Building cultures where ideas compound

Traba: Ryan, you mentioned that a small group you worked with at Walmart earlier in your career has since produced multiple CHROs and senior HR leaders. What made that team special?

Ryan Loken: We respected each other and built on each other’s ideas. Ego stayed at the door. There was no such thing as a bad idea. Instead of tearing ideas down, we tried to add to them.

None of us were chasing titles. We cared about the people we supported and the impact we could have. When you combine mutual respect with shared ambition for impact, not status, you create a culture where innovation happens naturally.

And culture isn’t what’s written on the wall. It’s how people show up every day.

Leading with humility, not authority

Traba: How do you bring that low-ego culture into teams you lead today?

Ryan: It starts with asking questions. Many roles I’ve moved into, I didn’t have deep experience in the function itself. So the only way to lead effectively is to learn from the people already doing the work.

Leaders don’t need to be the subject matter experts. Our job is to help bring the expertise and creativity of our teams forward and help frame those ideas so they resonate with the people making decisions.

And you have to put politics aside. Too many leaders worry about how decisions reflect on them. I care more about what decisions do for the team and the business. That shift in focus changes how you lead.

HR needs to stop celebrating programs and start proving impact

Traba: Where do you see HR leaders sometimes miss the mark when they talk about innovation?

Ryan: A lot of HR conversations focus on programs people launched or initiatives they can attach their name to. But when you ask why they did it or what impact it had, the conversation often breaks down.

If you can’t connect your work to business impact or meaningful improvement for employees, it doesn’t matter how polished the program looks.

What works in one company or industry may not work in another. HR leaders need to talk about outcomes, not just activity.

What to look for when hiring people leaders

Traba: When you’re hiring or building a team, what signals tell you someone will succeed?

Ryan: Motivation matters first. Why do they want the job?

Then I look for whether they bring ideas before they even have the role. Have they researched the company? Are they thinking about how they can contribute? Or are they just repeating what worked somewhere else?

If everything else is equal, I’ll take the person with passion who wants to make an impact and can think through problems thoughtfully.

HR’s shift from compliance police to business partner

Traba: How have you seen the HR leadership role change over time?

Ryan: Earlier in my career, HR often played the role of the compliance cop. Investigations, enforcement, policy adherence. Very black and white.

Today, HR operates more in the gray. Yes, compliance still matters. But now we’re also helping build talent strategies tied to financial performance, business growth, and operational realities.

HR is now involved in mergers, acquisitions, automation decisions, and product strategy discussions. Because every business decision ultimately impacts people.

I think we’re seeing strong CHROs become true enterprise leaders. And honestly, I think more CHROs will become CEOs in the future because they already operate across the entire business.

Every human conversation is data

Traba: Large organizations make it hard for leaders to stay close to frontline sentiment. How do you balance conversations with data and technology?

Ryan: I strongly believe every conversation can become data.

Supervisors talk with employees daily. Leaders run engagement surveys. Teams conduct focus groups and audits. All of those interactions contain insight.

We audit safety and compliance constantly. We should also audit how people feel, how policies work in practice, and how teams experience their environment.

When you combine supervisor input, surveys, interviews, and audits, patterns emerge. You can then connect people data with operational metrics. For example, if orders and output demands increase but absenteeism also rises and throughput falls, there’s probably a story behind it. Maybe people are working excessive overtime. Maybe burnout is increasing. The data helps you ask the right questions.

The conversations are already happening. We just need to capture and connect them.

Modernization needs a definition

Traba: What advice would you give HR leaders asked to modernize HR in legacy industries?

Ryan: First, define why you want to modernize. Then define what modernization even means.

For some companies, modernization means moving from paper to digital processes. For others, it means redesigning workforce planning or improving how labor forecasting connects to financial planning. Sometimes leaders talk about modernization without knowing where they want to go. It’s like saying you want to modernize your kitchen. Everyone has a different idea of what modern looks like. You need a destination before you start replacing appliances.

And you shouldn’t throw away something just because it’s old. Some things work well and only need improvement. Business transformation isn’t a one-time event. It’s continuous evolution.

The real goal is building a culture where improvement and adaptation become normal.

Closing advice

Traba: If you had to summarize the future of HR in one line, what would it be?

Ryan: Stop chasing programs. Focus on solving business problems with people at the center, and translate what you hear into data leaders can act on.

The Top CHRO Voice Spotlight series exists to surface leadership perspectives like these, not as theory, but as practice. By elevating leaders who treat people strategy as core to operations, the series reflects how the most durable brands are built and sustained.