The role of CHRO has become increasingly complex since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, with CEOs and boards of directors calling on HR executives to not only lead strategically in a variety of new areas—from return-to-office mandates to an employee mental health crisis—but also to have a firm grasp of the business itself, advises former Google CHRO and HR expert Laszlo Bock.

Bock, who is a fellow with the National Academy of HR and was named the Human Resource Executive HR Executive of the Year in 2010, today is co-faculty director of the Berkeley Transformative CHRO Leadership Program. He frequently sees how modern HR leaders are being challenged; the business understanding required, for example, goes well beyond and deeper than familiarity with a company's products and services, he says.

CHROs and candidates for such challenging roles need to know much more, says Bock, also a co-founder and former CEO of Humu, the nudge-theory-based HR tech solution now owned by Perceptyx.