What’s keeping CPOs up at night?
What are the biggest challenges faced by HR leaders in the next 12 to 24 months?
In 2022 LACE Partners asked 30 CPOs from a wide variety of industries and company sizes, to provide the answer to a simple question on “what their ‘one big thing’ is for the next 12 to 24 months”.
This exercise was conducted through a variety of methods, including face-to-face
interviews, online interviews as well as through a focus group held in July 2022.
Download our latest whitepaper
Why ask this question?
The amount of change at work, in the economy and society, is making the working lives of Chief People Officers and their HR teams more complex. The conflict in the Ukraine in 2022 continues to be an issue and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Covid remains a daily part of our lives. A recession is starting to take hold; energy prices are skyrocketing, and the cost-of-living crisis is becoming a reality across the UK and other parts of the globe.
The pandemic and the economic situation across the globe has forced a radical rethink on the employee/employer dynamic and nature of work itself. At LACE Partners we seek to understand and help our clients deal with the biggest business and people issues they are facing. To gain insight into these issues, we have conducted this research and will continue to deep dive into the core themes which have emerged.
What this report covers
In this initial launch piece we explore the top three ‘one big thing’s that are on CPO/CHROs agenda and as we move in to 2023 the team at LACE will be focusing on how HR teams can tackle these pressing challenges through a variety of different content themes and channels (videos, webinars, blogs, podcasts and networking events – all designed to help bring HR teams from a variety of sectors together to learn how to tackle those ‘one big thing’ issues. Download the report today to find out about the top three themes and get in touch with our team today to talk to us about what your ‘one big thing’ is that is your focus right now.
Meet our authors:

Chris Horton
Director

Cathy Acratopulo
Co-founder and MD

Emma Leonis-Hughes
Client Executive Director, HR Transformation
Emma is an experienced, highly skilled HR transformation director, specialising in HR strategy and operating model design and implementation. She has led complex, global change programmes to effectively optimise how organisations deliver HR services and redefine the employee experience for both a ‘connected’ and ‘unconnected’ workforce, with clients across a multitude of industries within the Private Sector and Financial Services. Emma spent over 10 years at Deloitte before joining LACE Partners in early 2018 as Executive Director of HR Transformation. She brings a pragmatic approach to transformation, working with clients to develop change plans which are simple, effective and always tied back to clear business outcomes.
Read our other whitepapers below:
Why it’s time to accelerate the digital agenda – embracing the buyers’ market for HR technology
At LACE we pride ourselves on our knowledge and understanding of the HR tech landscape. Today’s blog is an overview of a round table discussion we ran in March 2021, discussing with some of our HR Tech Advisory Team why it is a buyers' market for HR tech products...
Reinventing HR post pandemic
Chris and Emma are joined by Charlie Knox from SDWorx to discuss their latest white paper, which looked at survey results of over 3000 respondents to the changes that HR teams are expecting to occur after the pandemic, including the improving of employee experience as...
Develop your career with LACE Partners
Here's a short video on what it is like to work for LACE Partners. If you are interested then get in touch with us, fill in the form below, we'll be happy to help! https://youtu.be/kBwIjRHW9oM Explore these resources: Life @ LACE Why LACE Our people




