What CHROs Should Stop Doing Before HR Falls Behind
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In the 1950s, doctors used to smoke in hospital rooms.
At the time, it was normal.
A doctor could light a cigarette while reviewing a patient’s chart, and nobody thought twice about it.
Today, that feels absurd.
Last week, I asked my HR Mastermind members a version of that question:
What are we doing in HR today that feels normal, but should feel absurd in the next 1 to 3 years?
Not in 10 years.
Not someday when the technology is perfect.
In the next 1 to 3 years.
Because I think HR has its own version of smoking in the hospital.
Manual workforce planning.
Annual performance reviews that take weeks to complete and are outdated the moment they are finished.
HR being brought into M&A after the deal is already signed.
AI being treated only as an IT project.
Culture being handed to HR as if business leaders do not create it every day through the decisions they make.
These things are still normal.
But they should not stay normal.
What HR work will feel absurd in the next 1 to 3 years?
The HR work that will feel absurd soon is the work that keeps HR reacting after business decisions have already been made.
That is the pattern.
HR gets brought in after the deal is signed.
After the AI strategy is chosen.
After the org structure is announced.
After the culture problem becomes visible.
After the business is already feeling the pain.
Then HR is asked to clean it up.
That should feel absurd.
Because talent strategy is not separate from business strategy. It is part of how business strategy succeeds or fails.
The CHRO role is becoming more important, not less. But only if HR stops protecting old processes that keep the function too late, too manual, and too reactive.
Why should HR be involved earlier in M&A?
HR should be involved in M&A before the deal is signed because people risks can destroy deal value after the financial case looks perfect.
One of the examples that stayed with me from the Mastermind conversation was M&A.
We talked about how many deals look great on paper.
The financials work.
The strategy sounds right.
The business case is clean.
But then the deal starts falling apart because nobody really understood the people side early enough.
The cultures do not fit.
The compensation systems fight each other.
The best people leave.
The integration gets messy.
And then HR gets blamed for a culture problem they were not brought in early enough to prevent.
That should be absurd.
It should be absurd that HR is asked to clean up the people consequences of a business decision instead of helping shape the decision before it is made.
How can CHROs get involved earlier without waiting to be invited?
The quick win is to stop asking, “How do I get invited earlier?” and start asking, “Where can I build an entry point into the process?”
That distinction matters.
If HR is always pulled in after the deal is signed, HR is already too late.
By then, the financial case is built.
The assumptions are locked.
The integration timeline is moving.
The people risks are treated like implementation details.
Instead, HR needs a structural way to see the deal earlier.
That could mean owning, co-owning, or being part of the process for the M&A data room.
On the surface, that sounds administrative.
But strategically, it changes the timing.
If the business needs access to the data room to evaluate a deal, and HR is part of that workflow, then HR gets visibility before the people problems become expensive.
That gives the CHRO a chance to ask:
- How do they reward people?
- What roles create the most value?
- Where are the cultural conflicts?
- Who are we most at risk of losing?
- What assumptions are we making about productivity, management, and retention?
That is not HR trying to slow down the deal.
That is HR protecting the value of the deal.
Why can’t AI be treated only as an IT project?
AI cannot be treated only as an IT project because AI changes work, roles, skills, decisions, and power inside the company.
This was one of the clearest points in the room:
It should be absurd that AI is being led only as a technology rollout.
Yes, IT has a critical role.
Governance matters.
Security matters.
Systems matter.
But AI is not just a system implementation.
AI changes work.
AI changes roles.
AI changes how people spend their time.
AI changes what skills matter.
AI changes how leaders make decisions.
That means HR cannot wait to be handed the “change management” piece after the AI strategy is already decided.
By then, the most important decisions have already been made.
What happens when AI is led only through an efficiency lens?
When AI is led only through an efficiency lens, it becomes a headcount reduction tool. When HR helps lead it, AI can become a work redesign strategy.
That is the difference CHROs need to be clear about.
If the business only asks, “Where can we cut cost?” the AI conversation gets small fast.
But HR can help ask better questions:
- What work should be automated?
- What human capability should be elevated?
- What skills do we need to build?
- Where are people stuck in low-value work?
- How do we redesign jobs instead of just removing jobs?
- What work should no longer exist?
- What new work will matter more?
That is the difference between using AI to cut people and using AI to increase the value of people.
And CHROs need to be very clear on that difference.
What should CHROs stop protecting?
CHROs need to stop protecting old HR processes that make the function look busy but keep it from driving business value.
This is the harder part.
HR cannot do more strategic work while still drowning in work that should no longer exist.
That came up again and again in the workshop.
It should be absurd that senior HR leaders are spending hours building decks.
It should be absurd that workforce planning is still so manual.
It should be absurd that HR is tied to annual calendar rituals that no longer match how work actually happens.
It should be absurd that development still depends so heavily on classroom training when people need feedback and learning in the flow of work.
This is where HR has to be honest with itself.
We cannot keep saying we want to be strategic while protecting every old process.
Some of those processes need to go.
Some need to be redesigned.
Some need to be automated.
Some need to move out of HR entirely.
Because the future of HR is not about doing today’s HR work faster.
It is about deciding which parts of today’s HR work should not exist anymore.
What is the Earlier Checkpoint Test?
The Earlier Checkpoint Test helps CHROs find the places where HR is always too late and redesign the process so that cannot keep happening.
Ask one question:
Where is HR always cleaning up the consequences of a decision it did not help shape?
Start there.
It might be:
- M&A
- AI rollout
- Workforce planning
- Org design
- Culture change
- Executive hiring
- Succession planning
- Productivity improvement
Then ask:
What checkpoint would force the people strategy conversation to happen earlier?
That is the move.
Not more meetings.
Not louder opinions.
Not another HR presentation after the fact.
A checkpoint.
A place in the business process where the CHRO can see the risk, ask better questions, and connect talent to business value before the decision hardens.
What should the CHRO of the future be known for?
The CHRO of the future should be known for connecting talent to business value, risk, growth, productivity, culture, and transformation.
That means getting into M&A earlier.
Leading the people side of AI before it becomes a headcount exercise.
Using data to show business impact, not just employee sentiment.
Designing systems that shape culture instead of owning culture as a program.
And making the old version of HR feel absurd before someone else does it for us.
The question is not just:
What should become absurd?
The next question is:
What is one process where HR keeps getting involved too late, and how do we redesign the process so that cannot happen anymore?
That is the quick win.
Pick one place where HR is always cleaning up the consequences.
Then build an earlier checkpoint.
Because the future of HR is not just about having better opinions.
It is about changing the system so the business cannot make people decisions without people strategy built into the process.
And a few years from now, I hope it feels absurd that we ever did it any other way.
Listen to the full podcast
This conversation came from a real discussion with HR Mastermind members about what HR is doing today that should feel absurd in the next 1 to 3 years.
In the full podcast, we go deeper into the examples CHROs are wrestling with right now, including AI, M&A, workforce planning, culture, and the old HR processes that need to be redesigned.
Listen to the full episode if you want to think more clearly about where HR is getting pulled in too late, and what to change before the business feels the cost.
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