The Gartner Talent Angle

As members of Gartner’s CHRO Global Leadership Board, Medtronic’s Carol Surface and GE’s Kevin Cox were both involved in creating the original Model of the World-Class CHRO in 2017. They join host Peter Aykens on the Talent Angle to discuss what’s changed in the recent update. They reflect on what originally inspired them to create the model, its legacy to date, and why it was due for a revision. In breaking down Chapter 2 of the model, Carol and Kevin share what’s remained the same for the chief HR officer (CHRO) role alongside what must be added to address today’s realities. The CHRO Global Leadership Board, convened by Gartner, is composed of CHROs from the world’s top companies with deep expertise in HR, talent management and executive leadership.   Carol Surface was recently appointed chief people officer at Apple, a role she will start in March 2023. Since 2013, she has served as executive vice president and CHRO at Medtronic, a global healthcare technology leader with 95,000-plus employees. Previously, Carol was executive vice president and CHRO at Best Buy and held a series of human resources leadership roles at PepsiCo, including chief personnel officer for PepsiCo International. In 2020, Carol was elected as Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources (NAHR). She earned a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology from Central Michigan University.   Kevin Cox is the CHRO for General Electric. Kevin leads GE’s global HR organization, including talent management, leadership development, total rewards and employee relations. Prior to GE, Kevin served as the CHRO at American Express for 14 years. Previously, he spent 16 years at PepsiCo and the Pepsi Bottling Group, where he held positions leading strategy, business development, technology and HR. In 2009, Kevin was elected as Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources (NAHR). He holds a master’s degree in labor and industrial relations from Michigan State University and a Bachelor of Arts from Marshall University.

The 4-day work week has gained momentum in recent years, but has not yet entered the mainstream. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Global Programs Director at 4 Day Week Global, joins the Talent Angle to explain why organizations should consider experimenting with new ways of working. He highlights the importance of rest for human creativity and problem solving, and outlines how a shortened work week can unlock human potential to benefit both employers and employees. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang a leading voice in reduced hours working. He is the author of three books exploring how companies and individuals can better integrate rest, creativity, and focus into digital-age lives and work. Before joining 4 Day Week Global, Alex was a research director at the Institute for the Future and senior consultant at Strategic Business Insights, and lectured at Oxford University, Stanford University, and UC Berkeley. Alex received a Ph.D. in history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania. Brent Cassell is a VP, Advisory at Gartner, where he has worked for the past 18 years in both the HR and CIO Research Groups. His job is to help clients find the research they need, to help them understand that research, and to coach them through the implementation of those best practices in their own organizations. Currently, his research focuses on the Future of Work and Total Rewards. In 2022, he won Gartner's award for Outstanding Thought Leadership for his work on Redesigning Work for the Hybrid World. He is also the Contributing Editor of HR Leaders Monthly and the Co-Host of the Talent Angle podcast.

The hybrid world has upended traditional norms around the role of the office. Author Julia Hobsbawm joins the Talent Angle to discuss how talent management leaders can apply the insights from her book, “The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future,” to take advantage of the emerging opportunities created by hybrid ways of working. Hobsbawm argues we are in a new era of work — marked by unclear boundaries and changing attitudes — and she shares advice on what organizations should do as they continue to shape the role of the office in this new era. She looks to the past at how earlier innovations in knowledge work changed offices and to the future at how physical spaces will support employees in sustained performance.   Julia Hobsbawm is an award-winning business author and futurist of work who writes the “Working Assumptions” column for Bloomberg’s Work Shift. The author of the acclaimed book “The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future,” she was a founder of the U.S.-led Workforce Institute, was chair of the inaugural U.K. Demos Workshift Commission, and now co-hosts the popular podcast, “The Nowhere Office.” Julia is the author of six books, including the award-winning “The Simplicity Principle,” and she was awarded an OBE in the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Birthday Honours List in 2015 for services to business. She regularly consults for and speaks to corporations, governments and changemakers around the world.   Jessica Knight is a vice president of research in the Gartner HR practice. She leads research teams to identify best practices and new opportunities for addressing HR executives’ most urgent challenges. Her areas of focus include employee experience, organizational culture, change management and the future of work.

Technology is advancing at a breakneck speed, presenting both new opportunities and challenges for organizations. Ismat Duckson Aziz, Kemper CHRO and Chief Administrative Officer, joins the Talent Angle to discuss how CHROs can shape the technology strategy of their organization. She explains how CHROs can overcome the anxiety that comes with diving into the rapidly changing environment of technology, and assert themselves as drivers of enterprise innovation. Ismat Duckson Aziz is the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) and Chief Administrative Officer of Kemper. Ismat has more than 25 years of HR experience, most recently serving at U.S. Bank as Chief Advocacy Officer. Previous roles include CHRO for Sprint, CHRO for Sam’s Club, and senior HR roles at Sears Canada and MDS Pharma Services. Ismat earned a master’s of business administration from Ivey Business School at Western University in Canada and completed her undergraduate work at the University of Toronto. Ismat holds certifications in board governance and HR internationally. Jessica Knight is a vice president of research in the Gartner HR practice. She leads research teams to identify best practices and new opportunities to address HR executives’ most urgent challenges. Her areas of focus include employee experience, organizational culture, change management and the future of work.

Julie Berko from NIH shares insights on leveraging data for knowledge sharing and succession planning. Topics include workforce demographics, generative AI in communication, and developing future leaders with diversity and data literacy focus.

Drawing on their professional and academic experience, Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau argue the current work “operating system” is increasingly unable to meet the needs of employees and employers. They join the Talent Angle to discuss their new book, Work Without Jobs: How to Reboot Your Organization’s Work Operating System, and the opportunities for HR to shape a new vision for the future of work. Jesuthasan and Boudreau propose a new work “operating system” based on deconstructed work and deconstructed talent that would ultimately lead to a more human-centric approach to work.  In their new vision for the future of work, they emphasize the importance of developing capabilities that will enable organizations to redesign and reinvent work and the employee experience. Ravin Jesuthasan is the global leader of Mercer’s Transformation Services business.  He has led multiple research efforts on the global workforce, the emerging digital economy, the rise of artificial intelligence and the transformation of work. Ravin has led numerous research projects for the World Economic Forum including many of its ground-breaking studies on the transformation of work and the global workforce. He is a regular participant and presenter at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos and is a member of the forum’s Steering Committee on Work and Employment. He is the author of the books Transformative HR (Wiley, 2012), Lead The Work: Navigating a World Beyond Employment (Wiley 2015), Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach to Applying Automation to Work (HBR Press, 2018) and the Wall Street Journal bestseller; Work Without Jobs: How to Reboot Your Organization’s Work Operating System (MIT Press, 2022). Dr. John Boudreau is recognized worldwide as a leading evidence-based visionary on the future of work and organization. Dr. Boudreau is Professor Emeritus of Management and Organization and a Senior Research Scientist with the Center for Effective Organizations, at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. For 40 years, he has conducted breakthrough research on the bridge between work, superior human capital, leadership and sustainable competitive advantage.  His research addresses the future of work and the global HR profession, work automation, HR measurement and analytics, decision-based HR, executive mobility, HR information systems and organizational staffing and development.  Dr. Boudreau helped to establish and then directed the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS) at Cornell University, where he was a professor for more than 20 years Peter Aykens is chief of research in Gartner’s human resources practice. He is responsible for defining research coverage within the practice and building and leading research teams that address clients’ key initiatives. In prior roles at the firm, he spent over 25 years leading research teams focused on banking and financial services strategy, producing numerous studies that addressed business strategy, channels, marketing, customer experience and product issues in financial services. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Olaf College; a master’s degree in international politics from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (now known as Aberystwyth University); and a master’s degree and a doctorate in political science from Brown University.

Dart Lindsley, the head of global process excellence for people operations at Google, joins the Gartner Talent Angle to share why he thinks work is one of the least designed products on the market today. Dart argues that if HR leaders applied design principles to work they would view employees not as inputs to production but rather as customers buying the experience of work. This reframing of the relationship between the organization and the employee can help managers rethink how to approach their roles and help HR more precisely shape the employee experience. Dart Lindsley leads Global Process Excellence for People Operations at Google. Before joining Google, Dart led the Human Resources Transformation Planning and Analysis organization for Cisco Systems. While at Cisco, Dart founded the business architecture and experience design teams. By focusing these two very different disciplines on questions of talent, Dart and his team came to an important insight: employees can be framed as customers of work, and employers therefore must sell work as a product. Ever since, Dart has been using tools from marketing and product design to delve into what people really want from work and ways in which companies can build and deliver an extraordinary work-experience product. Aaron McEwan is a behavioral scientist, psychologist and futurist. As vice president of research and advisory for Gartner’s HR practice, Aaron provides strategic advice to the world’s leading companies on the future of work and talent and helps leaders manage their most critical relationships across the c-suite and board. Alongside his current role, Aaron is a Fellow of the Australian Human Resources Institute, serves on the national committee for the Australian Psychological Society’s Interest Group in Coaching Psychology and is an Associate of Macquarie University’s Centre for Workforce Futures. He was recently named a Top 100 Global HR Influencer and one of 5 HR Leaders to Follow in 2022. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2022 interview.

Mark C. Crowley joins the Gartner Talent Angle to discuss why today’s unparalleled workplace challenges prompted him to release a second edition of his book, “Lead from the Heart: Transformational Leadership for the 21st Century” more than a decade after it was first published. Backed by scientific findings on employee motivation, Crowley outlines common misconceptions about leading from the heart. And drawing on examples from his own experience, he shares practical advice for how to effectively implement this type of leadership at an organization. Mark C. Crowley is the author of “Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century.” The second edition debuted in August 2022 as an “Amazon #1 Release,” and his book has been taught in nine American universities. Mark is a regular columnist for Fast Company Magazine and has been published in USA Today, Reuters, Forbes, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Huffington Post, Gallup & the Seattle Times. Mark spent over 20 years in the world of Financial Services. He held two national level positions at one of America’s largest financial institutions where he was named “leader of the year”. Mark proved that deeply caring about and supporting people, and thereby positively affecting employee’s hearts had a profound effect on motivating their sustained engagement, loyalty and productivity. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2022 interview.

As many organizations struggle to keep pace with technological innovations, digital transformation is a top priority. Gerald Kane, professor of information systems at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, joins the Gartner Talent Angle to explore the opportunities these digital disruptions create and to inspire HR leaders to approach digital transformation with confidence. He explains how people and processes, not just technology, are crucial to successful digital transformation, and emphasizes the need for leaders to have growth mindsets and to continually learn while building adaptability in their organizations. Dr. Gerald C. Kane is a Professor and the C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry Chair in Business Administration at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia.  He researches and teaches about how companies can understand and respond to digital disruption to undergraduate, graduate, and executive education students worldwide; and he has published over 100 papers, articles, and reports on these topics. He has written two books for MIT Press: The Technology Fallacy: How People are the Real Key to Digital Transformation and the The Transformation Myth: Leading Your Organization Through Uncertain Times. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2022 interview.

Author Caleb Gardner argues that while change has been constant for some time, organizations are still unprepared to address it. In his latest book, “No Point B: Rules for Leading Change in the New Hyper-Connected, Radically Conscious Economy,” Gardner lays out his vision for how organizations should approach change in the new environment. The founder of the consulting firm 18 Coffees joined the Gartner Talent Angle Podcast to share examples of organizations undergoing transformation, and he extols the virtues of effective communication, adaptive capability and revised assumptions. Caleb Gardner is the co-founder of innovation consulting firm 18 Coffees and author of the new book, “No Point B: Rules for Leading Change in the New Hyper-Connected, Radically Conscious Economy.” Caleb’s career has spanned from working at Edelman and Bain & Company to running U.S. President Barack Obama’s Twitter account. Caleb’s insights about building more ethical and effective companies have been featured in publications such as NBC News, Wired, Crain’s, BBC News and Cheddar News. *This episode is an excerpt taken from our 2022 interview.