Why CHRO Strategic Priorities Must Start with Future Skills

Korn Ferry’s latest CHRO survey spells it out: the top three strategic business priorities for CHROs right now are Growth & Market Expansion, Cost Efficiency & Productivity, and Transformation. Developing skills for the future comes in as the 4th priority.

Here’s the problem: every single one of those is dependent on one thing that is not being treated as the number one priority -  building the skills of the future.

If CHROs don’t flip their focus, the other priorities are little more than wishful PowerPoint slides.

The Fatal Sequence Error in CHRO Strategic Priorities

The survey shows:

• 69% of CHROs put Growth & Market Expansion at the top of the list.

• 56% focus on Cost Efficiency & Productivity.

• Transformation is eating up a third of their time.

Skills development sits further down the agenda. Whilst is is acknowledged as important, it is treated like a parallel work stream, not the foundation.

That’s backwards.

·      You don’t get growth without people capable of seizing and scaling opportunities.

·      You don’t get efficiency without teams that can adapt, problem-solve, and self-manage.

·      You don’t get transformation without leaders and employees ready to change how they think and work.

Without the right skills in place, every other strategic priority stalls, bleeds resources, or collapses under its own ambition.

Why Skills Must Be the #1 CHRO Strategic Priority

1. Growth & Market Expansion

   Market entry requires agility, market sensing, and cross-cultural collaboration. These are skills, not spreadsheets. Without them, expansion is just expensive geography.

2. Cost Efficiency & Productivity

   Lean systems without skilled people become brittle. Future skills like adaptive digital intelligence, contextual decision-making, and dynamic resourcefulness drive sustainable productivity — not just headcount cuts.

3. Transformation

   Every transformation is, at its core, a human transformation. You can change technology and processes all you want; if mindsets, adaptability, and collaboration skills don’t shift, you’ve just repainted the old house

   
   

   

The Case for Skills First

Korn Ferry’s own research shows most CHROs lack confidence in their ability to source or develop the skills their organizations will need. That’s not a side note,  it’s the single biggest barrier to delivering their stated business outcomes.

The sequence must change:

1. Assess the current skill landscape.

2. Build future-critical capabilities before launching into costly expansion or reorgs.

3. Embed skill development into performance, promotion, and transformation programs.

   
   

Do this, and growth, efficiency, and transformation follow as natural consequences instead desperate, uphill battles.

The Hard Truth

If skills for the future aren’t Priority #1, the other three priorities are illusions.

You can have the boldest growth plans, the leanest budget, the flashiest transformation program — but without a workforce equipped to deliver, you’re just moving deckchairs on the Titanic.

The CHROs who succeed in the next three years will be those who stop treating skills as a “people initiative” and start treating them as the engine of the business strategy