Our First CHRO Event of 2025 - Already Planning The Next One!
Future of Work Leaders CHRO Group exploring the future of work and employee experience
Last week we hosted the first in-person event of 2025 for Future of Work Leaders, a global CHRO community of the world’s top people leaders focused on the future of work and employee experience which now has around 40 CHROs as members including Dow, Lego, Northrop Grumman, Amway, Waste Management, Otis, Tractor Supply, Baker Hughes, PNC Bank, and dozens of others.
If you’re a CHRO you can request an invite here or email me directly jacob[at]thefutureorganization[dot]com).
It was held at the beautiful Neiman Marcus hub in Dallas with their CHRO Eric Severson.
We spent 2 days together with CHROs from Johnson & Johnson, Neiman Marcus, Arca Continental, James Avery, Insperity, ArcBest, Unifirst, Syntax, Crumbl, and others. Most of us were in person and a handful who weren’t able to attend joined us virtually.
Here are some of the things we explored.
Cultural transformation
We looked at this from two different angles where the CHRO of Arca Continental shared their bottom-up employee driven approach while the CHRO of Unifirst explored how their leadership transformation has impacted their culture.
The evolution of DEI
The CHRO of Neiman Marcus shared how they are focusing on belonging with a strong emphasis on merit and competence. As he explained, all of the discussions they are having internally are around business performance and impact.
The CEO & CHRO relationship
Jim Keyes, the former CEO of 7-Eleven and Blockbuster joined us to talk about what CEOs want from their CHROs and how to create better and stronger relationships. When Jim arrived he actually said that 7-Eleven built the very building where we were hosting our event and shared a lot of history about it!
Strategic goals and priorities for 2025
We had a very interesting and open discussion around key priorities from a business and HR perspective. These including things like adapting to the new administration, the impact of AI in the workplace, structuring HR teams, and the right cadence on adapting to change versus leading it.
Hybrid work models and the impact of AI
The CHRO of Syntax (which has a team of thousands of remote team members) shared their strategy to flexible and remote work and the pros and cons of various approaches. It was really interesting to hear all of the different perspectives of members, some who have mandated employees return to the office and others who still have a fully remote workforce.
The CTO of Syntax also joined us to talk about the current state of AI in the workplace and how it might impact HR. We talked about various models like ChatGPT and Deepseek, the importance of organizations and technological trust, and the implications for AI tools in the short and long-term.
We also talked about leadership development and outcomes, third party resources from a technology and services perspective, employee performance, political implications on the workplace, and a whole lot more. There were plenty of ad-hoc discussions throughout the day and during dinner!
My goal with this CHRO group is to host smaller and more strategic discussions and conversations. I put Future of Work Leaders together because I kept hearing the same challenges and frustration from CHROs about other groups:
They are ridiculously expensive and if you miss a single session you feel like you don’t get value.
CHROs are constantly being upsold services and products.
The sessions are focused on speeches and lectures not on discussions and strategy.
Resources can quickly become stale and outdated and are difficult to find.
Conferences/events are filled with hundreds or thousands of people which might be good for HR practitioners but not for CHROs.
Everything out there is really focused on traditional aspects of HR instead of the future of work and employee experience.
That’s where Future of Work Leaders comes in. It’s low-cost, no selling or fluff, no speeches or lectures, real-time sharing of resources and information, intimate gatherings of CHROs, focused on strategy and insight, and an emphasis on the future of work and employee experience.
If you or your CHRO are interested in joining you can request an invite here or email me directly jacob[at]thefutureorganization[dot]com).
I’m already in the process of planning the next event which will take place before summer!
Thanks to everyone who attended and to Eric Severson and Neiman Marcus for hosting us.
Jacob