"For decades, HR professionals were denied their "seat at the table" in company leadership. But during the COVID pandemic, it became abundantly clear that the C-suite could no longer ignore chief people officers, who guided companies through existential business challenges, including lockdowns, remote work, and the Great Resignation. Now, a quieter and more structural shift is underway. The seat remains, but the authority attached to it is moving elsewhere."
"It's already playing out: CTOs are effectively rewriting job descriptions by determining which workflows can be automated. Operations leaders are sourcing work through professional services firms, freelance and talent platforms, offshore delivery centers, and automation software. CFOs are reinforcing this dynamic by treating labor as a variable investment to optimize, not as a fixed cost, and applying ROI discipline to talent spend much as they do to R&D or infrastructure."
HR's positional authority is shifting even as chief people officers keep a seat in the C-suite. AI-driven job redesign, labor scarcity, and higher capital costs are reframing workforce strategy as cost, output, and automation questions. Finance, operations, and technology leaders are increasingly setting workforce agendas, applying ROI discipline and treating labor as a variable investment. CTOs determine which workflows to automate; operations leaders source work through services, platforms, offshore centers, and automation; CFOs optimize talent spend like R&D or infrastructure. The change risks relegating HR to an implementation role and absorbing parts of HR's mandate through AI-enabled tools.
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