BCG - Creating People Advantage 2026: Four Power Moves for the CHRO


Source: Boston Consulting Group and World Federation of People Management Associations, Creating People Advantage 2026: Four Power Moves for the CHRO, March 2026


Key takeaways

  • HR is moving from support function to enterprise value creator. BCG argues that leading CHROs increasingly work directly with CEOs and business leaders to connect people decisions with strategic execution and financial outcomes.

  • Business value is the new test of HR effectiveness. 65% of senior leaders view HR as a key business enabler, yet 51% identify administrative workload as the biggest barrier preventing a more strategic contribution.

  • Traditional HR topics remain important, but the capability gaps have shifted. People and HR strategy ranks first for future importance, followed by strategic workforce planning and leadership development.

  • Digital solutions show the largest increase in future importance. HR process automation rose 13 places to 12th in the priority ranking, but current capability remains near the bottom of the table.

  • Gen AI capability is particularly immature. Deployment of Gen AI and other emerging technologies ranks last among the 28 areas for current HR capability.

  • CHROs face a dual AI mandate. They need to modernise the HR function itself while also leading the people dimensions of AI transformation across the enterprise.

  • Gen AI use is widespread, but strategic relevance and scale lag. Nearly 70% of respondents use Gen AI in some capacity, while only 38% describe it as highly or strongly relevant to their organisation today.

  • Agentic AI raises the urgency. Half of organisations expect agentic AI to have high or transformational impact in future.

  • The largest barriers are organisational as well as technological. 51% identify privacy or compliance concerns, 45% a lack of internal expertise and 36% budget or resource constraints.

  • Scaling requires process redesign rather than inserting AI into current work. BCG argues that moving beyond experimentation depends on reshaping workflows, data, tools, roles and skills around the value the organisation wants to create.

  • HR technology can become a source of intelligence rather than simply efficiency. Better data, analytics, automation and AI can allow HR to anticipate workforce requirements, personalise learning and influence business decisions.

  • Skills based transformation remains incomplete. Only 54% use skills based matching, 48% run structured reskilling programmes and just 11% have a complete enterprise skills taxonomy.

  • Capability building needs to connect directly to business outcomes. BCG introduces “capability value” as a way to measure whether investments in skills translate into productivity, retention, faster mastery or strategic outcomes.

  • The CHRO agenda can be reduced to four moves: deliver business value through HR, lead digital and AI transformation, build workforce and leadership capabilities and anchor the change.

Executive summary

BCG and the World Federation of People Management Associations’ Creating People Advantage 2026 examines the changing priorities of HR leaders and asks what separates a strong people function from one that creates outsized enterprise value.

The research draws on 7,115 respondents across 115 markets and 25 industries and evaluates 28 people management topics by both future importance and current organisational capability.

The report’s central claim is that HR is no longer simply an enabling function. Leading CHROs increasingly partner directly with CEOs and business leaders to shape strategy, build capabilities and deliver measurable business results.

Yet current HR capability remains uneven.

Organisations continue to perform relatively well in traditional areas such as health and safety, employee relations, policy management and recruiting. Those capabilities remain necessary, but BCG argues that they are becoming foundational rather than differentiating.

The most important gaps are emerging elsewhere.

Strategic workforce planning is viewed as the second most important future HR topic but ranks only 15th in current capability. Leadership development ranks third in future importance but 13th in capability. Upskilling and reskilling rank seventh in future importance but 14th today.

The digital gaps are larger still.

Digital solutions have risen sharply in future importance, but current capability remains near the bottom of BCG’s ranking. Deployment of Gen AI and other emerging technology ranks last.

That matters because the CHRO increasingly has a dual role in enterprise AI transformation.

First, HR needs to digitise and automate its own processes, improve analytics and use AI to provide better and more efficient services.

Second, HR needs to shape the workforce impact of AI across the entire organisation: workforce planning, role redesign, skills, learning, adoption, organisational structure and change management.

The report makes a broader argument about HR value as well. HR functions should move beyond measuring their activity through conventional functional metrics and connect people investments directly to business results.

That means linking workforce analytics with commercial and operational data, quantifying returns from capability development and treating major HR programmes like other enterprise investments with explicit business cases.

BCG’s evidence suggests stronger people capabilities are associated with measurable operating outcomes. Organisations with stronger employee engagement and wellbeing, recruiting and onboarding and sustainability capabilities report lower turnover, while stronger workforce planning and emerging technology capabilities are associated with faster hiring.

The skills challenge is equally important.

Many companies have begun shifting from jobs towards skills, but execution remains fragmented. Only about half use skill based matching and fewer than half have structured reskilling programmes. Only 11% have a complete skills taxonomy across the enterprise.

BCG therefore argues for a much more deliberate skills architecture tied to business priorities and future roles.

The report concludes with four moves for CHROs: deliver business value through HR, lead digital and AI transformation, build workforce and leadership capabilities and anchor the change through governance, behaviour and accountability.

Key stats and quotable claims

  • The survey includes 7,115 participants across 115 markets and 25 industries.

  • 65% of senior leaders view HR as a key business enabler.

  • 51% identify administrative load as the principal barrier preventing HR from making a larger strategic contribution.

  • People and HR strategy ranks first in future importance.

  • Strategic workforce planning ranks second.

  • Leadership development ranks third.

  • Digital solutions jumped 13 positions, from 25th to 12th in future importance.

  • Digital solutions rank only 27th in current HR capability.

  • Deployment of Gen AI and other emerging technologies ranks 28th, last among current HR capabilities.

  • 84% rate people and HR strategy as highly or somewhat highly important for the future.

  • 80% say the same of strategic workforce planning.

  • 80% say the same of leadership development.

  • Only 39% report high or somewhat high current capability in strategic workforce planning.

  • Only 39% report the same for leadership development and upskilling and reskilling.

  • Only 29% report strong or somewhat strong capability in digital solutions.

  • Only 22% report strong or somewhat strong capability in Gen AI and emerging technologies.

  • Organisations with stronger employee engagement and wellbeing capabilities report turnover around 5.3 percentage points lower in BCG’s analysis, although the report notes that turnover is influenced by many additional factors.

  • Stronger strategic workforce planning is associated with filling critical roles around 17 days faster.

  • Stronger Gen AI and emerging technology capability is also associated with approximately 17 fewer days to fill critical roles.

  • Nearly 70% of respondents use Gen AI in some capacity.

  • Only 38% describe Gen AI as having high or strong relevance for their organisation today.

  • 50% of organisations expect agentic AI to have high or transformational future impact.

  • 51% identify data privacy or compliance as a major barrier to Gen AI adoption.

  • 45% identify lack of internal expertise.

  • 36% identify budget or resource constraints.

  • 36% identify ethical or responsible use concerns.

  • 29% identify inadequate technology infrastructure.

  • 26% identify employee resistance to change.

  • 23% identify limited leadership buy in or vision.

  • 22% identify insufficient data quality.

  • 22% identify regulatory uncertainty.

  • In one BCG case study, manager and executive adoption of an AI enabled HR service exceeded 93%.

  • 94% of HR cases in that example were resolved by the virtual assistant.

  • More than four fifths of HR transactions were automated.

  • Promotion processes required 50% of their previous time.

  • 54% of surveyed organisations use skills based matching.

  • 48% run structured reskilling programmes.

  • Only 11% have a complete enterprise wide skills taxonomy.

  • Large companies place people analytics third in future importance compared with 19th among SMEs.

  • Deployment of Gen AI ranks 15th among large companies for future importance but 22nd among SMEs.

Overall summary

BCG’s report is fundamentally about changing what HR optimises for.

A traditional HR function can be efficient, compliant and operationally reliable without necessarily creating distinctive enterprise value.

The emerging expectation is larger.

CHROs need to understand what the business is trying to accomplish, identify the people and capability constraints standing in the way and shape the workforce so that strategic priorities can actually be executed.

That changes how HR measures itself.

Time to hire, engagement scores and service cost remain useful, but they are insufficient if HR cannot connect them with productivity, innovation, retention, growth and financial performance.

The AI transition intensifies the requirement.

HR needs to digitise itself, but that is only one part of the agenda. The wider enterprise also needs help redesigning work, roles and workforce capability around AI.

The CHRO therefore becomes both a functional leader and an enterprise transformation leader.

BCG’s capability rankings show that most HR functions are not yet operating at that level. Their strongest capabilities remain in established areas such as health and safety, employee relations and policy, while several of the capabilities needed for future transformation remain underdeveloped.

Digital and AI capabilities show the most obvious gap.

Digital solutions have risen rapidly in perceived importance, yet current HR capability remains weak. Gen AI ranks even lower. Organisations are experimenting widely, but many have not redesigned processes or built the data and skills necessary to scale.

The same issue appears in workforce development.

Skills based organisations have been discussed for several years, but only 11% of the sample report a full skills taxonomy. Without a shared view of skills and roles, it becomes harder to connect workforce planning, learning, internal mobility and AI transformation.

BCG therefore brings the report together through four power moves.

Deliver measurable business value.

Lead digital and AI transformation.

Build workforce and leadership capability.

Anchor the change so that new behaviours survive beyond the transformation programme itself.

Deep dive

HR is becoming a creator of enterprise value

In an increasingly fast changing and complex business environment, CHROs can make or break business performance.

The best CHROs have earned a seat at the table among leadership teams, deploying digital and AI to deliver HR services efficiently and effectively, building people capabilities to drive strategic priorities including enterprise wide AI transformation, looking ahead to meet rapidly evolving skill and workforce needs and ultimately driving business value.

But many HR teams still struggle to perform at that level.

BCG and WFPMA have tracked HR priorities for nearly two decades. The evolution is significant.

The role of HR has moved from functional administrator to strategic partner and increasingly towards creator of new value for the business.

The report’s central conclusion is that HR is no longer simply an enabling function.

Leading CHROs increasingly partner directly with CEOs to steer enterprise strategy and support business leaders in execution to create outsized returns.

Today’s HR priorities

BCG evaluates 28 people management topics based on two dimensions: respondents’ current capability and the importance they assign to the topic over the next two to three years.

Traditional strategic HR topics remain at the top.

People and HR strategy ranks first in future importance. Strategic workforce planning is second and leadership development third.

Employer value proposition, recruiting and onboarding, purpose and culture, upskilling and reskilling and talent management also remain prominent.

This reflects pressure to translate headcount into the capabilities and skills the business actually needs.

At the same time, digital solutions show the largest movement in importance, jumping 13 positions to 12th.

HR leaders increasingly face pressure to use digital technology to automate activity, generate analytical insights and deliver a more seamless employee experience.

But BCG stresses that digital and AI are not ends in themselves.

They are mechanisms for streamlining workflows and helping HR support the business more efficiently and effectively.

Current capability remains concentrated in traditional areas

When BCG ranks the same 28 topics by current capability, the picture changes.

Companies remain strongest in health and safety, employee relations, policy management and recruiting and onboarding.

Strategic areas such as workforce planning and people analytics have improved but remain materially below their perceived future importance.

The biggest deficit lies in digital fluency and analytics maturity.

Many HR functions have invested in systems, but relatively few have built the skills or data culture required to turn those systems into insight and decision support.

Digital solutions rank 27th in current capability.

Deployment of Gen AI and other emerging technologies ranks 28th.

The result is a clear gap between the areas companies think will matter and those in which HR is currently strongest.

The 2026 need to act agenda

BCG combines current capabilities and future importance to identify the topics where action is most urgent.

Two clusters stand out.

The first is the digital and AI transformation.

HR needs to support the enterprise wide transition while also modernising its own processes so that services become better, faster and more accurate at lower cost.

The second is workforce and leadership capability.

This includes strategic workforce planning, leadership development, upskilling and reskilling, talent management and succession.

Together, these priorities are intended to move HR from functional excellence towards enterprise level value creation.

HR’s role in creating business value

Ultimately, companies measure the success of HR through the value it creates for the business rather than the volume of activity it delivers.

Sixty five percent of senior leaders view HR as a key business enabler.

Yet 51% identify administrative load as the biggest barrier preventing the function from making a more strategic contribution.

The answer is not to abandon operational excellence.

Automation and shared services can make processes more consistent, improve employee and manager experiences and free capacity for more strategic work.

But HR leaders need to connect people strategy directly with innovation, productivity and financial performance in ways that generate tangible results.

Move from HR metrics to business metrics

To create measurable value, HR teams need a deep understanding of the business and what drives successful execution of strategic priorities.

BCG argues that HR should move beyond traditional metrics such as time to hire or engagement scores and quantify how talent decisions affect profitability, growth and innovation.

Workforce analytics can then become predictive rather than descriptive, anticipating business needs and helping guide resource allocation.

The report also introduces capability value.

Capability value is the measurable value created through investment in skills, reskilling and learning.

It connects workforce capability with outcomes such as productivity improvements, faster time to mastery, retention and progress against strategic priorities such as digital transformation and growth.

The intended business impact of upskilling should therefore be defined before a programme starts, tracked through outcome oriented metrics and tested to determine whether the expected value was created.

People capabilities and operating outcomes

BCG’s data suggests that organisations with stronger employee centric capabilities tend to experience lower workforce turnover.

Companies with high employee engagement and wellbeing capability report average turnover of 10.9% compared with 16.2% among lower capability organisations.

Higher recruiting and onboarding capability is associated with 11.5% turnover compared with 14.8%.

The authors caution that turnover has many additional organisational and labour market drivers, but the relationship supports the broader argument that people capabilities can have measurable business implications.

The same pattern appears in hiring speed.

Organisations with stronger strategic workforce planning capability fill critical roles approximately 17 days faster in BCG’s analysis.

Higher capability in Gen AI and emerging technologies is similarly associated with around 17 fewer days to fill critical positions.

The CHRO has a dual AI mandate

A central theme of the report is the need for CHROs to move faster in implementing digital technology.

This applies both within HR and across the wider business.

Within HR, leaders need to modernise processes, analytics and services.

Across the enterprise, HR needs to shape upskilling, adoption and new ways of working.

Gen AI illustrates the challenge.

Nearly 70% of respondents use Gen AI in some capacity, mainly in reporting, learning and recruiting.

Yet only 38% describe it as highly or strongly relevant to their organisation today.

At the same time, 50% expect agentic AI to have a high or transformational impact in future.

BCG contrasts this with broader CEO sentiment and argues that HR needs to lean further into the AI agenda and define the people agenda required to support it.

Why Gen AI has not scaled

Only a relatively small minority of HR teams have scaled Gen AI across the function.

The largest barrier is data privacy and compliance, cited by 51% of respondents.

Thirty two percent say their organisation has limited or no processes to measure Gen AI risk.

Technical skills are another constraint. Forty five percent identify lack of internal expertise as a major hurdle.

Technology expertise often sits in other functions and is highly contested across the market, making it difficult for HR teams to build capability internally.

The third issue is uncoordinated experimentation.

Organisations often launch multiple pilots without linking them into a coherent set of initiatives.

The sheer number of applications and vendors makes this particularly difficult.

The result can be significant activity without an overall transformation architecture.

Process redesign matters more than inserting AI into current work

BCG argues that moving from exploration to at scale implementation depends less on deploying AI into existing work and more on reshaping processes and workstreams to create greater value.

That starts with strategic questions.

How will the company create outsized value in the future?

The organisation can then work backwards into more operational questions.

How should processes, data, tools, roles and skills change to support that value?

Rebuilding HR and business processes around those answers is harder than layering AI onto existing workflows, but it also creates greater potential value.

The report therefore makes process reimagination central to the move from experimentation into scale.

Data infrastructure is part of the transformation

The second priority is building the data infrastructure required to connect HR and business systems end to end.

Technology increasingly needs to operate across the full employee lifecycle rather than remain fragmented across separate HR processes.

From this foundation, HR can move from experimentation towards broader adoption.

Leaders can assign clear ownership of prioritised AI use cases, build AI literate HR teams and track returns using both productivity and employee experience metrics.

The objective is not only efficiency.

AI can also improve intelligence.

Analytics, automation and AI driven insights can help anticipate workforce needs, personalise development and inform business decisions.

In this model, HR moves from reactive service function towards a source of organisational foresight.

What scaled AI inside HR can look like

BCG includes a case study of a global technology company that was struggling with fragmented processes, heavy manual workloads and inconsistent employee experiences.

The company built an AI enabled service layer inside HR.

Virtual assistants and digital workers automated inquiries, forms, routing and routine transactions, while complex cases could be handed to people.

Core workflows were orchestrated end to end on a simplified HR technology landscape with improved data standards.

Roles and operating rhythms were clarified so business partners, centres of excellence, shared services and an agile solutions team could scale new capability with human in the loop controls.

The outcomes were material.

Manager and executive adoption exceeded 93%.

Ninety four percent of HR cases were resolved by the virtual assistant.

More than four fifths of HR transactions were automated.

Promotion processes required half of their previous time.

The case illustrates the distinction between adding isolated AI tools and creating a coherent, value producing digital operating model.

Workforce and leadership renewal

The second major priority cluster is workforce and leadership capability.

Companies have spent several years attempting to organise talent around skills rather than fixed roles.

Progress is uneven.

Only 54% of respondents use skill based matching, meaning matching an individual with a future position based on their skill profile and the requirements of that role.

Only 48% run structured reskilling programmes.

And only 11% have a complete skills taxonomy across the enterprise.

The report acknowledges that companies may not need a fully skills based model for every employee.

A more practical starting point may be to focus on the roles and capabilities most important to value creation.

Orchestrating capability development at scale

HR needs to take a more active role in orchestrating capability development.

Fragmented programmes should be connected into one coherent skills strategy linked to specific business objectives and challenges.

Skills analytics can connect learning with workforce planning.

Emerging capabilities can be certified through approaches such as micro credentials.

And skills data can increasingly be used to understand where employees can move as business needs change.

Workforce renewal is not only about teaching new skills.

BCG’s findings suggest organisations investing in HR capability, flexible work and purpose driven culture also experience lower voluntary turnover.

The broader objective is to create an environment where people can build capability and remain with the organisation.

AI changes the role of HR in workforce design

The need for CHRO involvement becomes more acute as AI changes the nature of work.

As AI agents become more prevalent, CHROs increasingly need to help business units integrate them into workflows and processes.

They also need to reshape talent and upskilling agendas around digital and AI skills across technical, behavioural and managerial dimensions.

The spread of AI therefore expands the CHRO’s role beyond learning and development.

HR becomes an adviser on organisational design, agile ways of working, leadership and the culture required for innovation and trust.

A skills led transformation example

BCG describes an industrial goods company preparing to more than double production capacity over five years while simultaneously facing cost pressure, digital transformation and sustainability requirements.

The strategy exposed significant capability gaps.

Leaders used analytics to map more than 350 skills across functions into over 60 skill clusters, spanning process engineering, maintenance, data analytics, cyber security and supply chain.

Each employee was assessed against the framework, creating a picture of current proficiency and future readiness.

The visibility allowed HR to identify priorities and launch targeted reskilling initiatives designed to redeploy surplus capability and fill critical gaps.

Within a year, the organisation had established a skills led approach to workforce renewal, improved visibility into internal mobility and strengthened HR’s role as a strategic partner to the business.

Power move one: deliver business value through HR

The first power move is to make HR’s contribution measurable.

HR leaders should work closely with the CEO, align people strategy with overall business strategy and help operating leaders deliver their priorities.

BCG recommends explicit value metrics such as productivity per employee, innovation throughput and capability return on investment, supported by owners, baselines and targets.

Workforce analytics should be connected with commercial and operational data.

Quarterly HR and Finance reviews can test whether expected impact is actually being realised and redirect investment when necessary.

Major HR technology and capability programmes should be supported by business cases based on measurable outcomes.

Power move two: lead digital and AI transformation

The second move is to implement digital and AI inside HR while simultaneously leading the people dimensions of digital transformation across the business.

Within HR, teams need stronger digital fluency.

Employees need to move beyond simply using AI or analytics towards translating insights into business decisions.

High return process reimagination should be prioritised in areas such as recruiting, onboarding, learning and analytics.

Across the organisation, HR should create a capability playbook covering workforce planning, skills, organisational design, role design, adoption and change management.

This requires deep partnership with business and technology teams.

Power move three: build workforce and leadership capability

The third priority is evolving how employees and leaders are assessed and developed.

BCG recommends skills based organisation design where appropriate, supported by taxonomies and governance connecting learning, careers and workforce planning.

Role architecture and compensation can increasingly be aligned with skills where this creates value.

Leadership development should also change.

The relevant skills increasingly include transformation capability, agility and systems thinking.

Practice based approaches such as labs, sprints and simulations can connect leadership development directly to live transformation activity.

Learning itself should be integrated into work, with measures such as time to competency and internal fill rates used to test whether capability is improving.

Power move four: anchor the change

The fourth move is to make transformation stick.

New behaviours such as collaboration, accountability and continuous learning need to become part of leadership expectations, promotion and recognition.

Operating rhythms should institutionalise the change.

BCG suggests lightweight but regular mechanisms such as monthly check ins and quarterly retrospectives alongside integration into performance management, leadership development and planning cycles.

Culture should also be treated more deliberately.

Rather than seeing culture as an abstract aspiration, leaders can define the outcomes, user groups and feedback loops required to continuously improve it.

Together, these moves are intended to cement HR’s shift from service provider towards creator of enterprise value.

Regional variation

The study finds broad alignment around the importance of people strategy and workforce planning, but priorities differ significantly by market.

European respondents place greater emphasis on long term structural capabilities such as strategic workforce planning, leadership development and succession, reflecting demographic pressure and constrained labour markets.

Asia Pacific respondents place more emphasis on leadership, upskilling and employer value proposition to support growth and capability expansion.

Respondents in the Americas focus more heavily on near term execution such as recruiting, onboarding and performance management.

African respondents place comparatively more emphasis on leadership, engagement and purpose.

BCG therefore argues against a one size fits all people agenda.

Global priorities can remain consistent while sequencing and investment vary according to local labour and business conditions.

Company size changes the agenda

The report also finds a clear divide between larger organisations and small and medium sized enterprises.

Large companies place greater emphasis on data and technology topics such as people analytics and Gen AI and generally report stronger capability in those areas.

People analytics ranks third in future importance among large organisations but 19th among SMEs.

Gen AI ranks 15th among large organisations and 22nd among smaller companies.

SMEs, by contrast, assign greater relative importance to areas such as rewards, culture and skills.

BCG therefore recommends adapting the CHRO agenda to the scale and complexity of the organisation rather than assuming the same digital maturity path applies everywhere.

Methodology

Creating People Advantage 2026 is based on a proprietary BCG and WFPMA survey of 7,115 participants across 115 markets.

The respondent base covers 25 industries and includes HR and non HR leaders across multiple levels of seniority, from managers and individual contributors through directors, vice presidents and C suite executives.

The analysis assesses 28 people management topics grouped across nine broad areas: people strategy and analytics, talent acquisition, people development, performance and engagement, leadership and culture, employee relations, organisational transformation, HR technology and the HR operating model.

Each topic is assessed according to current organisational capability and perceived future importance.

BCG uses that comparison to identify the areas where current capability is most misaligned with the future people agenda.

Conclusion

BCG and WFPMA’s Creating People Advantage 2026 makes a broader claim than simply arguing that HR needs better technology.

The report describes a shift in the mandate of the CHRO.

A high performing people function is no longer judged only by whether HR services operate efficiently or whether traditional HR programmes are delivered well.

The standard increasingly becomes whether HR helps the enterprise execute its strategy.

That requires understanding the economics of the business, identifying the capabilities required for future value creation and being able to connect people interventions with measurable outcomes.

AI makes this shift more urgent.

HR itself needs to modernise, but the larger opportunity lies in helping the business redesign work, roles, capability and organisation around AI.

Current readiness remains limited.

Digital solutions have risen rapidly in importance but remain one of HR’s weakest capability areas. Gen AI and emerging technologies rank last in current capability. Skills based transformation remains incomplete, and only 11% of organisations have a full skills taxonomy.

The report therefore does not treat AI adoption, workforce development and business value as separate agendas.

They are increasingly one agenda.

CHROs need to know where the business wants to create value, determine which workforce and organisational capabilities that strategy requires and then use technology, learning, workforce planning and operating model design to build those capabilities.

The four power moves are therefore connected.

Deliver business value through HR. Lead digital and AI transformation. Build workforce and leadership capability. Anchor the change.

BCG’s conclusion is that leaders who execute those four moves can shift HR from a support function towards a creator of enterprise value at scale.

Key takeaways

The future CHRO is increasingly measured by business outcomes rather than HR activity.

Traditional HR capabilities remain necessary, but they are unlikely to create differentiation on their own. The largest capability gaps increasingly sit in workforce planning, skills, leadership, analytics and digital transformation.

AI creates a dual responsibility for the people function. HR needs to transform itself while also helping the entire enterprise manage the workforce implications of AI.

Experimentation is not enough. BCG argues that scaling value requires redesigning processes, data, tools, roles and skills around the outcomes the organisation wants to achieve.

Skills architecture remains a major weakness. Only 11% of surveyed organisations report a complete enterprise skills taxonomy despite strategic workforce planning being one of the highest future priorities.

Capability development needs to become measurable. HR should connect learning and workforce investments directly to productivity, retention, speed to capability and strategic outcomes.

The CHRO’s future role therefore combines business leadership, AI transformation, workforce architecture and change execution.

The simplest way to capture the report is: HR’s mandate is no longer just to support the business. It is to build the workforce and organisational capabilities through which the business wins.

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