What is the future of the function?

The night before the press release announcing Tanya Reu-Narvaez as the new chief HR officer of Anywhere Real Estate was to be released, she contacted the CEO with a request: “Is there any chance you’re open to a different title?” she recalls asking.

Instead of CHRO, she thought “chief people officer” reflected her experience, her approach to leadership and her aspirations for evolving the function.

The CEO was on board for the shift, which she says “set the stage” for the function’s transformation in the last few years. In the last few months, Anywhere Real Estate—which employs about 8,000 across brands including Century 21 and Coldwell Banker—has renamed its Human Resources function to People Enablement.

The nomenclature itself signifies where the function is headed: “People Enablement is an action; Human Resources is a noun,” Reu-Narvaez says.

“For us, it’s about enabling growth, enabling better experiences, enabling a stronger collective culture across the enterprise,” she says.

Centering “HR” in the function’s title suggested that the organization’s employees are resources to be exhausted, Reu-Narvaez says, while the rebrand communicates the unit’s strategic work to empower talent.

“Really, it’s a step forward, a commitment to modernizing the function,” she says. “And we’re putting a stake in the ground for our people to hold us accountable to deliver differently.”

The move away from traditional “HR” titles is the next natural progression for the function, says Helena Pagano, chief people and culture officer at financial services company Sun Life Financial.

The focus on “HR” followed a shift away from “personnel” functions and roles.

“At the time, that [CHRO role] was considered progressive; it was a more gender-neutral title as we talked about ‘manpower,’ ” she says. Fundamentally, however, the language positions employees as “widgets or dollars.”

In more recent years, however, HR leaders haven’t simply found their seat at the table, but they have become among the most integral leaders at that table, Pagano says. This accelerated as organizations looked to their people functions and leaders to navigate modern transformations like the pandemic, evolving ways of working and tech integration.

That spotlight has led many leaders to acknowledge that employees can’t be viewed akin to inventory—and that it takes targeted work to unlock their value.

“There’s a lot to leverage in every individual person,” Pagano says. Optimizing what talent can bring to the organization, she adds, is contingent upon a culture that is intentionally designed and reinforced.

“That’s a far more strategic way of thinking about our investment in people than as just widgets or dollars on a balance sheet,” she says.

The ‘evolving’ nature of HR leadership

The strategic shift that titles like “chief people officer” represent may be picking up steam.

“I heard recently that the chief people officer title is one of the fastest-growing out there,” Reu-Narvaez says.

A 2024 analysis by Benson Executive Search of HR executive titles at the Fortune 50 found that 23 include CHRO, while 11—including half of the top 10—use chief people officer.

“Though the difference is subtle, the impact on how the role is perceived—by both employers and employees—can be significant,” researchers wrote in the report. “It underscores the evolving nature of leadership in HR and the growing recognition that people are a company’s most valuable asset.”

That was the spirit behind the title Alison Borland assumed when she took on the top people position at global workplace mental health platform this spring: chief people and strategy officer. Borland says she “thoughtfully developed” the name alongside the company CEO to reflect that, unlike at some organizations where HR is seen as a support role, at Modern Health, the “people strategy is the business strategy.”

“When you’re in the business of supporting employee mental health and solving the most pressing workforce challenges, your internal culture, your care model and your growth plans need to be in sync,” she says.

The deep connection between people and strategy, she says, is among the reasons she “felt so aligned with the company from day one.”

“This was a seat at the table to help shape where we’re headed as a company, with people and culture at the center.”

More than semantics

The proliferation of C-suite titles that center people or culture, and their impact on business strategy, is a “sign of progress and greater recognition” of the power of the function, Borland says.

“We’re moving from a world where HR was seen as administrative to one where it’s seen as strategic, future-facing and central to long-term success,” she says. “In my opinion, this shift signals a growing understanding that business performance and people strategy are deeply intertwined.”

That point is driven home by the challenges facing business leaders today: widespread burnout, changing employee expectations, wavering trust in leadership. All of these, Borland says, aren’t just HR challenges, but business challenges.

“And they require people leaders who can shape cultures that are resilient, inclusive and aligned with company goals,” she says.

Anjana Berde, chief people and culture officer of banking and financial services company Pathward, says that is the recognition her organization came to when it renamed its HR function to People and Culture.

“We wanted to make the statement that the culture you build within an organization is what helps you be great,” she says.

Connecting employees to something larger—through the culture, she says—requires a “very intentional approach.” When culture is strategically prioritized, she says, people leaders can be the architects of “creating excellence within the organization.”

How tech advances are shaping the role

The influence of AI in the coming years will make that mandate even more critical, Borland says, and will likely continue to fuel the expansion of traditional HR titles. These leaders will play a “central role” in ensuring organizations integrate emerging technology in a way that enhances employee experience and helps the workforce and organization “thrive in the AI age.”

The new titles, Borland notes, reflect much “more than semantics.”

“They represent a seat at the table where people leaders are helping to drive business strategy, not just support it,” she says. “That’s not only progress—it’s essential.”

That enhanced expectation carries weight.

Reu-Narvaez says people execs can no longer operate in “reactionary” mode, accustomed to older models, including those reflected in a title that casts talent as “resources.”

“Going forward, there’s an expectation we need to future-proof not just the function but the organization at large,” she says.

How to bring the vision to life

Reu-Narvaez agrees with Borland: Bringing the goal of a more strategic people function to fruition isn’t as simple as a name change.

“[At Anywhere Real Estate,] the rebrand wasn’t just about flipping a switch—but really trying to build a system that’s sustainable,” she says.

That’s why the effort started with a conversation with the CEO, with whom Reu-Narvaez explored the evolution of the talent strategy and the material impacts of Anywhere Real Estate’s people-first culture on business outcomes.

It was clear, she says, how the move to People Enablement would be the next step toward the “growth and modernization” of the function and organization. The CEO was “so on board he almost spilled the beans” to her team, she laughs.

The entire leadership team, she adds, was behind the effort, envisioning it as a “tangible strategic initiative.”

As the people team sought to bring the goal of “people enablement” to life, Reu-Narvaez says, they leaned into the three pillars of the company’s talent strategy:

• shape teams in a way that enables the organization to move with speed;
• simplify and integrate, leveraging technology, to maximize value and efficiency; and
• unleash culture, with a focus on inspiring innovation.

‘The right path forward’

To equip her team for the transformation, Reu-Narvaez last fall released a playbook to help people professionals understand the current state of the function—informed by surveys of the workforce at large and the extended leadership team of 150 top leaders—and the vision for its future. Spelling out specific “from and to” exercises to demonstrate how the reimagined function would come to life in the day-to-day was key.

For instance, one of People Enablement’s principles is “people over processes.”

“Many organizations have been writing policies for anomalies,” she says. “Let’s put that aside and think about how we go from supporting talent to enabling talent, focusing on growth in non-traditional ways.”

As the function moves away from “the black and white” and becomes more “fluid and gray,” feedback and consistent communication have been critical. Just last week, Reu-Narvaez hosted a companywide meeting on the rebrand, with an emphasis on interactive participation.

“The purpose is, how can we co-create our future together, under the guise of People Enablement?” she says.

That shift has already been underway in the last few years—and the data proves its worth, she says: Anywhere Real Estate is seeing its strongest retention rate in six years and some of the highest-ever engagement results across every category considered.

“That’s all happening,” she says, “as our industry is in the midst of a significant transformation. But even with that industry uncertainty, this shows that, directionally, this is the right path forward.”