Gartner Says CHROs’ Top Priorities for 2027 Focus on Meeting CEOs' Expectations While Minimizing Organizational Risk

In 2027, CHROs will look to deliver the growth and productivity that CEOs are seeking while minimizing risks to the organization, according to Gartner, Inc., a business and technology insights company.

“As leaders today push their organizations to achieve more, faster, and with less, CHROs must ensure that their workforces are capable of meeting these expectations while simultaneously minimizing risk,” said Mark Whittle, Vice President Analyst in the Gartner HR practice.

During Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo, taking place here through Thursday, Whittle identified four critical priorities that CHROs must address next year to ensure the health of their organization.

Most organizations today find that the needs of the business are evolving faster than HR can deliver.

“Many HR functions are trying to close that gap to the business by doubling down on process efficiency. This makes HR faster at executions, but not faster at delivering value,” said Whittle. “Leading organizations are looking outside of HR for answers, and they’ve found they can accelerate the right kind of value speed by adopting product principles.”

Today’s matrixed organizations blur ownership, while most corporate cultures reward teamwork and consensus. However, when it comes to AI, neglected accountability creates new organizational risk.

Enterprise AI agents are not just eliminating work, they systematically escalate ambiguity, judgment, and recovery work to human employees. Yet a July 2026 Gartner survey of 297 CHROs found that only 24% of leadership teams are aligned on who should be accountable for AI agents.

True accountability demands that humans remain the gatekeepers of AI, enforcing values, preserving trust, and stepping in when needed.

The July 2026 Gartner survey revealed that while 67% of CHROs report increased expectations for employee productivity, organizations are simultaneously eliminating some middle management layers and not hiring as many entry level employees. 

“A more load-bearing workforce heightens performance risks,” said Whittle. “While there are several levers HR can pull to alleviate some of the weight, the most critical tool is to focus on fewer skills that differentiate the organization’s value. This ‘less is more’ strategy is critical in an environment where the number of skills per job keeps rising every year.”

Once leaders identify the business capabilities that set their enterprise apart and drive competitive advantage, they can determine the workforce skills that their talent delivers to underpin each differentiated capability. Progressive organizations also acquire and mobilize employees with “skills promise” – the willingness and ability to learn from a minimum viable skills foundation – not just skills proficiency.

Currently, CEOs’ ambition exceeds leaders’ ability to execute against it. A May 2026 Gartner survey of 203 CEOs and other senior business executives found that 63% are radically redesigning the operating model to accelerate financial returns from AI. Unfortunately, their senior leadership is struggling to meet these expectations due to entrenched ways of working, lagging team performance, and critical knowledge gaps.

HR must work with leaders to embrace “deliberate disruption” as a capability by continuously abandoning legacy behaviors and ways of working that no longer create value and replacing them with ones that better align with evolving business needs.