Higher education HR leaders have always had broad portfolios, but the expectations of the role continue to expand. Institutions are asking HR to help rethink workforce models, navigate financial pressure, introduce new technologies, strengthen leadership pipelines, improve culture and employee experience, and manage increasingly complex regulatory issues. At the same time, the core work of HR does not go away.

That tension is hardly unique to higher education. Deloitte recently analyzed how C-suite roles have changed and found that the number of unique skills expected of CHROs increased 23% over five years, the largest increase among the executive roles it studied. Just as important, Deloitte found little evidence that older skill requirements were being removed as new ones were added. In other words, the CHRO portfolio is expanding more than it is changing hands from one priority to another.

You can see the same dynamic in the conversations planned for this year's CUPA-HR Annual Conference. The agenda includes sessions on redesigning HR delivery under financial pressure, leading institution-wide AI adoption, navigating campus crises, strengthening organizational culture, and developing senior leaders. These are not narrow HR initiatives. They require HR leaders to work across finance, technology, academic leadership, and the broader institution.

For many CHROs, then, the question is not whether this work needs to happen or even what needs to change. The harder question is how to create enough leadership capacity to do the work well while continuing to run the function.

Sometimes the challenge is capacity, not leadership

I spent nearly 30 years at The Ohio State University, including 14 years as vice president and chief human resources officer for the university and medical center. My responsibilities touched compensation, benefits, labor relations, enterprise systems, leadership development, strategic planning, wellness, talent, and culture transformation. More recently, I have served in interim CHRO assignments at institutions including Connecticut College, St. Petersburg College, Brandeis University, and the University of Maine.

Having worked from both perspectives, I have come to think we sometimes define interim leadership too narrowly. When people hear "interim CHRO," they understandably picture a vacancy: a senior leader leaves, the institution needs experienced leadership quickly, and an interim steps in until a permanent successor is selected. That remains an important use of interim leadership, but it is not the only one.

A sitting CHRO may know exactly where the HR organization needs to go and still not have the leadership bandwidth to personally drive every part of the transformation. Perhaps the institution needs to rethink a decentralized HR model, implement a major technology change, reorganize part of the function, address a difficult retention problem, or redesign how HR services are delivered. Those efforts require sustained attention, stakeholder engagement, and follow-through at the same time the existing leadership team remains accountable for everything already on its plate.

That distinction matters. Bringing in additional leadership capacity does not necessarily indicate that the current team lacks ability. In many situations, it reflects the opposite: a leader has recognized that consequential work needs enough focus and experience to be done properly rather than simply added to someone's already full portfolio.

The workforce challenges are not waiting

The demands on HR are also coming at a time when the higher education workforce remains under considerable pressure. CUPA-HR's 2025 Employee Retention Survey, based on responses from 3,791 employees at 505 institutions, found that one in four higher education employees was likely or very likely to look for another job within the next year. More than half of those employees had already submitted at least one application during the prior 12 months.

The reasons extend beyond compensation. Employees considering other opportunities also pointed to promotion opportunities, workplace culture, job-related stress, remote work and, increasingly, job security. CUPA-HR also found a sizable gap between the work arrangements employees have and those they prefer: 28% reported working in a hybrid or remote arrangement, while 61% said they would prefer one.

At the same time, technology is forcing another set of decisions. SHRM's research on CHRO priorities and perspectives found that 90% of surveyed CHROs expected AI integration in the workplace to become more prevalent, while 83% expected AI to play a larger role in HR tasks and processes. Yet those same leaders were also anticipating greater emphasis on employee well-being, rapid skill development, and human-centered leadership.

The work, in other words, is not simply about introducing technology or finding efficiencies. HR leaders are being asked to rethink how work gets done while also addressing how employees experience and obtain the training to enact those changes. That is change management in the fullest sense of the term, and it takes time and leadership attention.

Interim leadership can create room for change

This is where I believe institutions can think more expansively about interim executives. An interim HR leader does not necessarily need to replace the CHRO or even occupy the top HR position. The better starting question is:

Where does the institution need experienced leadership capacity for a defined period of time?

An interim executive might take responsibility for a major transformation while the CHRO continues to lead the broader function. The person could oversee a specific HR area during a period of redesign, assess an operating model and lead implementation of the resulting changes, stabilize a team that has experienced turnover, or take ownership of a complex technology, process, or organizational initiative. In another situation, the interim might allow an internal leader to concentrate on a larger institutional priority without leaving a critical HR function underserved.

The assignment should be specific. The best interim work I have been part of has had clarity around what the institution is trying to accomplish, where the interim has authority to act, how the work connects with the CHRO and institutional leadership, and what should be stronger or different when the engagement concludes.

My own interim assignments have involved reorganizing HR systems, structures, and staffing; changing how the HR office works with the broader institution; strengthening service models; and helping institutions prepare for long-term leadership. Different campuses require different solutions, but one lesson has been consistent: major change benefits when someone has the time and mandate to stay focused on it.

That point is reinforced by one of the case studies on this year's CUPA-HR agenda. At the University of Connecticut, an interim vice president and CHRO participated in a 100-day assessment informed by more than 400 interviews. The work produced a roadmap spanning organizational model, process, technology, and culture. It is a useful example of what an interim period can enable when the mandate extends beyond keeping operations running.

An outside perspective can help without ignoring institutional context

Experienced interim leaders can also bring perspective from other organizations. Someone who has worked across several institutions has seen different organizational models, different ways of delivering HR services, and different approaches to similar workforce problems. That experience can help a team distinguish between a constraint that is truly unique to its institution and a practice that has simply become familiar over time.

That does not mean the interim arrives with a prepackaged answer. Higher education institutions have distinctive histories, governance structures, cultures, and relationships. A solution that worked well at one university may be completely wrong for another. Good interim leadership starts with listening, understanding the context, and earning trust before concluding.

What an outside perspective can do is broaden the set of questions an institution is willing to ask. Are responsibilities sitting in the right places? Is a process still accomplishing what it was originally designed to accomplish? Where is work being duplicated? Which decisions should be centralized, and which are better made closer to colleges, schools, or departments? Does the structure of HR match what the institution now needs from the function?

Those questions are particularly important when resources are constrained. One CUPA-HR conference session this year is explicitly focused on redesigning HR delivery under financial pressure, including diagnosing structural redundancy and designing new service models. An experienced interim can give a CHRO additional capacity to pursue that kind of work without forcing the permanent team to choose between transformation and daily operations.

The permanent team should be stronger when the interim leaves

An interim engagement should ultimately strengthen the people who will remain at the institution. If an executive comes in to lead a transformation, part of the assignment should be transferring knowledge, developing internal leaders, clarifying responsibilities, and helping the organization sustain the changes after that individual has moved on.

This is especially important because adding every new institutional priority to the strongest members of the existing team is not always a development strategy. Sometimes it simply creates overload. Giving a defined body of work to an experienced interim can allow permanent leaders to spend more time developing their own teams, planning succession, and deciding where internal talent is ready to take on greater responsibility.

The goal should therefore be larger than completing a project or covering a role. At the end of a strong interim engagement, the institution should understand the issue better, have stronger systems or structures in place, and have permanent leaders who are better positioned to carry the work forward. The interim's departure should be evidence that the assignment worked as intended, not the beginning of another gap.

A broader way to think about interim leadership

Leadership vacancies will always be an important reason institutions turn to interim executives. I have done that work, and I know the value of giving an institution stability and experienced leadership while it determines what comes next. But the demands facing HR today suggest another use case that deserves more attention.

When a CHRO has a consequential transformation ahead, a function that needs focused leadership, or simply more strategic work than the existing team can responsibly absorb, interim leadership can provide flexible executive capacity for a defined purpose. It allows the institution to match experienced leadership to a moment of need without assuming that every significant challenge requires a permanent new position or that the existing team should simply absorb more.

For HR leaders already managing an expanding agenda, that is the larger opportunity. Interim leadership does not have to begin with someone leaving. It can be one of the tools a sitting CHRO uses to help the institution change while ensuring the work that already matters keeps getting done.

‍