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The HŪMNZ Element: Issue 32 - The 11-Point Gap Between Every CEO and Their HR Lead

Two confidence surveys, same publisher, same quarter. The chief executives sat below neutral while the people side stayed steady — and the reason is worth an hour of your planning cycle.

Author

Tim Dennis
September 22, 2026

💡 Editor's Note

Two people at the top of the same company, asked in the same quarter how things look.

One says worse. The other says better.

Neither of them is wrong. They are watching different parts of the business, and this year those parts stopped moving together.

Which of the two readings is your plan built on?

Find out where your own execution is stuck before the next planning cycle.

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Executive Brief

Bottom line: The business outlook and the workforce outlook came apart this year. If only one of them reaches your planning meeting, you are deciding on half the picture.

The Conference Board runs two separate confidence surveys. One asks chief executives about business conditions. The other asks heads of HR about hiring, retention and engagement. Both use 50 as the line between more positive and more negative answers.

At the start of 2026 the two agreed exactly. One quarter later they were 11 points apart, with the chief executives below the neutral line and the HR side comfortably above it.

Worth saying plainly before going further: these are two different surveys, with different panels, different sample sizes and different questions. They are not one measurement taken twice. What they share is a publisher, a scale and a quarter — enough to compare direction, not enough to treat the gap as exact.

The direction is the interesting part.

In 30 seconds

  • The Conference Board's Measure of CEO Confidence fell from 59 in Q1 2026 to 47 in Q2, then recovered to 52 in Q3. Anything below 50 means more negative answers than positive.

  • Its CHRO Confidence Index, covering 111 heads of HR, read 58 in Q2 2026, barely down from 59 in Q1 — leaving the two 11 points apart in the same quarter, after starting the year level.

  • Ask whoever owns your people function for their read on hiring, retention and engagement before next year's plan is signed. Treat a wide gap from your own view as information, not as someone being wrong.

⚠️ Four signals leaders should be watching this week

1. What did the HR side see that the chief executives did not?

Signal: One headline number moves, and it gets treated as the whole story.

Evidence: Inside the CHRO index for Q2 2026, the hiring part fell from 63 to 59, retention held flat at 55, and engagement eased from 60 to 59. Even with hiring cooling, 54% of the heads of HR surveyed still expected to add people over the following six months, against 17% expecting to cut.

Implication: This was not blind optimism from the people side. It was a view assembled from three things, only one of which was actually softening.

Action: When you ask how things look, ask for the parts rather than the verdict. A single answer hides which piece is moving.

2. Where is hiring difficulty actually concentrated?

Signal: Hiring gets discussed as one market that is either easy or hard.

Evidence: 75% of those heads of HR said their hiring was concentrated in particular roles rather than spread across the company. 71% named specialized and technical roles as the hardest to fill. Only 20% described finding qualified people as somewhat easy, while 51% called it somewhat difficult.

Implication: A loose market overall and a tight market for the roles you actually need can both be true at once. The overall figure describes the first and tells you nothing about the second.

Action: Name the three roles you could not fill quickly today. That short list is your real hiring picture, and it is the one worth planning around.

3. Is AI really the reason companies are hiring less?

Signal: Every slowdown in hiring now gets explained by automation, because that explanation is available and sounds forward-looking.

Evidence: Among the organizations in that same Q2 2026 survey that were cutting back on hiring, only 21% pointed to roles being eliminated by automation or AI. 53% pointed to financial pressure.

Implication: The more common reason is money. That distinction matters because the two call for opposite responses, and calling a budget problem a technology shift sends you looking for the wrong fix.

Action: For every role you have decided not to fill, write down the real reason. If the honest answer is cost, record it as cost.

4. Which levels are companies actually hiring into?

Signal: Hiring plans get approved as totals, so nobody sees the shape of what is being added.

Evidence: Among the organizations that were hiring, 65% said it was concentrated in frontline and operational roles and 55% in mid-level positions. That fell to 30% hiring at entry level, 15% for senior leadership and 3% for executive roles.

Implication: Companies are adding in the middle and below, and almost nowhere near the top. Over a few years that quietly changes who is available to promote.

Action: Pull your own hiring by level for the last two years. If nothing was added above the middle, your next senior opening becomes an external search by default rather than by choice.

Stat of the Week

21%

The share of organizations cutting hiring that said it was because automation or AI had removed roles, in the Conference Board's Q2 2026 CHRO survey. More than twice as many said it was money.

One of those explanations is far more interesting than the other. The duller one is doing most of the work.

Source: The Conference Board, CHRO Confidence Index Q2 2026, published June 10, 2026, based on 111 heads of HR; and the Measure of CEO Confidence, Q3 2026 release, August 6, 2026.

The Core Question

Most companies collect both readings. Very few put them in the same room.

The financial view arrives monthly, in a format built for decisions. The people view arrives once a year in a survey deck, in a format built for discussion. So when they disagree, one of them simply loses by default — not because it was tested and found wrong, but because it showed up in the wrong shape.

When our business read and our people read disagree, which one do we actually act on?

The VALŪE lens: Financial data tells you what the business did last quarter. Hiring, retention and engagement tell you what it will be able to do next year. A plan built on the first alone is precise about the past.

Two readings, one company. The gap between them is not noise. It is the half of the picture you have not been shown.

Know a CEO heading into planning season? Send this on.

Until next time,

The HŪMNZ Element — Weekly Pulse

If this was useful, forward it to one person: a CEO about to approve next year's plan, or whoever owns your people function.

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