In his keynote address for the May 2016 Elevate conference in NYC, Chris Gagnon (Solution Partner, McKinsey & Company) provides a bit of historical context around where the HR department sits within the organization and how they can elevate their own standing.  He points out that the CFO wasn't always regarded as a critical strategic partner until some changes forced them to "up their game".  Likewise, he sees this same transformation occurring to HR but points out that it must be facilitated by the CHRO and other HR practitioners supporting the strategic priorities of the business.  Many of our podcast guests talk about the cool things they're doing with analytics but Chris' perspective is very different: equal attention must be paid to building stakeholder consensus, how results are messaged, and the process for working with business leadership for HR to be able to move the needle.