All jobs have their good days and bad days. But I challenge you to name another function when you can be a hero one minute, and the villain the next. That's the role of a chief human resource officer. HR is all about people. They’re not only our most valuable asset — they’re the most valuable investors of their talents, energy, and commitment.
The people people: a day in the life of a CHRO
The people people: a day in the life of a CHRO
Table of contents
Put simply, the role of a chief human resources officer (CHRO) is to ensure that we have the right people, in the right roles, supported in the right ways, to do their best work. Simple to state, but not so simple to do. HR is a combination of the head and the heart, dealing with the rational and emotional sides of every issue that can arise.
HR also has a heavy day-to-day operational flow to it, whether that’s onboarding a new employee, offboarding another, running payroll, and much more. At the core, you need alignment with your People Ops lead and an HR service delivery strategy backed by the right tech stack and workflows. And it all must be supported by an agile, detail-oriented team who keeps a smile on their faces, even while juggling a seemingly never-ending list of tasks. Then there’s work on the talent strategy, compensation and benefits, and major programs to help attract, develop, and retain top performers.
HR also partners closely with leadership. The CHRO is essentially the HR business partner (HRBP) to the executive team. They serve as confidante and coach — often for each executive — while diving into challenges, planning for what’s next, and shaping business strategy. From adapting AI to legislative changes to growth, downsizing, or organizational shifts, it’s all on your plate.
Jumping between strategy, operations, and people issues across the organization is all in a day’s work for any HR leader. The unplanned and unexpected can mean your schedule shifts rapidly. But what keeps you going is the organization’s mission and knowing that — by keeping the people agenda front and center — you are serving the business and everyone in it. While there’s no such thing as a typical day, here’s what a chief HR leader may experience at any point of the workweek.
A day in the life of a CHRO
7:00 a.m. Europe calling
You have a standing call with the executive in charge of the Europe office. They have a long list of things they want to run by you. You need to bring them into the loop about a meeting from yesterday on expanding the business footprint in the region. The plan is to establish offices in two more countries.
This latest update dominates the conversation. Thank goodness you’d worked last year with other functions on the new country entry playbook. Time to fire up another project team to collaborate on making that happen as fast as you can.
8:00 a.m. CEO calling
There goes the half hour you were hoping to carve out to draft your function’s priorities for the year and prepare for goal discussions with your direct reports. Other than your family, the CEO’s call is one you don’t ignore. They want to talk about how fast we can hire in the new countries. You’re thinking: Give me a minute — I only heard the plan yesterday!
You pull up the talent acquisition metrics dashboard and share the average time-to-fill from other expansion endeavors. The CEO quickly shifts to discussing a difficult performance conversation they need to have with a member of the executive team. You listen, ask a few probing questions, coach them on leadership communication, and promise to send a few talking points before the day is out.
8:30 a.m. HR operations meeting
You meet with your very capable operations team. They are the backbone of HR service delivery and never fail to impress you with their ability to streamline and simplify workflows. Keeping up with advances in AI while managing costs is a tricky path. You listen to their recommendations on new technologies they’ve been evaluating.
You always want to consider the user experience and anything that reduces digital friction — always a win. They’ve done their homework, and you’re able to debate and decide quickly.
As the meeting wraps, you take a moment to check in with the team leader. They were recently on bereavement leave, and you want to make sure they are focusing on their well-being and feel supported. In HR, team members spend their days focused on helping the workforce, so it’s important we don’t short-change ourselves in the process.
9:30 a.m. Executive team standing meeting
Time for the weekly stand-up meeting. Half the group are in the office, half on the big screen. It’s time to focus on a few larger issues of business performance and to share priorities and critical updates. Transparency with one another builds trust. You have good discussions, debate without drama, then commit to next steps.
The investment you recommended during some team-building has paid off. The agenda is always crammed, but you make sure to get necessary airtime. You update your colleagues on headlines from the recent pulse survey and how you’re cascading the results and actions.
You also give an overview of the rollout of the newly received bonus plan for the year. As always, you played diplomat ahead of time to make sure ideas and objections were heard.
11:00 a.m. “Can I just….” turns into “start without me”
As you’re gathering your laptop to rush to the next meeting, one of the executive team asks, “Can I have a word?” You message a colleague that they should get the meeting underway and sit back down.
The executive is concerned about retaining a couple of key employees. While you’re discussing the issues and next steps, you pull up data on their pay and performance. You remind the executive what they can access on their own to help round out the picture. You take a beat to refill your coffee before attending the last half of the next meeting.
12:00 p.m Lunch break = candidate interview
Your team has been on a hiring streak and you’re part of the interview process for some senior positions. You look forward to telling candidates the company story and helping ensure your team hires the right talent who are strong cultural fits. With so much at stake, who needs to lunch at a time like this, right?
1:00 p.m Eat on the run while rehearsing a speech
You hit the road, sandwich in hand, to an HR seminar event where you will share your expertise with attendees on how HR can harness AI. You’ve also come here to learn and network with the community. You love being a brand ambassador for your company, but you cut your time short and skip the social because there’s too much to do, not enough time.
4:00 p.m Home, but far from done
You arrive home and log on to catch up on the deluge of emails and messages. You prioritize approvals to keep work flowing, urgent topics, and anything your team needs. You skip a barrage of unsolicited emails, except for the rare one that catches your eye because it’s related to the rapid advances in AI you addressed in your speech.
You set up a call for later in the week with your CIO. You can see that the direction of travel is toward creating a more unified digital employee experience (DEX), but that’s not your sole preserve. HR and IT have to work even more closely together to shape the choices made at the enterprise level that shape the DEX.
You steal some quiet time to revisit the planning work you couldn’t get to earlier that morning. Remember to give recognition to your team member who went above and beyond earlier in the week. Respond to last-minute CEO requests for input on a board presentation and shut the laptop — until Asia wakes up.
8:00 p.m Good morning, Asia
You love being in a global company, though you don’t always love juggling the time zones. But you can’t complain, since everyone is constantly doing it too. You’re energized from talking with the AsiaPac HR leader. The company is growing fast there, but talent acquisition can be a headache. She has devised a great plan of attack: You align, you approve, and you’re on to the next challenge!
Simpplr simplifies Human Resources
While no day as a CHRO is typical, every day is booked and busy. But it’s also meaningful, human, and sometimes humbling. The demands on our time don’t get easier, but the right tools can help us make the most of it.
Imagine having an AI-powered employee experience platform from an industry-leading innovator. Simpplr helps HR teams better serve employees so you and your team can focus on being more strategic and intentional.
Stop putting out fires and start leading the way forward with Simpplr. Request a demo today!
Watch a 5-minute demo
See how the Simpplr employee experience platform connects, engages and empowers your workforce.
- #1 Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant™
- 90%+ Employee adoption rate
