Data, the fuel that lets AI systems learn, is the backbone of modern business. So HR leaders must help their teams derive greater value from that data for such tasks as identifying talent gaps, assessing employee performance, enhancing talent planning, and aligning talent with changing business needs.

To step up, many HR leaders say they need to move beyond managing people who understand data, to understanding it themselves. Nearly half (48%) of survey respondents believe they need to become more analytical to do so.

“Most of us are moving from data as insight to data as action,” says Larson. Rather than scan reports on past and current metrics, “now we want to see the predictive data and models.” She believes that HR leaders who don’t build this muscle for interpretation and insights will be held back.

For example, Larson says other leaders will want the CHRO to mine data to find linkages between HR and other parts of the company. What’s the connection, for example, between investments in high-potential employee programs and overall attrition and employee satisfaction rates in various functions? Does it help in sales but hurt in engineering?

Business leaders in other functions already look for these linkages. “Their expectation is that we CHROs do the same,” Larson says. “We have to know our data and be able to interpret it and use it predictably.”