Survey Reveals New Era in CEO-Human Resources Relationship

HR integral to the bottom line

It’s a brand new day for HR executives, according to a new CareerBuilder survey of U.S. CEOs. In a complex post-recession job market with a growing talent gap, top executives are relying more on recruitment and HR leaders for innovative business strategies grounded in data.

“HR is the new frontier for data science applications in business,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder and co-author of The Talent Equation. “In our study, CEOs acknowledge that the recruitment landscape is changing and the need for their HR teams to come forward with data-driven, competitive approaches and efficient technologies is more critical than ever. HR leaders are becoming more influential members of the executive team. CEOs are looking for HR to be just as data-savvy and digitally-savvy as other areas of the company, and take quick, measurable actions that move the business towards its goals.”

Shaping this new era is a post-recession landscape defined by increased competition for skilled talent in the face of shrinking labor pools and demands for higher salaries. Sixty percent of CEOs reported their companies have not been able to reach their full potential because they cannot find enough qualified candidates, and almost one fourth (23%) say the pressure to raise wages is among issues that keep them up at night.

The nationwide survey was conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from April 14 to 21, 2015 among 88 leaders at companies with revenue of at least $50 million.

According to the survey, characteristics of this new recruiting era include:

Expectations that HR teams will interpret data and ascertain the right talent mix.

• The overwhelming majority of CEOs (90%) say it is important that HR leaders be proficient in workforce analytics, with about one in three executives (35%) saying this is “absolutely essential.”

Calls for a more efficient recruitment process that provides for a better candidate experience.

• The top three recruitment challenges CEOs identified for their organizations are: lack of skilled candidates (49%), inefficient recruitment process: takes too long to fill jobs (35%), and candidate experience is not as good as it could be (25%).

• Nearly half of CEOs (48%) say their companies have lost money due to inefficient recruiting.

Willingness to give HR a bigger role in the organization: with room to grow.

• A majority of CEOs (65%) agree that post-recession, HR opinions carry greater weight with senior management; nearly three fourths (73%) say that their HR leader has provided data that they have incorporated into their business strategy.
• 92% of business leaders think HR executives can have broader influence by: providing actionable talent data and other research to help devise strategies to meet larger business goals (57%), showing ways to increase efficiencies or cut costs by better using the company’s human capital (57%), knowing what the company does, but also how everything works (52%), and proactively working with other leaders to help solve business problems (51%).

This survey follows the June 24 launch of CareerBuilder1, an HR software solution that delivers job distribution, sourcing, workflow, CRM, data, and analytics in one pre-hire platform, designed to alleviate issues facing top executives by finding better quality candidates more quickly and efficiently.