After nearly four decades in HR technology, I’ve watched the function evolve from payroll administration on green-screen terminals to AI-driven workforce transformation.

But despite all the progress in technology, one question still lingers:

Do CEOs genuinely value HR?

Back in the 1980s, HR was rarely seen as strategic. CEOs leaned heavily on Finance, Operations, and Sales, while HR was often brought into the conversation only during layoffs, union disputes, legal issues, or mass hiring exercises.

HR was administrative, transactional and operational.

Today, the expectations are very different.

The modern HR leader is expected to shape culture, drive transformation, develop workforce strategy, improve productivity, drive cost efficiencies, enable and cultivate leadership, and increasingly navigate the impact of AI on the workplace.

Yet recent headlines suggest the relationship between CEOs and HR remains complicated.

Take the case of Ryan Breslow, CEO of Bolt, who publicly dismissed much of his HR team, arguing that HR is better suited to “peacetime” than the “wartime” conditions of a high-growth business. His reasoning was blunt: the team, he said, “was creating problems that didn’t exist,” and those problems “disappeared” once they were gone.

Then there was the recent Policy Exchange report claiming the UK’s HR function has become “bloated,” pointing to HR headcount growing by 83% between 2011 and 2023, against overall UK employment growth of just 13.5% over the same period.

So which is it?

Are organisations finally recognising the strategic importance of people and culture?

Or has HR expanded without proving enough measurable business value?

From my perspective, the answer depends entirely on whether HR understands the business beyond HR itself.

I recently read an interview with Pfizer’s former CEO Jeff Kindler, who made a point that resonated strongly with me. Asked what he wanted from HR leaders, he put it simply: domain mastery gets you in the room; what makes you valuable is business judgement, candour and the ability to see beyond your function.

That, in many ways, is the challenge facing HR today.

CEOs don’t need more dashboards, reports, or policy documents.

They need insight.

They need HR leaders who understand:

• How the business makes money
• Where the organisation is heading
• Which workforce capabilities will accelerate growth
• Where talent risks could slow the business down

The HR leaders who earn credibility with CEOs are the ones who connect people strategy directly to business outcomes. McKinsey’s own research points to the same gap: even where CEOs recognise that talent strategy is critical to growth, many still doubt HR’s ability to deliver it, largely because they see HR as an administrative function rather than a driver of business value. Closing that gap, not arguing against it, is the real opportunity in front of HR leaders today.

And this is where technology becomes critical.

For years, HR systems were primarily about efficiency and record keeping.

Now, AI and modern HR technology have the potential to fundamentally reshape:

• Workforce productivity
• Employee experience
• Skills development
• Talent mobility
• Organisational design
• Strategic decision-making

But there’s also a risk.

Too many organisations invest heavily in HR technology without a clear strategy, without defined outcomes, and without alignment to business priorities.

When that happens, HR loses credibility.

When HR technology is implemented well, however, it can radically transform how the CEO views the HR function.

The HR teams adding the most value today are the ones focusing on a few critical areas:

AI and workforce transformation

HR cannot afford to treat AI as simply another tool for automation. It needs to sit at the centre of conversations about redesigning work, evolving skills, and preparing organisations for entirely new workforce models. HR needs to understand AI’s risks and the opportunities it brings. Gartner’s own research backs this up: realising the value of AI is now the single biggest priority CHROs are naming for 2026, ahead of almost everything else on the people agenda.

Better line management

Poor management behaviours create enormous organisational drag. Gallup’s research puts a number on it: managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement scores. If HR invested more in building capable people managers, it would spend far less time dealing with employee relations issues and far more time contributing strategically. It’s about building line manager capability to strip out overdependence on documentation and put more focus on skilling them to have the right conversations.

Career resilience and adaptability

Traditional career ladders are disappearing. LinkedIn’s own data illustrates the scale of the shift: by 2030, an estimated 70% of the skills used in most jobs will have changed, driven largely by AI adoption. HR needs to help employees build flexible, future-proof careers through reskilling, cross-functional mobility, and continuous learning.

Workforce architecture

The strongest HR functions are becoming future-focused workforce planners, identifying emerging skills, forecasting capability gaps, and enabling internal mobility before talent shortages become business problems.

Business capability inside HR itself

Some of the best HR leaders I’ve worked with didn’t spend their entire careers in HR. They understood operations, finance, customer delivery, and commercial pressures. This broader business perspective changes how HR contributes at leadership level.

Throughout my consulting work, I often ask a simple question:

“If this was your business, what would you prioritise?”

Surprisingly often, I find organisations implementing HR initiatives without a clearly articulated HR strategy or without strong alignment to the broader business strategy.

That’s why HR risks becoming operational rather than transformational.

So, do CEOs value HR?

My answer is simple:

“They value HR when HR directly contributes to business success.”

I have clients where the CEO truly values HR because, for example, talent acquisition is central to growth.

I have clients implementing global HR systems because workforce visibility and consistency are critical to operating as one business.

In both cases, HR earns credibility because it is solving real business challenges.

The future of HR will not be defined by policies, administration, or headcount growth.

It will be defined by whether HR can become a true strategic driver of organisational performance in an AI-enabled world.

And after 38 years in this industry, I genuinely believe the most exciting chapter for HR is still ahead of us.