As AI forces companies to rethink everything from job design to workforce size, CEOs are increasingly looking to their CHROs to help architect that transformation. They need leaders who can determine which functions to automate, which skills to invest in, and how to reorganize their workforces without undermining productivity or growth. The problem? Few are equipped for the job.

A new study by executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles found that just one in four CHROs currently operate as an “enterprise CHRO,” with capabilities spanning AI, automation, CEO advising, ethics, succession, and workforce planning. What’s more, fewer than 5% of sitting CHROs have backgrounds in strategy consulting, product, or engineering—the very things CEOs now want, says Heidrick & Struggles partner Brad Warga.

The expectations have shifted dramatically. CEOs now seek nearly twice as many skills in CHRO candidates than they did a decade ago, Warga said. Increasingly, that means leaders who can identify which jobs and functions AI should automate, then rethink how the workforce is structured.

At Heidrick, Warga notes that CEOs are requesting HR chiefs who are creative problem solvers, intellectually curious, and have a product mindset. “This is a major shift,” he says. “It’s about adoption versus compliance.”

AI-native companies are already rewriting the CHRO job description. This year, OpenAI named Arvind KC, a former Palantir CIO and ex-Google engineering vice president, as its chief people officer. Anthropic tapped Hannah Pritchett, a former Stripe product operations manager, for the same role.

“HR has now become incredibly strategic, a consigliere to the CEO, and has probably the most broad enterprise view next to the CEO in the C-suite,” Warga says.

That shift is also reshaping the C-suite relationships. Enterprises CHROs spend an extra 10 hours a month working directly with CTOs on AI transformation, Warga says. 

So how can today’s CHROs become enterprise CHROs? Warga recommends bringing product and engineering talent directly into HR leadership teams, then learning from those hires to develop hands-on fluency with AI tools.

“The beauty of HR is you can take a Sunday afternoon and start to play with one of the language models,” Warga says. “It actually is pretty amazing how much you can learn.”

Kristin Stoller
Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media
kristin.stoller@fortune.com

Fortune Office Hours

This week, John-Paul Sukkar, chief people officer at AI parking lot payment company Metropolis, answers your burning workplace questions. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: I run a team that's growing fast, and the talent I need isn't where we are. Relocation has gone badly for me in both directions. Last year, I moved someone across the world for a senior role. He was excellent, and he left after ten months. His partner had given up a job to come, never found another one, and by the end, they both wanted to go home. I didn't see any of it coming until the resignation. 

Since then I've been more upfront with candidates about what a move actually involves—and I've lost two brilliant people who told me plainly they weren't going to uproot their families for a job. So I'm losing on both sides: the ones who come and don't stay, and the ones who won't come at all. HR handles the visas and the allowance, and it handles them well. What am I missing, and how can I make this process less painful?

A: You’re not missing anything in your process. You’re missing something in your definition of who you’re hiring.

When you ask someone to relocate, you’re hiring a household. Visas and allowances solve the logistics, but they don’t solve what ultimately determines whether someone stays: whether their family can build a life there, too. Here’s what I’d do differently:

Ask about the partner early. Not “Will your family be okay with this?” but “What does your partner do, and what would they want out of living here?” Make their needs part of the conversation from the beginning.

Make the first year the manager’s job. HR handles the paperwork well. The human part is yours. I once moved someone whose spouse was openly hesitant about New York. I took the time to learn what she cared about, took them to my favorite restaurants and bars, and shared lists of places to explore and people to meet. She wasn’t won over by the city itself. She felt that someone had thought about her, too. They stayed.

Check in at three, six, and nine months. Don’t wait for a problem to surface. Ask how the move is going, not just how work is going. By the time someone resigns, it may be too late to fix what’s wrong.

Question whether relocation is the only option. A smaller hub, a distributed role, or a trial period before a permanent move could lower the stakes for everyone.

The people who thrive after a move aren’t necessarily the ones most excited on day one. They’re the ones who feel supported once the reality of the move sets in, and that includes their partners.

Have a workplace situation that you're unsure how to navigate or a scenario worth unpacking? Send it our way anonymously via this form.

Watercooler

A round-up of the most important HR headlines from Fortune and beyond.

Trust tax. Broken trust in leaders cuts employee motivation by more than half, Deloitte research finds. Fortune

Early-career scramble. Entry-level roles at U.S. banks have fallen by 5% in the past four years, while more senior roles keep growing. Bloomberg

Lifelong learners. CEOs are going back to school, as executive education programs thrive in the age of AI. Wall Street Journal