DETROIT — General Motors’ human resources chief is retiring and being replaced by an executive from the automaker’s Cruise autonomous driving subsidiary.
Arden Hoffman, 51, a former HR executive at Google and Dropbox hired by Cruise in 2019, will become GM’s chief people officer on Jan. 1, the company said Wednesday. She will succeed Kim Brycz, who has been with GM for nearly 40 years and has been its head of HR since 2018.
Brycz’s departure is not related to backlash over efforts to resume having salaried employees work from company offices more frequently, a spokesman said.
“When Kim shared her plans to retire several months ago, I reflected on the significant contributions she has made to GM over the years,” CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. “She has built a world-class HR organization that has been instrumental to our ongoing transformation. Arden’s deep background leading the HR function for fast-growing global tech companies makes her the right leader to continue that momentum and deliver our future talent portfolio.”
Hoffman also had the title of chief people officer at Cruise, where GM says she created “a high-performance culture where Cruisers can do their best work.”
The careers page of the Cruise website says the company offers a “full package of programs designed to put you in control of your career, health, and happiness — whether working at the office or from home.”
Brycz, 61, was among 14 members of GM’s senior leadership team to sign two recent messages to employees about an upcoming “evolution” of the “Work Appropriately” philosophy that it adopted during the pandemic.
GM on Sept. 23 told employees that they would be expected to report to an office at least three days a week starting later this year to foster more in-person collaboration during a critical time for the automaker. Four days later, an update went out signaling managers would have the flexibility to decide when and how often to have workers return to an office and that no changes would happen until at least 2023.
Hoffman will be the HR chief in place when the company implements any changes to remote-work policies, though Brycz will still have the role later this month, when GM has promised to share more information about the topic with employees.
Hoffman, who has a master’s degree in business administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, was vice president of people at Dropbox as the file storage and sharing company grew from a private startup to a publicly traded company. Before that, she was an HR executive for three years at Google and for seven years at Goldman Sachs.
Automotive News selected Brycz as one of the 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry in 2010 and 2015.