HELP! - Reporting to CEO

shargold

As Corporate HR Manager I report directly to the CEO. Although he is supposed to be moving away from day-to-day operations, he is beginning to feel left out. I don't want to report every move I make (his background is in Sales and he doesn't seem very interested in HR issues anyway). Also, he wants to give his line managers a lot of autonomy, so I don't want to feel like a tattletale every time I advise or assist a manager.

If you are in this same position, what do you report and when? I realize that I need to address any risk of legal issues (i.e. employee complaints of harrasment, etc), but what other issues do you report?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

sonny

You may have already done this, but why not ask him what he would like information on?

shargold

He put the question back on me to tell him what other HR managers report to their CEO's!

NaeNae55

Then he has given you the authority to determine what he needs to know. Now it is up to you.

I report to my CEO. I tell her all the details of anything that might have a potential legal liability. On other issues I just give her a heads up so if someone mentions it to her she has an idea of what is going on. I try not to bore her with the day to day stuff, but as you can see, I sometimes have trouble knowing when to keep my mouth shut and stop talking.

Good luck!

HR in Okla

I also report to a CEO who is a hands-off kind of manager. He is a big change from the micro-manager I used to have. I make sure to give him a report on any issue that might have some kind of legal consequences for us, otherwise I think he expects me to handle the day to day stuff myself.

Good advice from the previous post...ask him.

HRQ

I also work at a corporate office, reporting directly to the CEO of a company of 400 employees, 17 locations.

He once said that if I think he should know, then I should tell him. If I feel like I have control of a situation, don't worry about telling him every little thing.

Fortunately, he trusts my judgement to to know when I am in over my head so I can ask for help.

Excluding recruitment advertising, I do ask for approval for any expense over $100, since he never gave me a budget or guidelines. I asked him for spending guidelines once, and he told me if he gave me a budget, I'd spent it all. (Of COURSE I would!) He said just use my best judgement, when in doubt, ASK, and he'd let me know if he became concerned about my spending. In two years, he hasn't said anything yet! (Maybe that means I should be spending MORE?)

Rockie

I report to the CEO, but I am also considered a member of the Sr. Management Team. Each member of our Sr. Management team has a weekly meeting set up with the CEO. Mine happens to be at 7AM on Thursday morning. Since we are both early birds, we are rarely interrupted at this time of day. This is not to say that things don't come up and meetings might be cancelled or postponed.

My CEO looks upon me as the HR expert (that's why he hired me). He trusts me to let him know what he needs to know. I don't tell him every single day to day issue that comes up, but only those things that might have legal liability to our practice.

As far as budget, I usually am able to get what I need to operate the Human Resources Department. I also have a credit card with a high balance on it in case I need it.

If your CEO is like mine, he probably has more on his plate than he can handle. Most CEOs don't want to be bothered with the mundane, day to day "crises" that happen in HR (and there are many!). Unless it involves potential liability or something where you feel he may be "blindsided" if he doesn't have knowledge of it, then I would not bother him with the details.

A lot of it,though, depends on your CEO's personality - some are hands on and some want their finger in everything.

Don D

Sounds as if he has given you pretty clear rein, at least starting out. I suspect that he will over time expect you to keep him posted on a number of things that today he might not want to know about. Sometimes, that catharsis is not a good thing as he wants to be more and more in the loop.

I recommend you 'brief' him on major things like ongoing complaints and disciplinary issues, just as a matter of courtesy. Hopefully he will respect your briefing and not bringing him into the loop on every detail, which is not practical or best practice. In a couple of months you will have gotten clear signals from him as to what you need to 'loop' him on. If you report in private briefing sessions or in a staff meeting of managers, watch his reaction closely to the reports of others as well as to your own. That will be a clear signal as to what he expects to know and what he can do without. You can clearly see if he is frustrated with protracted reports from others or if he gets into that sort of thing. He will clearly signal all of you if he is a 'move on and let's get it done' guy or one who wants to meet all day and pour over things that never let you put the tractor in gear.

Brief reports are in order on: staffing and disciplinary issues, policy changes, ongoing investigations (not in open staff meeting), your budget if you manage one, training generalities for the location, awards programs, the labor market in general, upcoming holiday schedules, manager's vacations, equipment needs for your department, and major things you know are on the horizon. Although it also will reward a selfish motive, always give him tidbit briefings on things that let him know you are valuable and a key player, like: general legal updates, things going on in the community that might impact or involve the facility, organizations/meetings you are going to, workplace trends that relate to your industry, brief mention of salary surveys and wage trends in the area, tidbits about healthcare policies, passing around fliers about workshops and seminars for other managers and employees and anything that will let him know you are on top of your job and your profession.

Find the time to duplicate and distribute to him and managers copies of those legal updates and M.Lee Smith Pulications you receive. I think if you do all these things you will set yourself apart as 'the go-to guy for all things HR or legal'. Thank your lucky stars that he is not so anal as to require you to run everything that goes on by him before you can act. Paralysis by analysis is the worst thing that can befall an HR professional - whether it's their own anal-ysis or someone else's.

moneyman

I think Don D has pretty much covered the subject. Until Don posted, I had not seen anyone mention policy changes and that was one big point I was going to bring up. I would discuss possible changes to existing policies or new policies to implement. Usually after every seminar I attend, I brief the Director on new trends etc. Along with all the recommendations regarding legal issues, I also always mentioned the status of ongoing projects. Sometimes we have long-term projects, and he doesn't need to know what I am doing every day on the projects, but as I hit certain key levels, or key points in the time line, then it is time to brief the Director.

mwild31

Here's a checklist I used (I too report to the CEO) - I used this list until the CEO and myself had developed a 'short-hand' with one another:

Coordination of Policy & Responsibility - to include special assignments
Orientations & Walk Arounds
Human Problem Solving
Communications with Employees/Staff, etc.
Salary Evaluations
Recruiting & Promoting
Reviewing Performance & Goals
Conducting Training & Development
Personnel File Updates
Supervising Discipline & Terminations
Managing Retirement and Benefit System
Conducting Health and Safety Programs
Legal Reviews & Updates
Overall Human Resource Appraising
Review Resources, Leadership Status and Depth with Management

Statistics:
Turnover (YTD)
# absent
# late
# cross trained

Budget - on track or off & what are the major levers coming up (i.e. health insurance increases, worker comp increases, etc.)