Good morning!
Love them or hate them, New Year’s resolutions offer a chance for anyone to start the year with a clean slate and define their ambitions for the coming months. Business leaders are certainly no exception.
I reached out to the CHROs from 10 companies, including Estée Lauder, Papa Johns, and Walmart, asking them to share their hopes for 2024, and what they plan to focus their energies on.
Their answers ran the gamut, from providing better support for middle managers, to concentrating on retaining talent. Several themes echoed across resolutions as a whole, including better investment into AI, emphasizing employee wellbeing, and improving employee learning and skills development.
Cori Davis, the chief people officer at biotechnology company Genentech, took a big picture approach to her resolution, and noted that the last several years have been difficult for everyone. Her goal is to “bring more joy and energy into the workplace.”
Others like Colleen McKeown, the CHRO at real estate investment trust company Prologis, drilled down into more specifics. She said her resolution was to work with the CTO to build an AI-focused team to execute the company’s AI strategy. She also plans to focus on succession planning, and “ensuring that all very senior roles have two identified successors and all successors have a development plan.”
You can read our list of responses from CHROs here.
Paige McGlauflin
[email protected]
@paidion
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
- U.S. Employers added 216,000 jobs in December, signaling still-strong economic growth. Though the labor force contracted by nearly 700,000 workers, the unemployment rate remained at 3.7%, making it 23 months that unemployment has clocked in under 4%. New York Times
- Lululemon is distancing itself from founder Chip Wilson’s comments disparaging diversity and inclusion. “Chip has not been involved with the company since his resignation from the board in 2015 and we are a very different company today,” a spokesperson said. The Hill
- More women are opening up about their menopause experience in the workplace—a topic that was once considered taboo. Bloomberg
- Americans’ retirement account balances ended 2023 at a record high, and they’re expected to increase in 2024. But the amount of taxes these retirees will owe is also expected to rise. Wall Street Journal
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Coins2Day .
Scared silent. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X late last week that many of his Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab peers feel uncomfortable speaking out about the ongoing conflict in Gaza out of fear that it would hurt their careers. —Orianna Rosa Royle
Getting litigious. Elon Musk is suing the National Labor Relations Board after it filed a lawsuit alleging his company SpaceX illegally fired employees. Musk is claiming the federal agency lacks proper accountability and oversight. —Christiaan Hetzner
Trust is key. Managers have to be open and honest about their reasons for returning to the office if they want workers to comply. —Eamon Barrett
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