Where you plant your roots makes all the difference, especially for a CHRO.

HR Brew, using a data analysis provided by Live Data Technologies, reviewed the educational and professional histories of more than 16,400 current CHROs and CPOs to identify trends in their journeys to the C-suite. Based on our findings, and conversations with HR experts, the path to the top of HR doesn’t appear to be too different from that of any other function: Where you go to school is important, but where you build your career is even more crucial.

Get B-schooled. Where you go to school isn’t everything, but some universities seem to offer CHRO hopefuls a better chance at landing atop the HR throne. The most-attended schools, according to Live Data Technologies’ analysis, include those with top-notch HR curriculums.

Cornell, the most-attended school in our dataset, has an undergraduate industrial labor relations program that’s known to have produced top HR chiefs, including Intel’s Christy Pambianchi, IBM’s Nickle LaMoreaux, and Nordstrom’s Farrell Redwine. Six Big Ten business schools were among the top 20 universities, including Michigan State, Penn State, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Purdue, and Ohio State.

Keep reading here.—PM

The path to the C-suite is evolving, and executives in the HR space are at the center of the shift.

Between 2022 and 2023, chief human resources officer (CHRO) was the third-fastest growing C-suite role on LinkedIn, according to an analysis of executives at S&P 500 companies and unicorn startups recently released by the company’s economic graph team. Chief people officer (CPO) claimed the ninth spot on LinkedIn’s list of the 10 fastest-growing C-suite jobs.

This growth is, in part, a reflection of the shifting expectations for HR leaders in light of new technological advancements, Aneesh Raman, LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer, told HR Brew.

Talent takes center stage. When it comes to AI, the role of CHROs and CPOs is increasingly intersecting with that of CEOs and chief technology officers (CTO), Raman said.

Keep reading here.—CV

Global advisory, broking and solutions firm WTW is pitching a new benefit that would allow employees to direct money from their employers toward a wider array of financial perks beyond retirement, including student loan repayments and health savings accounts.

This arrangement is possible thanks to a private letter ruling from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that WTW helped secure for an employer it advised. The organization, which is unnamed for now, wanted to give employees the choice to put a percentage of funds that would have otherwise gone into a 401(k) retirement plan toward other types of accounts, including an educational assistance program for student loan payments or a health savings account. If an employee elected not to allocate this share of the employer contribution into one of these alternative accounts, it would automatically go to their 401(k) account.

The IRS gave this company permission to restructure their benefits this way in a letter dated Aug. 23. WTW is now advising other employers who would like to do the same, according to Chris West, defined contribution strategy leader.

Giving workers more choices. With this new program, employees “get to make the decisions based on their unique circumstances,” West said.

Keep reading here.—CV