When I sit in board meetings, I can usually tell within minutes whether there is a genuine people voice in the room.
It is not about someone from HR being present, it is about whether the conversation shows empathy, curiosity and an understanding of how people actually work - what motivates them, what holds them back and what builds trust or creates fear.
Many boards still see HR as a function rather than a lens. They value human capital as a cost centre instead of a strategic asset and that is where the problem begins.
The Data Behind the Gap
Despite years of progress in governance and diversity, UK boards remain light on people expertise.
The message is clear: Boards constantly talk about people yet rarely include a people expert in the conversation.
The Real Risk of Excluding HR
Almost every major board crisis of the past decade has started with people.
Cultural drift, leadership misalignment, or poor communication, but none of these problems can be solved by finance or compliance alone.
Boards that lack HR expertise often miss early warning signs such as rising attrition, inconsistent leadership behaviour, or disengagement at key transition points. By the time those issues reach the boardroom, the damage has usually been done.
Having a senior HR voice at the table changes that. It ensures that discussions about numbers also include context about morale and capacity, that risk assessments consider human behaviour, not just systems and that succession planning becomes proactive instead of reactive.
The Strategic Power of HR Insight
Exceptional HR leaders have a rare ability to read an organisation, they see patterns in people behaviour that others overlook.
A skilled HR Director reads an organisation the way a CFO reads a balance sheet., not in numbers, but in signals. They see how leadership tone affects retention, how structure influences motivation and how culture shapes performance.
When that insight is present in the boardroom, decision-making improves, strategy becomes more realistic and more humane and companies make better calls on growth, transformation and risk because they understand the capacity of the people behind the plan.
I recently spoke with Tess Hilson-Greener who has 30+ years of global experience leading HR transformation across corporates, government, and private equity-backed businesses. She commented,
“HR is changing from a supporter of strategy to a shaper of it. It enables boards to see beyond metrics and into meaning understanding not just what was delivered, but how it was achieved and at what human cost or gain.
“In the decade ahead, HR’s will take on new board-level roles such as Chief People Strategists, AI Governance Officers, and Workforce Architects sitting alongside CFOs and COOs as equal stewards of organisational intelligence and value creation.
“The HR professionals who recognise this shift early will lead the organisations of the future invited onto boards by merit, not mandate. They will earn their place through insight, foresight, and measurable impact, redefining what leadership looks like in the AI-centred decade ahead.”
The UK Context
The UK’s regulators and investors are already signalling that people insight is no longer optional.
The FRC Corporate Governance Code 2024 expects boards to explain how culture supports strategy, not only how performance links to targets. The Investment Association Stewardship Priorities 2025 list human capital management alongside climate and technology as a top focus for governance.
People expertise has become strategic and boards that fail to include it risk appearing out of touch.
Why It Matters to Investors and CEOs
Investors increasingly recognise that culture and leadership quality determine whether strategy translates into performance. A London Business School Governance Insight Study 2024 found that boards with HR representation achieved 17% higher return on invested capital following major organisational change compared with those without.
For CEOs, a people-focused voice at board level acts as ballast, because it grounds decisions in reality and sends a signal across the workforce that people truly matter.
Why Friisberg UK
At Friisberg & Partners International, we believe leadership begins with people so when we assess or advise boards, we look carefully at how directors listen, challenge and communicate.
We work closely with HR Directors across the UK who are redefining what modern leadership looks like. They are commercially sharp, emotionally intelligent and structurally influential. They are not back-office operators, they are strategic anchors.
Our role is to help boards recognise that value and embed it in governance. When people insight informs strategy, performance follows.
Final Reflection
The strongest boards understand a simple truth: you cannot govern what you do not understand and you cannot understand an organisation without understanding its people.
Question for reflection: If your board was making a critical decision tomorrow, who would be the voice reminding them what it means for the people who make it happen?
