How to be a Chief People Officer

Enabling people in the evolving world of work

By: Jennifer Geary, Anne Kiely

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Finalist in the Business Book of the Year 2024 awards!

The Chief People Officer role has finally taken its rightful place on the Executive Committee and human resource management is recognised as a true differentiator of success for modern organisations.

However, CPOs face a challenge. In a world of increasing regulation and litigation, and with greater expectations than ever of how organisations should support their people, the HR role risks being overwhelmed. Managers are drowning under the weight of people-related tasks, while staff demand ever more from their workplace. CEOs and Boards need everything done yesterday. Facing these pressures, people work, ironically, risks being de-humanised.

It’s time to bring humanity back to the workplace. It’s time to empower our managers and leaders, lighten the load, harness technology and bring back some agility and joy to looking after our talent.

Using a tried and tested framework, this book de-constructs the CPO role. It links people management to four core areas of Culture, Strategy and Execution. It guides the reader through seven stages of the end-to-end employee lifecycle. It breaks down seven HR Centres of Excellence. Moreover, it looks to the future of personnel management and how we can evolve from here.

This engaging, comprehensive book condenses almost 50 collective years of experience of working in and around people into a solid framework for the new or aspiring CPO. It is also a solid reference for Boards, Committees and all leaders who want to get the best from their people and position their organisations for success.

Listen to the podcast between Anne Kiely and Jennifer Geary -check out THE C-SUITE FRAMEWORK podcast - AVAILABLE HERE https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-c-suite-framework/id1777996451?i=1000675913654 or wherever you get your podcasts.

Intro level at best

How to Be a People Chief Officer is framed as a guide for aspiring Chief People Officers, but it comes across as more of an introductory HR leadership overview than a true executive-level playbook. Much of the content focuses on topics that anyone currently working as a Human Resources Business Partner will already know well, as it largely reflects day-to-day HR responsibilities.

Another downside is the audiobook format itself. The main narration is fine, but at the end of each chapter, resources are listed and read aloud. In an audiobook, these resource lists would have been better provided as written supplements rather than narrated content.