The CHRO agenda in 2026: HR Path’s seven priorities to watch
As the business environment continues to shift, CHROs face growing complexity and rising expectations. With multiple trends converging at once, setting clear priorities is critical. Experts from HR Path highlight seven topics that should be firmly on the CHRO agenda for 2026.
Strengthening the HR Foundation
Organisations consistently tell us that reliable HR foundations are essential for delivering meaningful transformation. Without dependable core systems, accurate data and well-defined processes, HR teams struggle to provide insight, manage risk or effectively support the wider business.
As pressure increases around cost control, compliance and reporting, many organisations are prioritising investment in HR foundations to ensure operational stability and create a platform that can support future change.
Reliable HR Systems
Across the market, organisations continue to face challenges with fragmented, ageing or overly complex HR and payroll systems. Many are reassessing whether their current platforms can scale with growth, support multi-country operations and keep pace with increasing regulatory requirements. As a result, there is a clear shift towards simplifying HR technology landscapes, either by optimising existing solutions or by investing in more robust, future-proof platforms.
Maximising Value from Technology
After several years of significant investment in HR technology, many organisations are now questioning whether those investments are delivering the expected value. Rather than adding new tools, leaders are asking how they can better utilise existing platforms to drive efficiency, improve data quality and support better decision-making.
This shift reflects a growing emphasis on optimisation, integration and user adoption — recognising that technology only delivers value when it is effectively embedded into day-to-day ways of working.
Driving ROI from AI
AI remains a major area of interest, but organisations are increasingly scrutinising initiatives through a return-on-investment lens. Leaders want clarity on where AI can deliver tangible benefits, such as cost reduction, improved insight or an enhanced employee experience. There is growing recognition that success depends not only on the technology itself, but also on data quality, governance and the ability to integrate AI into existing HR processes.
As a result, organisations are becoming more selective and outcome-focused in their approach to AI.
Right People, Right Place, Right Time
Workforce planning is once again becoming a priority as organisations respond to skills shortages, changing operating models and ongoing cost pressures. Leaders are increasingly focused on gaining clearer visibility of current capability, future demand and critical skills gaps, ensuring that workforce decisions align closely with business strategy.
Building Change Capability
Transformation fatigue is a common theme across organisations. Even well-designed initiatives can fail without strong leadership alignment, effective communication and sufficient change capability. As transformation programmes continue into 2026, organisations are placing greater emphasis on building internal capability to manage change effectively — ensuring that people understand the purpose of change, feel supported throughout it and are equipped to adopt new ways of working.
Focusing on Employee Experience
Despite ongoing cost pressures, employee experience remains a key priority. Organisations recognise that engagement, retention and productivity are closely linked to how employees experience HR processes, technology and leadership.
There is a growing focus on aligning employee experience with organisational goals, ensuring that HR initiatives support not only engagement and wellbeing, but also performance, capability development and broader business outcomes.
