Before I answer your question, I think HR needs to be split up in order to add value, become a strategic partner, have a seat at the table, yada, yada, yada...

The problem with HR is that we are responsible for skills, functions or competencies that don't necessarily fit together. Other functions have different roles and specialties, but they seem to relate more than HR's roles and specialties. For example, employee and labor relations has an enormous legal element, and you can easily justify that function reporting up to the GC. But compensation, benefits and payroll feels very much like a Finance function. And then there is some recent research out there that basically suggests that Human Resources, Organizational Development and maybe even Learning & Development should all be divided up. Not sure I agree with dividing HR up too much, and not to over-complicate the issue, but this does complicate who we think HR should report up to.

HR clearly has different roles (i.e. administrative expert, strategic partner, employee champion and change agent). And how it's divided is a strategic decision to made by the organization. There is merit to the argument that all roles within HR have a legal aspect, or an expense aspect, and therefore should report to the GC or CFO, but that's probably oversimplifying the issue. On the other hand, reporting to the CEO could be an oversimplification as well and the result of a lazy effort on deciding what HR does and to whom they should report.

Sorry, but that's a long way to say I'd rather report to the senior executive who gets it and is fully engaged.