Every CEO is responsible to lead a business to growth & profitability. They are supposed to think business strategy, operational efficiencies, and focus on sustainability & scalability of the business. They are expected to understand business financials, products, branding, sales and other drivers for better business performance.Considering that people and talent are the foundations to business growth, its makes sense to focus on HR priorities for a CEO.
While present day CEO’s , and successful CEO’s of large businesses understand and respect the need to focus on “people aspects” as well as “talent aspects” – there are still many others who miss out on the need to put some part of their time and attention on people and talent needs of the organisation and HR priorities for a CEO. And well, this focus has to be more than just approving the manpower plan manpower budget.
We have tried to look the key strategic priorities on people and talent front, that deserves some time and attention from a CEO **.
Organisational Alignment
- Alignment of employees to organisational vision, mission, values.
- Alignment of people with business priorities.
- Employee engagement – through better organisational climate, effective performance and reward systems, efficient process and people friendly policies.
Organisational Culture
- Driving and nurturing a positive organisational climate.
- Building and enabling a culture of performance and delivery.
- Driving a culture of effective top down communication & transparency.
Talent Pipeline & Leadership Development
- Talent pipeline and bench strength of future leaders.
- Succession plan for key leadership positions, including the CEO position.
- Capability building as an organisation level priority.
- Roadmap to develop the ‘ leadership pipeline’ to meet the future business goals.
** When we say , key priorities it does not mean that all of these should fall in a CEO’s KRA, the thought here is that CEO needs to participate, act as a guide and dialogue with the management board, the functional heads, the HR function in these matters.
Almost all these aspects are of strategic importance that can impact the sustainability of business performance as well of business growth.
Praveen is the Founder & Principal Consultant of KHEdge, a boutique HR & Business Process Advisory firm. Over last 15 years he has advised & worked with promoters, founders, business leaders, HR leaders in areas of - Business Strategy, HR Strategy, Organisation Design etc.