and positioning technology as a partner rather than a threat; and 3) Aligning HR technology solutions by setting shared goals across HR areas and using metrics focused on the overall employee and manager experience. Gartner’s research shows that organizations adopting an augmented HR approach nearly double the business value of their HR technology investments compared to those that remain capacity-focused. Other ideas are discussed.

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST ISSUE

TALENT REVIEWS

My one-page cheat sheet with eight example questions that can guide talent review discussions and outcomes.

If you'd like to delve deeper into topics like this with me, you'll want to join my new community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle.

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

Partial view of tracker on brianheger.com

A few job cuts announced this past week:

  • ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP). The oil and gas company disclosed plans to reduce its workforce as part of a broader initiative to cut costs and streamline operations following its $23 billion acquisition of Marathon Oil. The company has yet to determine the extent of the staff reductions.

  • HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ). The personal computer and printing company announced plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs as part of its restructuring strategy that includes investments in artificial intelligence.

  • Intel Corp (NASDAQ: INTC). The semiconductor company is reportedly planning to cut over 21,000 jobs—about 20% of its workforce—to streamline management and rebuild an engineering-driven culture.

 Click here to access all listed announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, 13 new Chief HR Officer announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my subscription-based platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. This week’s CHRO move of the week is:

  • Hyatt Hotels Corporation (CHICAGO, ILLINOIS) [NYSE: H]— a leading global hospitality company—announced that Malaika Myers will retire as Chief Human Resources Officer at the end of May 2025 after seven distinguished years with the company. Kristin Oliver will succeed Myers as the new Chief Human Resources Officer, effective May 12, 2025. Oliver joins Hyatt from HanesBrands, where she most recently served as Chief Legal Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer, and EVP of Communication during her nearly five years of tenure with the organization. ​​

Kristin Oliver

CHROs on the Go has over 4,000 archived announcements in its database, with new announcements added daily!

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

Catch up on what you may have missed from me on LinkedIn:

✂️ ‘Read Online’  if email cuts off

THE BEST OF MARCH 2025

Did you miss the “Best of March ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #286, which includes 16 of the most popular resources from the month.

Want to get your brand, product, or service in front of our active 50,000+ Talent Edge Weekly subscribers? Learn how to become a potential sponsor.

If you are not already signed up to receive Talent Edge Weekly,  subscribe here to receive future issues. It’s FREE!

💡 WANT TO DIVE DEEPER WITH ME?

​Talent Edge Circle. Apply for my new, exclusive, vetted, invitation-only digital community for internal HR practitioners. Indicate your interest here.

Talent Edge Weekly is written by Brian Heger, a human resources practitioner. You can connect with Brian on Linkedin, X, and brianheger.com