The work that the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) used to do has evolved from a personnel administrator into a strategic role to control costs, ensure a productive and safe workforce, align operational decisions with business goals and maintain compliance in a complex legal and regulatory landscape.
CHROs are not only responsible for talent strategy; now they are responsible for the entire employee lifecycle that intersects with workplace safety, employee and labor relations. This requires that CHROs ensure the holistic safety of the personnel, regulatory compliance and ethical standards for workplace practices to ensure operations and minimize legal risks.
A safety incident can quickly escalate into workers’ compensation claims, job accommodations, employee relations issues, labor relations disputes, legal exposure and reputational risk. All these directly impact HR’s mandate.
As employee expectation rises and regulations keep increasing, Employee Health and Safety (EHS) has become an essential HR core function that CHROs can no longer ignore and require them to lead with data and compliance in a complex market with skills shortages, high competition and with constantly evolving legal and regulatory requirements.
Growing challenges for health and safety management
The current growing trends back the urgency for CHROs to manage EHS. Here’s how these forces are reshaping not only the CHROs role, but the entire HR landscape:
- Employee safety is a top priority
Safety is no longer an issue that needs to be addressed. It’s a leadership call to action. According to Gartner’s 2024 HR Priorities Survey, workplace safety ranks among the top three strategic initiatives for CHROs in the U.S. and Canada and has increased from seventh place in 2021. CHROs understand that safety directly impacts engagement, productivity and retention while strengthening employee trust and employer brand.
- Regulatory pressure is rising
Governments and regulatory bodies expect an integrated management of health, safety, employee relations and labor relations compliances. CHROs are accountable for ensuring that people and policies are aligned with safety legislation and reporting requirements. When compliance is not properly met, companies face expensive fines and reputational damage.
In the U.S., during 2024, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) conducted a 7% increase in inspections from 2023, amounting to over 38,000 inspections with total penalties exceeding US $160 million. Meanwhile, in Canada, the federal and provincial regulators are active too, as we saw WorkSafeBC issued CAD $12.3 million in fines only in 2024 and the Ontario Ministry of Labour launched over 110,000 workplace inspections.
Constant changes in regulations and mandates accelerate compliance complexity; we see it especially around violence prevention and job accommodations.
- Workplace violence prevention’s culture
Workplace violence prevention culture is increasing. For example, California’s Senate Bill 553 require all employers to implement written Workplace Violence Prevention Plans (WVPPs). OSHA is citing employers for violence-related hazards, especially in healthcare, retail and logistics.
In Canada, the trend is the same with the Bill C-65 that ensures that federally regulated employers, such as banks, airlines and telecommunications, constantly assess and mitigate harassment and violence risks to counter the growth in workplace violence cases. According to Statistics Canada (2024), 19% of workers in these sectors have experienced workplace violence, representing a six-point increase since 2021.
- Lack of job accommodations expose to legal risks
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Canada’s Human Rights Codes like Ontario’s AODA, employers must provide reasonable accommodations. However, many companies and organizations still lack a structured process for job accommodation.
This gap between the requirements and the execution resulted in a spike in enforcement activity with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reporting a 17% increase in charges related to disability in 2024 and a 22% increase in job accommodation complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
But job accommodation goes beyond disabilities, contemplating also religious, medical, telework and ergonomic needs. The final goal is to remove any obstacle that limits equal access and opportunities to work.
- Employee activism and legal disputes on the rise
Employees’ voices have become louder. According to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), during 2023, there was a 40% surge in union election petitions, while Canada’s Labour Program reported a 28% increase in unfair labor practice complaints in federally regulated industries.
We also see a trend where courts are siding with workers. During 2024, 68% of U.S. federal rulings related to disciplines after safety complaints favored employees and 74% of similar cases brought to the Canada Industrial Relations Board reached a similar outcome.
Safety concerns are now central to labor disputes. When a company is the central topic of the news for employee activism and legal disputes, it damages its reputation. This directly affects new talent acquisition. Due to the current skills shortage in highly regulated industries, companies and organizations cannot afford to earn a negative reputation for lack of workplace safety. CHROs need to be on top of the labor relations compliances.
- Return-to-Office and Return-to-Work Mandates tensions
As companies seek to reduce real estate costs, they face pushbacks with the Return-to-Office (RTO) and Return-to-Work (RTW) mandates. Gallup’s 2025 North American Workplace Survey reports that 58% of U.S. and 61% of Canadian knowledge workers would consider quitting if forced back to the office without flexibility.
Poorly managed RTO or RTW plans can violate ergonomic needs, indoor air quality standards or job accommodation requests that can trigger claims, complaints, expensive lawsuits and long grievances tied to EHS failures. This cannot be accountable only by HR managers. CHROs need to get involved with strategies to implement RTO and RTW mandates.
- OHS medical testing & Fit-for-Duty compliance
The U.S. and Canada enforce strict rules around medical surveillance. OSHA, for example, requires fit-for-duty evaluations for activities that involve respirator use, noise exposure and hazardous materials (29 CFR 1910). Canada’s provincial regulators such as WorkSafeBC and Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, also require similar assessments in high-risk roles under highly regulated industries.
However, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Canadian HR Reporter, there was a 40% increase in lawsuits regarding improper fitness-for-duty decisions, mostly due to inconsistent documentation that can end up not only in losing a lawsuit but also paying expensive fines for EHS violations.
These areas represent operational, legal, financial and reputational risks for CHROs and their organizations. They reveal a critical gap: HR Core systems were not designed to manage Employee Health and Safety, employee relations and labor relations compliances like Sodales does.
Why CHROs need a dedicated health and safety system
While HR Core systems help with essential tasks and responsibilities belonging to HR, they do not manage OHS compliance, medical records, violence prevention or job accommodation workflows. CHROs need a unified health and safety platform to:
- Integrate EHS metrics with talent retention
- Proactively prevent incidents, not just report them
- Ensure fairness and consistency for job accommodation requests
- Align RTW and RTO strategies and processes with workplace safety standards
- Maintain audit-ready records for OSHA, provincial regulators and human rights tribunals
Without an integrated health and safety system like Sodales, CHROs operate in silos, creating blind spots that expose companies to legal, financial, reputational and operational risks. An operational disruption can mean an end for many companies.
CHROs need visibility to critical workforce data insights, such as injury trends, root causes, absenteeism patterns, compliance breaches and early warning signs for burnout or risks. Integrated EHS data with HR data creates a complete picture of the workforce.
Part of the growth of companies relies on their capacity to attract talent and investors. According to Deloitte’s 2025 Global Human Capital Trends, 78% of North American workers consider a company’s safety commitments when choosing where to work. Moreover, 65% would leave if the standards are unmet.
On the other hand, Bloomberg Intelligence projected global ESG investments could exceed $50 trillion by 2025 and strong EHS performance is a crucial indicator.
For CHROs, this means that employee health and safety is essential for talent and capital strategy, as they will have to demonstrate ESG and EHS progress to investors, boards and employees.
Sodales: Built for CHROs managing EHS, employee relations and labor relations
If you’re still wondering, why do CHROs need a health and safety system? A 2025 Mercer study found that companies without integrated EHS-HR workflows experience 23% higher unplanned absenteeism and 31% longer disability leaves, directly impacting productivity and cost.
If you want to increase productivity while cutting costs, improving workplace safety and ensuring compliance without the administrative burden, the key is an EHS System with capabilities to also manage employee relations and labor relations compliances.
Sodales is the only employee health and safety system that unifies health, safety, employee relations and labor relations compliances in a unified platform purposely built for highly regulated industries. It can integrate with HR Core systems that your organization already has, such as SAP, Workday, Dayforce, Oracle, UKG and many more.
Sodales empowers CHROs to:
- Track safety complaints and grievances to defend against NLRB or CIRB actions
- Implement RTO and RTW mandates according to OSHA guidelines and Canadian standards
- Deploy violence prevention plans with regulatory compliance, such as the CA SB 553 bill and Bill C-65
- Automate ADA and AODA accommodation workflows, linking job analyses to medical restrictions
- Manage medical surveillance, fit-for-duty clearances and health records with PIPEDA- and HIPAA-compliant and security
- Have audit-ready documentation across health, safety, employee relations and labor relations compliances
Sodales turns health and safety from a compliance burden into a strategic differentiator that helps CHROs build a safer and more compliant workplace. A modern CHRO must be connected to employee health and safety to manage people’s risk, meet regulatory obligations and prevent small issues from becoming major crises.
Workplace safety is the new motor of human capital strategy
With regulators enforcing stricter rules, employees demanding accountability and HR teams working to meet workplace safety standards, health and safety are now foundational and the CHRO role has been redefined to comply with all the EHS requirements.
The CHROs who lead with an integrated health and safety system like Sodales don’t just avoid fines, long grievances or lawsuits. They build trust and safer workplaces, retain top talent and increase productivity while controlling costs.
Don’t wait for the next inspection, complaint or injury.
Book a demo with Sodales today to transform your EHS and compliance strategy before risks become a costly crisis.
