Blog - CPO - BLOG | Unlocking Value as CPO

BLOG | Unlocking Value as CPO

CPOs are navigating an era of rapid disruption: shaping workforce strategy, managing an evolving talent landscape, meeting rising expectations from the Board and acting as architects of organisational transformation. The scope and pressure of the role have never been greater.

This was made abundantly clear at our recent CPO Retreat 2026, where we brought together CPOs and senior HR leaders from a range of sectors and geographies to examine how people strategy is evolving to meet the demands of growth, transformation and organisational resilience.

Photos taken at the Criticaleye's CPO Retreat, February 2026

In a poll, we asked guests what they believed the biggest people risks would be over the next 12 months. The top responses were skills gaps (37 percent) and employee engagement and trust (35 percent). This highlights the challenge CPOs face in keeping pace with evolving business needs and technological change, while ensuring the workforce remains engaged and motivated.

There is also growing pressure from the Board. Over half of respondents (51 percent) said that driving workforce performance and productivity has risen up the Board agenda.

Polls taken at Criticaleye's CPO Retreat, February 2026

This places greater responsibility on CPOs to strengthen both workforce capability and engagement to ensure organisations can deliver strategy and mitigate risk in the year ahead. These will be critical levers for sustaining performance, enabling transformation and maintaining organisational resilience.

(Read this article to find out more about the conversations around the race to improve productivity from the Retreat.)

Leadership and management capability was also identified as the biggest capability gap by people leaders in the room (40 percent). Developing the qualities to be a strategic partner within the business will therefore be essential if CPOs are to influence organisational outcomes and meet the increasing pressure to deliver value.

Poll taken at Criticaleye's CPO Retreat, February 2026

CPOs also signalled that change is needed within the wider leadership team. In a word cloud asking what bold HR transformation they would prioritise if resources were unlimited, leadership emerged as the clear focus.

This highlights that, for many CPOs, developing leadership capability is the single most important lever they would pull to strengthen the organisation and its workforce.

To achieve this, CPOs and other leaders must actively develop the mindsets, behaviours and skills required to lead in a rapidly changing environment. It is the CPO’s role to champion this development — influencing the wider leadership team, modelling the behaviours they want to see and embedding a culture that enables people to thrive.

At Criticaleye, we support CPOs in unlocking this value by providing peer connections, strategic insight and practical guidance that help them accelerate leadership development, drive workforce engagement and translate people strategy into tangible organisational outcomes.

Get in touch to find out more.