Ever since Human Resources began stretching beyond its beginnings as Personnel and Payroll, HR leaders have clamored for a seat at the table.

Now they have it. And the table, it turns out, is piled high with growing expectations:

Organizations are looking for their CHROs, among many other things, to usher in the era of the AI-assisted employee, to create a workforce that can do more with less, and to close skill gaps that threaten to topple critical business initiatives.

Could the CH in CHRO stand for crosshairs?

Possibly, but Amber Grewal, the chief talent officer at Boston Conulting Group (BCG), and Eric Dozier, the chief people officer at Eli Lilly, have both expressed delight at being, well, center stage.

“As I think about how HR has evolved,” Amber says, “this is the most exciting time.”

Amber and Eric each recently spoke with Aneesh Raman, the chief economic officer at LinkedIn, for our new video series Conversations with CHROs. Here are some of the highlights from those conversations.

1. Understand that the scope of HR has changed — dramatically

HR is no longer a mere back-office function. Today, it carries the hopes of the organization on its shoulders.

“The business of HR is the business of the company, actually,” Eric says. “And so the opportunity is there to make sure you understand how the organization achieves its objectives, understand how the organization creates value through its innovations. And then how does HR help connect that to the things that we do.”

Clearly, the contemporary CHRO not only needs to be a people leader, they must be a business leader too.

“What I’m most excited about,” Amber says, “is that HR is no longer just about managing people and managing process. HR now is about business transformation and creating business value through designing an archetype of what the future workforce is going to look like. What is this collaboration of AI and human capability coming together to unlock human potential?”

There is a beautiful irony in how the increasing importance of business technology is simultaneously increasing the importance of the workforce and the skills — soft skills, human skills, whatever you’d like to call them — that people uniquely bring to the workplace.

2. Practice, not perfection, should be your goal

With so much to do, where should CHROs even start?

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