Employee experience is key to a productive, resilient and happy team.

Founders and CEOs that understand the potential of an empowered workforce will be better able to respond to market challenges and ensure that employees thrive in a fast-paced, fast-changing environment. Workplace expectations are changing. People want to be engaged and productive and contribute in meaningful ways. A company’s stability and growth are at risk without attracting and engaging people.

In Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2016 report, 92 percent of participants saw a need to redesign their organization to improve employee engagement and retention and build a meaningful culture. 82 percent of respondents see culture as a competitive advantage, driving innovation, customer service, and employee behaviour.

In the early phase of a company, the Founder and the founding team create the heartbeat. As a company grows and scales, specifically when the team is doubling, things can move faster than the team can keep up with.

Leaders and founders can get lost in all the “to do” as they grow their dream businesses and lives.

Successful scaling requires the Founder to embrace that people are at the core of the company’s growth and success. The Founder must be clear with their vision, time and money budgets and success measures.

Enter the Chief People Officer. 

A People Officer brings the people’s voice and reality to the conversation.  

To work with founders, leaders and teams, blending perspectives, philosophies, and limitations. They can design unique working models to meet the needs of the business and the people.

A Chief People Officer brings this culture forward and sometimes provide course correction as the team grows. This includes ensuring that company values are clearly defined and visible with every decision, initiative and communication so everyone knows what they are part of. 

Having someone dedicated to being the bridge between the business needs, such as technology and efficiency and the people needs softens the tension between these two essential elements of any business, especially for those getting ready to or currently scaling.

A dedicated C-level individual overseeing an organization’s people makes good business sense, yet small businesses and startups rarely have the financial capacity for this role to be full-time.  

An option some are adopting is bringing in a contracted or fractional CPO to shape the role in preparation for when it is viable to have a permanent CPO. 

What Exactly Does the CPO Do?

A CPO will nurture a strong business relationship with the Founder(s), with consistent communication, based on trust, to help stabilize and scale the business and team.  

A CPO serves as a company’s culture advocate and brand builder, with the people’s experience at the heart of processes.  The Chief People Officer is tasked with optimizing people-centred activities such as hiring, training, professional development, and performance management to align with and support the company’s stability and growth objectives. They will match people skills with company opportunities setting everyone up for success. Advising and consulting on strategy and, when needed, rolling up their sleeves to execute solutions. 

The competencies and Experience a CPO can bring are expansive, from Business Acumen to Emotional Intelligence.

They need to be solutions driven to develop and align people and business strategy as the business evolves. They hold the big picture perspective when recruiting, focussing on deep diversity of skill, personality and lived experience.  

Have the skill to influence and weave together employees, customers, suppliers, investors, and the community while demonstrating flexibility and collaboration to optimize work and performance across a diverse working body.  

They incorporate smart technology solutions to support humans in their roles.

Navigating complex ups and downs during scaling takes openness and transparency with employees, fostering trust and credibility with internal and external stakeholders to be a resource in the middle of disruption. It takes empathy and strong interpersonal skills. Intentionally engaging in compassion, self-awareness, and using acknowledgement of emotions to move through situations to outcomes that meet the needs of the individual(s) and the business. When dealing with day-to-day operations, budgets, negotiations, and all of the tangibles during scaling, there’s no better investment in a company’s future than working with a CPO to bridge the distance between the business needs and the people’s needs. 

Inspired by: 

This LinkedIn article by John K Anderson. Sourced in part by this article in Forbes.