Feature
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | September 24, 2026
The Identity Crisis Disrupting the HR Department
A new poll suggests that HR leaders are having an identity crisis, if not an existential one. The 2027 State of People Strategy report from Lattice, the people-management software company, found that 55% of HR leaders globally say they’re considering changing careers. In the U.S., the figure is a bit higher, at 58%. HR teams are shrinking in size but growing in complexity, and it’s driving many HR leaders to burnout. The never-ending cycle of changes brought on by new technologies—AI, in particular—as well as the department’s growing responsibilities and economic instability, have taken their toll. Arguably, no other department has undergone such a dramatic evolution in so little time. The evolution from administrator to strategic player took place in less than a decade and has presented new opportunities for specialization as well as business contribution, but it’s also driven many to exhaustion. Thirty-five percent of HR leaders say the department operates in a perpetual state of crisis.In the past year alone, HR leaders have rolled out AI tools, absorbed new compliance requirements, and been asked to redesign work itself, all without significantly growing their teams. Thanks to all the ways AI is automating and accelerating the daily work of HR, many predict (or at least worry) that HR departments will ultimately shrink in size. Yet there’s no apparent worry that they will shrink in influence. Instead of adding more jobs, HR leaders are simply creating different ones to shoulder growing responsibilities. Today’s HR departments are filled with technologists, data analysts, and lawyers, transforming what the function looks like from the inside. As the HR department has expanded its influence, it has also expanded its role diversity. About ten years ago, tech workers entered HR the department to handle the growing number of digital tools and apps. Then came the analysts who would handle the growing lakes of data collected by those tools. A few years later, attorneys popped up, many of them in the function’s senior-most role. Maral Kazanjian had spent a career in the general counsel’s office before moving into the chief people officer role, first at WeWork and later at Moody’s, where she is today. Kazanjian told From Day One that she felt she had effectively been moonlighting as an HR professional from her seat as an attorney since employment matters routinely landed on her desk.The shape of the department is entirely different than it was just a handful of years ago, and hardly recognizable against its 20th-century self. In early 2024, Deloitte heralded the arrival “boundaryless HR,” in which the HR team moves from center of excellence to a function embedded in every team across the organization, “cocreated and integrated with the people, business, and community it serves.” While the influence of the HR department and its chief executive is certainly widening, its component roles are changing. As influence stretches outward, the department finds itself in need of a greater variety of skills, so new team members are moving in. Claire Borelli, the CHRO of the retirement services provider TIAA, said during a fireside chat at From Day One’s Philadelphia conference this week that the operationalization of AI is finally giving HR pride of place. “I’ve been in the HR function a really, really long time, and I’ve always felt like, no matter what, we were laggards,” she said. HR was always tasked with reacting to circumstances—Covid, the Great Resignation, return to office—rather than leading the business through them. Now, however, “I feel as though we’re the leader,” Borelli said. “At the end of the day, [AI] is not a technology play, it’s a human-capital play, and I know my CEO is looking to me to understand and help drive the new ways of working.”As HR industry analyst Josh Bersin told From Day One, “the function is changing across every domain.” HR as a Center of InnovationNew arrivals to the HR department “highlight a broader transformation,” said Amani Gharib, director of HR research and advisory services at McLean & Company. “They signal a shift toward HR serving as a hub for innovation, using technology and analytics not just to manage workforce processes, but to anticipate workforce needs, drive engagement, and create measurable business outcomes.” Gharib noted the addition of roles like HR business managers, who fill a kind of chief-of-staff role, HR technology strategists, and project managers.During a From Day One webinar in December, Marvie Wright, the VP of learning and development at Qualfon, described two new roles on her team. An project manager to help with the growing work load, and programmers to handle new AI developments. “The possibilities are endless and my company is excited to invest in those areas because we know this is leading to a more enhanced future.”It’s very likely that AI-specific roles will appear more frequently. Bersin explained that HR will likely need a chief AI leader to handle the techAI strategy, and maybe even a chief HR data leader to handle data and compliance. The industry analysts at Korn Ferry forecast that the new AI manager roles may be filled by entry-level workers—an encouraging prediction for those worried about AI wiping out too many early career roles.As the role of CHRO becomes more and more complicated, Bersin said that some HR departments are exploring the establishment of more chief HR operations leaders and chief learning officers, while others are assigning other HR leaders to help other teams redesign their work around AI.As for who is filling new roles–HR practitioners or those outside the department—that’s an issue for each company to explore based on its resources, said McLean & Company’s Gharib. While some HR teams are actively training themselves for new roles, specifically in tech, others are hiring from other functions for access to specialized skills.“HR business partners are not fully ready for these new responsibilities,” according to Bersin, “and all the new AI and data systems are unfamiliar territory. This creates a massive need for upskilling.”Some companies are expanding the function through internal mergers, like Moderna, which combined HR and IT departments in 2025. While a move this bold remains very rare, McLean & Company predicts in its 2026 HR Trends report that HR and IT will ultimately be stronger together.HR as a Strategic Workforce PlannerIn late 2025, the Economist reported that while HR has taken over the business world, AI could ultimately shrink it. Given the ways AI is automating the work of HR teams, it’s not an unreasonable prediction, and it has many practitioners worried about their future job prospects. While academics have observed dents made in tech and customer service roles thanks to AI, human resources hasn’t made that list, at least not yet. If it continues to shift its weight into tech roles, one wonders if that could change. Thirty-nine percent of HR leaders report feeling undervalued in 2026, per Lattice’s survey.Gallup’s leadership and culture researcher Vibhas Ratanjee wrote for Forbes that HR leaders needn’t build empires, but networks instead. Given its new diversity of job functions, that network may form naturally.It’s not completely out of the ordinary for HR practitioners to have pretty deep tech skills–HR information systems jobs have been around for five years or more, for example–so it’s not as if HR teams aren’t capable of filling the new roles themselves. Yet, industry analyst Josh Bersin said, the department is increasingly attracting people from outside the function.“I think the days of ‘HR doing HR’ are slowly going away,” Bersin said. “Now it’s about ‘HR building and integrating tools that do HR,’ and that’s an entirely new and exciting type of role.”How Schools Are Preparing Students for the New HR DepartmentUniversity programs are responding to the new variety of skills needed in the HR discipline. Christopher To, an assistant professor of HR management at Rutgers University, is teaching a new class on AI in HR. The course builds basic skills, like how large language models are built and how they work. They’ll be looking for case studies to explore. “Go on Google. Ask AI. You’ll get a deep research report on how AI is being used in a particular context–recruiting, training, what have you,” he said. “What’s much more useful is learning how to identify new ways to use AI in HR. He aid that it’s actually product-management skills–like identifying problems, designing and executing solutions, and then managing stakeholders–which believes will equip students to come up with new use cases once they join the HR field. This fall, Cornell University’s industrial and labor relations school is adding a graduate-level course on AI in HR, taught by a newly minted computer science PhD. His undergraduate degree? HR. It’s the first time the school has hired someone without an HR background to teach in the department. “He’s got an HR heart and soul to him,” said Chris Collins, professor of HR studies and director of the master’s program.As a director of the program, Collins has spent years talking to employers about what they want from HR grads, and lately, they want data-savvy new hires. Twenty-five years ago, he said, quantitative skills really weren’t on anyone’s wish list. But what hasn’t changed across decades is that employers want smart people who can learn, and learn quickly.One skill that Collins is keen for his students to develop is influence. “How do you be courageous?” he said. “How do you stand up when everyone else wants to do something that’s not right or isn’t right for employees? How do you have a stronger voice? How do you really make your case?” Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Bulat Silvia/iStock)
