How To Leverage Generative AI In HR
In this HR Leaders podcast episode, experts discuss leveraging generative AI to enhance HR processes and decision-making. They share strategies for integrating AI in talent acquisition and development while maintaining a human-centric approach. Learn how to build a supportive and adaptive workplace culture in the AI era.
In the latest HR Leaders podcast episode, industry experts discussed how to leverage generative AI in HR for better people processes.
Top leaders in HR and Talent Management, shared their insights on integrating AI to enhance decision-making, streamline HR functions, and maintain a human-centric approach in digital transformation.
🎓 In this episode, you will learn:
Practical applications of generative AI in HR processes
Maintaining a human-centric approach amid digital innovation
Building a supportive and adaptive workplace culture in the AI era
Strategies for integrating AI in talent acquisition and development
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Matt Burns 0:07
Matt, good morning, everyone. Good afternoon, good evening, depending where you're tuning in from, welcome to today's session. My name is Matt burns, industry analyst here at HR leaders, and I'll be your host today for this live panel discussion. We're talking about a subject that we've been discussing a lot here in London, how to leverage generative AI in HR for better people practice processes. But before we jump into discussion, let me give you a quick tour of the platform. On the right hand side of your screen, you're going to see the live chat function. I would encourage you to use that communicate with each other. One of the best things about these events is meeting new people in your network, sharing best practices, and you can do that there in the chat menu. Now take an opportunity to introduce yourself. Where are you coming in from, where you're learning from, and let everyone know where you are joining us from in terms of your LinkedIn profile, all that good stuff, and always make sure that you hit that green Follow button on the top right hand side to access any of the on demand recording and to be notified of all of our upcoming events. With that said, I am very blessed to have a great panel of speakers joining me today. We'll go around the group. Senya Dietrich is the Global Director of people and culture development at here technologies, Antonio calcula, but so is the CHRO and global head of human resources, gerfp and TBS at Takeda. Serena RAM is the global VP of people excellence and luxury division, and NEA cosmetics at beersdorf. And Schnall barrel is the VP of Product Engineering at work. Human thanks everyone for joining us today. Now let's get into the conversation. We'll go around do a bit of a round table here. But stenya, I'd love to hear how you're currently integrating AI, but specifically generative AI, into your HR processes, and what immediate benefits have you observed? Yeah,
Svenja Dietrich 1:44
that's a good question, so I would love to kind of do an answer that we changed our entire strategy and everything is is different than maybe 18 months ago. But that's unfortunately not the case. So what we do? We started in pockets, and we looked at the places or spaces and processes where we think this adds value from the start. So, for example, my team, my team does a lot of training designs, our instructional design team, and they use it a lot right from, I mean, if you think about how trading was maybe designed, like three, four years back, with all the storyboarding, and now you can get just a great baseline from, kind of with the right prompting from Gen AI, right? And you can save a lot of work and hours, and also when it comes then to more how training looks and feels, right? It really improved massively. So that's definitely a pocket where we could do a lot of improvement and gaining efficiency. The other, the other place where I really see a lot of things, kind of riding, was smoothly. It's from, from the talent acquisition practices, right? So from reading a job description to analyze candidates, I think there's also a lot of efficiency gains, and then really kind of bringing up the quality of work to the next level we also do, where we also use AI is in in more creative work, right? To really think about, how can we do things differently? So it's kind of almost like a consultant now we have within our within our people team that we don't need to pay, but that is also kind of can think along with you, right? How can you do things differently? What do other companies do? And really use this kind of as our creative assistance that we have by our hand, and can just give us, sometimes the little kind of inspiration or thought that we didn't come up ourselves. I
Matt Burns 3:26
think that's the power of the solution is that you really can reinvent the way you work. And I'd be curious to dig more into how it's changed the way your team interacts with the work. But before we get there, schmuck, I think this is a great time for you to jump in from the engineering perspective, as we look at your generative AI, how has generative AI specifically improved decision making, as you see it within HR functions? Yeah. So
Shmulik Barel 3:48
I think the great benefit behind the you know, the gene AI is actually it allows us to democratize decision making across the organization, and it actually put like an AI HR, assistant to each and every employee, people leader in the organization, which, which is great, because this is like an an asset that they didn't, you know, managed to put their hands on before. And now, with this new technology, we can actually allow each and every people, leader and decision maker within the organization to take HR based decisions. Now there are multiple use cases that we are using here at work, human, and even before I can give you like two great examples. So before my journey at work, human, I was a CEO for a small startup, and it was fully remote. We were hiring people all over the world, and we were asking ourselves now, when we are trying to interview and on board like new employee from different guilds, and we want to make sure that our values and culture principles are kept. Fact, how can we actually find the right talent, right So, for example, if we want to find someone who is very innovative or at no like, you know, self motivated. So how can you find this right talent in different that come from different cultures? What are the questions that you need to ask throughout the interviews, what are the things that you would like to put your hands on before you would say, Okay, actually, this one is the right candidate for me. So we were using chatgpt and the Gen AI technology in general, and like helping us become like a recruitment assistant. And this was great. This was actually really help us, you know, to find the right candidates here at work. You're going, for example, we are, you know, using our own platform to actually allocate and be able to ask ourselves, what are the skills that we are missing on specific teams? What gaps do we have? You know, how can we take great examples from one team to another? And this technology, as I've said at the beginning, actually allows each and every person, and people leader in the company, to take more informed decisions and use the you know, the common knowledge out there was not accessible for them before, and it's really amazing. You raised a really big point,
Matt Burns 6:26
the global nature of this and how the solutions that we look at need to be contextualized for a bunch of different reasons. I think in that perspective, Antonio, let me hear your thoughts.
Antonio Calco' Labruzzo 6:36
Yeah, no, definitely. And I was Thanks for calling me, and I was about to chime in, so I was absolutely aligned with the with the comment we just which has left for from Malik, and I fully agree. I think generally, I can definitely improve the decision making, at least in two directions, and that's what we are seeing already today. First of all, you know that the decision are as good as the data that will support the decision making process. And we all know that through the use of AI Gen AI, and through the right use of AI Gen AI, you can be able to process much more data to get into the decision making and of course, that will enable better decision making process, which is definitely something that was not necessarily the case before. There is also another angle on top of the ability to process more data and take more informed decision which is the lateral thinking, the thinking out of the box that AI Gen AI can can provide managers and decision makers with, sometimes the feeling it's kind of the opposite, but in our in our experience, in my own experience, using those type of tools, I can definitely, for a second, get out of all my background biases, whatever it takes to me when it comes to decisions and ask for, let's say, a completely different view, which is, which is quite, quite incredible, if you think about and can, can announce different trail of thoughts that before were not, were not possible. It's that again,
Matt Burns 8:13
we're talking about a really interesting subject, which is how the work is changing. So we're talking about changing the work as a group. And I think that's a really important distinction. But what I love about this, Pam, love about this panel so far, and we're gonna dig it more into this, is how the work of our teams is changing. What I'm hearing a lot of in this conversation is perhaps we can get each of you to chime in on this, beginning with Serena, when you're working with your teams and you're teaching them how to work with generative AI, what needs to change in how they approach the work. Actually,
Serena Rahme 8:42
James, we're not as, sorry, Matt, we're not the ones that are teaching them. They are the ones who are teaching us some of the times, sometimes they're coming up, you know, with the either a new technology or a new tool or new ideas even. And I think that that's something that we did really well, which we've created this safe environment for people to to kind of bring in ideas and actually reward them for it, because it's a matter of bracing AI, embracing AI, and that's that's something that we started, and now we're seeing that this is something that is developing as well. But what is really important is to highlight that it's not the solution. It's an enabler. And I like what Antonio said, because when it comes to decision making, you need data, and AI is helping us in having this data sometimes not fully accurate, I would say not to 100% but at least it's helping in the process, and it's helping in kind of filtering and and structuring and and for that, we are embracing this. And what we're doing as well is we're saying, let's let's test, let's try and see. Because still, the AI tools are in development. We're not there yet. We're not in a world where we're, you know, using it normally as in any other tool as Excel. For example, or any of the other long standing dinosaurs, as we call them, in terms of tools that in whichever function that we're using. So I think what is the summary of this is to embrace it, but also to encourage it and reward people as well for coming up with new ideas, but not considered the one and only, or the basically solution to everything that we're doing, either a problem or or an idea generation.
Matt Burns 10:28
I love that so much. I think in the early days of the open AI explosion, we heard lots of companies like treating it like, don't bring it in here. It's bad. It's not it's going to slow things down. It's going to create more chaos. I think we've kind of wrapped our heads around the fact that it's really a powerful tool, if used appropriately. Shmalik, again, from the engineering perspective, I think about architecture. I think about let's give employees, incentivize them to bring in innovation, and that can get really messy really quickly in a matrix organization, when there's technology stacks and there's cybersecurity considerations and there's customer information and large language models being trained on core data, like all those different considerations. I'd love to hear your thoughts on, how do you help corral that energy and then deploy it in efficient way so that you get the benefits of the innovation without some of the necessary drawbacks that come alongside of that?
Shmulik Barel 11:18
I think that you know, training and education around the technology is a must AI, and Gen AI is not yet another technology. So we got used to that. You know, technology there you have an input, like you put an A, you're expected to get a B, that's it. That's the output, right? But this is no not how Gen AI technology works. So you cannot actually predict what would be the output, and sometime that can be very, I would say, confusing for people who are not up to speed on the technology, on what it allows us, what are the limitations? What should what are the considerations here? And this is why we really need to ensure that each and every employee in the company is being trained and educated about the technology and that we are, you know, building the the path for them to succeed on implementing the technologies. Otherwise there would be a lot of, you know, frustration, a lot of you know, I would say faults that would and decisions that would be taken based on the on on the technology. And as Serena just said, we are still very early in the market, very early in the market. And this is another thing that everyone needs to be aware of. So literally, every day the technology improve, new tools are being launched, right? There is a lot of hype around it, but actually, when you go and play with the tools and try to implement the tools, you still, there are still a lot of work to be done for the tools to be able to be implemented in large scale, and specifically, you know, within enterprises and companies. So you have to be very cautious. You have to be very trained and well educated about it, and you need to build the framework and mechanism to share this knowledge across your company.
Matt Burns 13:19
So from an education perspective, I think that's a really important tool. Then, yeah, let me hear your thoughts on the future of AI for your teams going forward. Yeah,
Svenja Dietrich 13:27
thanks. Fasting is I could also hear the echo, but I hope it's not the same for me when I speak. So for my team, so we So, I think for for HR or people or HR leaders, and especially those who are more focused on development, I think it's really a double role, right? Because we also at the same time, we need to upskill ourselves as a team, and we also have a responsibility to help the organization to do so. So we do two things at the same time. So within HR, we come together and we have kind of, we call it AI play houses, where we come together and we kind of we play with different tools and then showcase what you can actually do with it. But really have this space to to actually play in what really play means so and this is great, because there we see the people kind of can use a tool and can really explore what it can, what it can, how it can help, and what it can mean to them for their daily work. So that's one thing that we do, that we have this regular playhouses, and then we find it too, that it's really helpful. We bring that to to a lot larger audience, and then just showcase it at the same time, we work very closely together with our colleagues from our technology board, from the privacy teams, and really look into what are tools that can be approved at a large scale, what are use cases across the organization? And then we offer regular sessions for all employees, kind of open enrollment sessions like like on a session like this, where we show the different use cases across the organization, and we also share what are the. Guidelines, right? Because they change almost a month. What are tools that we approve for the company? What are tools that actually, everyone can, kind of can buy, can get a license via the company. What tools maybe you need to buy and can then, kind of, you get the can get the money back from the company. So we try to be very transparent, and we kind of create a platform so that everyone knows, okay, this, these are the sessions, or this is the Source Truth, where I need to go to to know, what is the current standard, what can what is the proof, what is recommended, etc. And we also look into, how can we actually drive a digital upscaling agenda, even though we are a tech company, it's not, per se, then immediately, the case that everyone uses Gen AI to be more effective in their work, right? I mean, there are great functionalities like in in zoom, or other platforms that you have that you can have those meeting notes, right? Describe, kind of, yeah, taking, and then the actions will be kind of immediately assigned to the right person. So there's so much already available in the tools that we use every day. How can we inspire and help organizations to make use of this? I think that is, for me, really the task for HR, for HR leaders, to to support the organization with, yeah,
Antonio Calco' Labruzzo 16:19
and if I may chime in, sorry to jump on you, but I found was just shared really, really crisp at that point. So that's, that's, I'm fully in agreement with what you just said. And I think it's really important, as we are in HR community, to reiterate the important that today, as an HR function, we are living this kind of double role of changing ourself, our ways of working, while we help our organizations to change the way it works. And right today, I published some article on the difference between evolution and revolution. This is kind of a revolution. We know it is and it is coming. And I think it's important that a function like HR is very transparent with your gages, with the organization, say, Guys, we are also learning on the go. So there are no experts yet. Probably there are people that are more educated, there are organizations that are more educated, there are functions that are more prone to adapt and adopt new technologies, but no one has 10 years of experience in AI, right? Let's, let's be, let's be clear so and that that needs to also translate into the mindset shift within the function. Because if we think about the way we operate, or we are used to operate as a function in general, if I relate to all my experiences was to master something and then become the master and the know that those that are knowledgeable about something and then creating policies, creating long standing processes, because they were based on long years of knowledge, experimenting and knowing all that could go wrong. We don't have that in in that that field, and it's important to put it up front and say, Okay, let's try, but let's be also very quick in turning back if it's needed. If we see that the Headly sign of what we are doing, it's not the direction we are going to otherwise that become
Matt Burns 18:16
risky. How do we help sell this to our peers? We have leaders in roles that are asking questions about generative AI. They're looking at it within their teams. They're asking how it fits into their practices. How do we help our colleagues begin this journey understanding they're also trying to wrap their heads around this
Serena Rahme 18:32
absolutely. I think it all starts with leadership. For example, in barrisdorf, we have a yearly leadership conference that we do, and now, in this kind of one week off site workshop, or, you know, like conference or Congress, whatever you call it in your organization, we've introduced some AI awareness creation sessions as well, not just awareness creation, but also application on how, you know, Like AI can be implemented in some of the functions the businesses or so on. In La pride, for example, we use AI in some of the innovation processes, and we've used that as an example in order to show people that, by the way, don't get me wrong. It's not like, you know, we're promoting for AI, but it is a tool that also saves a bit of money, and a lot of the organizations are looking at it as such. So therefore, if there is a way that we can invest in something that that can be cost efficient on the long run, why not? So that's one of the things that we did. It's an innovation or in any other, let's say supply chain or processes, even in finance or so on. So we've shown those examples and how it worked and the impact of it, and said, Think out of the box and start using it. Of course, there was an element of Oh, but AI is dangerous, because they will take the data and then also all the concerns that are out there. And one of the things that we. Did with our CDO, our Chief Digital Officer, is that we've built a very strong alliance or collaboration with the AI ethics committee, for example, in Europe, there is one that we're working with very closely in order to make sure that we are still within the frame. And I think that that this point is very important, not just to bring the reassurance, but also for us to make sure that we are not going and doing things on our own. We're not the experts, just like what was just mentioned. Now, so we're not the experts. Let's go to the experts, but let's make sure also that we are following what the Ethics Committee is saying, or at least, you know, keeping ourselves aware and updated. So I think it starts with leadership. So for the other functions, or when people are coming, we're creating the awareness with leaders and staying close to the ethics committees in order for us to make sure that we're up to date and doing, you know, compliant like part of this journey
Matt Burns 20:59
also is the art of the possible focus will kind of wrap their head around, what could this actually mean from an engineering perspective, from your perspective, worker, work, human is doing some great things in this space. What do you see for the future of Gen, AI, for HR, let's just say, 12 months from now? What does it look like?
Shmulik Barel 21:15
That's a $1 million even, probably more than that. But I would say that, you know, in general, it's much bigger than the only HR, right? So we need to imagine how would workforce look like in a year, three year, five years, 10 years from now. And I always use the term hybrid intelligence in terms of hybrid not like, you know what we were used of hybrid companies, which are working part time from the office, part time from home, right? Hybrid in terms that you will have humans, but you will also have digital entities as part of your workforce, right? And companies and organizations would go through and transformation, transformation period when you now have to ask yourself, as a leader, as an employee, how do I develop a team which is built from humans, but also from these digital entities, this AI kind of stuff, which is, I would say, a new set of skills that leaders would have to have in the next couple of years, and what it means about our previous experience. That's a that's a huge, a huge question, but in the face that things are moving on now, I guess that in the next couple of months, we will continue to see more and more new functionality, new capabilities which are being launched, more and more capabilities that get a shape of, kind of almost real employees. So you would wake up in the morning, you would open your daily meeting, and you would have probably some, again, kind of a mixed team that you will have, that you need, that you need to lead. So it's a great question. I don't have like the exact answer, but what I do think is that all of us as leaders need to be open minded for a transformation that is coming, and to make sure that our teams and our people are ready as well. Because, you know, it's, it's around the corner, so we better get prepared for that. Oh,
Matt Burns 23:33
it's here. I was using the team this morning that we actually have meetings, more meetings with bots now than we have with humans in them. It's just like chat bots all in the interface, and just figuring that out has been an interesting conversation with the group, and we know we're getting into a place quickly here where we're all going to have our own agents. We're all going to have people working for us, helping support us, and pulling knowledge and interacting with team members and creating content. And that will in itself create a whole bunch of works around planning and editorial and quality assurance and ethics and integrity and all those things that come into play. I don't want to lose in all this the conversation around human centricity. And Antonio, you have this conversation offline a number of times, balancing human Centricity with digital transformation innovation. How do we make sure that organizations of the future are human centric organizations powered by technology innovation, and not the other way
Antonio Calco' Labruzzo 24:23
around. Sorry, I was, I was muted. That's a that's a great, that's a great topic, Matt. And yeah, you're right. We spoke about it several times. So I think everything start by being aware. So that's, that's the first thing. So there is no bigger risk than the one you're not aware of, right? So having that front and center when you take your step into moving towards the digital transformation, that's already the beginning of a potential success as everything, it all depends how we use the tools and the technology we are given. I personally strongly believe. That this transformation we are all living in, we will, we'll put the people and the people centricity, the human centricity, at the core of everything. Because at the end of the day, if you think about how we are we measuring the effectiveness of AI in today's world, it's the experience. So the thing that I'm hearing and speaking more and more about, if I, if I look back years, it's, it's the experience at the end of the day. So everything, it's now shifting, and that's the right, in my view, mentality. So to shift the the concept of how the technology can help us into what's the experience that we are having as people, as customers, as employees, has patient in our business, etc, etc, etc. So at the end of the day, if we keep in mind, and that's our role as a child leaders, to drive that the experience Centricity in the human change that will impact will be impacted by by this new technology, we will, we will still keep it front and center. If we forget it, then that, then it's when the risk can, can be, can materialize. That's a great
Matt Burns 26:08
place to kind of summarize what's been a really cool conversation. I want to make sure we create space for the audience to ask questions. Are there any audience questions? Please put them in the chat so we can make sure we get them in front of this really talented group of people as we wrap to the last third of this conversation, I want to take things into again, this human Centricity question. I think this is the right group to have this conversation. Svenja, as we think about human Centricity in your organization, a tech organization, how do you thinking about blending this question? How are you thinking about finding the balance within your organization for human Centricity and digital innovation, and I think you're on mute, yeah,
Svenja Dietrich 26:43
sorry, I'm muted still. It happens right after, like, what is it four years? But actually, I maybe should kind of realize I want to speak. You called my name. I want to speak. So just unmute myself. Okay, digital assistant, please. Next time work. Yeah, so I think it's a very interesting place to look at, at a tech organization, because we, the majority of our workforce, are engineers, data scientists, data operations specialists, and they come with a different skill set, right? So already, now, for example, if you think about like leadership trainings or more humans, human skill center training sometimes hard, actually, to pull this part of the workforce in, and also to kind of to make it a point that this is also meaningful. And we also see what is often a challenge is that people in very technical roles that they don't want to have a career path, which means they need to become a people leader at one point in place. So to really think about what kind of career architecture in a moment can we create where people who who have more kind of, let's say, are more technical skill centered, can also have a career without being put in this, this, this, people leader responsibilities and all the politics and all the stuff you need to do in an organization as of a certain level. So, so What? What? What we often peers, what we often discuss is, how does actually the organizational design needs to change so that we can create more space, let's say for the human, for the for the human skills, or for the human touch in the organization, and maybe even have people in, and this is really future driven, but maybe have more people in the organization who are not like HR, but really people who kind of are more coaches or anthropologists that really bring this human aspect and try to connect and create the spaces. So I can't really put, like, really labels to it, because it doesn't exist yet, and I don't know a company, but I think it requires another organizational design and at the same time, also it requires a different skill set to to work with technology, because it's, as we said, right at one point, it's a collaboration partner. It does. It will be part of of your work. It will be part of your day, because you have your own assistant, your own bot, and bots working with each other. But how do you work with that? How do you verify information? How? How do you know when to use a bot or technology or not? So I think there will be so many changes coming our way, and at the same time, we need to have this, this, this, I don't know, the safeguard of humanity. I'm not sure if this will be, if this will be only with HR or almost a new role that needs to be invented. I
Matt Burns 29:26
think it's gonna be a fascinating place. I also think we need to be real about the fact that we're gonna have skeptics in this journey. And I think we got a question from the audience here, Chris Brown's asked a great question. So he's asked, it sounds like there's lots of advocates, but are there any tips on dealing with skeptics, and Serena as someone who's focused on this, from an incentive perspective, from a recognition perspective, from a change manager perspective, how are you thinking about working with skeptics? I
Serena Rahme 29:50
think the first thing is to downplay AI. I think sometimes we give it too much importance, more than it should. It's true that it's there. It's invasive, because. Way that AI has again invaded the way that we do things that the organizations hasn't been, let's say, planned for. It's something that that just didn't just blow up, but I think it's been years, but I would say after covid, or even during covid, it started to become a little bit more popular with the skeptics. I think what is, what is really important, at least from from our end, this is what, what we're trying to do is to really normalize AI as a tool much, much more than I'm going to give you an example, actually, that's a good one. I was in Korea a couple of weeks ago, and I was having town halls with the employees and very, very young people. So it wasn't like, let's say people who were afraid for their jobs, because typically this is what what you would have with, let's say more senior people, or people with a lot of experience and and we had like, three or four town halls, and then all of those town halls, the young people were asking us if their jobs were in danger because of AI. I found that very surprising, and my answer was, well, you need to tell me, because AI today is here. It is gonna evolve, but it's not gonna come and take your job, and if it is gonna take your job, we're gonna create another job for you. So the same way that any other technology has come when computers, let's say, were brought into the workplace, people were like, Oh, we're going to be replaced by by computers. Same thing with different functions, where, oh, I'm not going to have a job anymore, and so on and so forth. And then new jobs are being created. There's always this. Need the summary of this, or to simplify, what I'm trying to say is that the skeptics are there. We're not advocates necessarily for AI, but we're trying to be smart by using it in a way that is beneficial for us, much more than letting it take the center of or be at the center of
Matt Burns 31:58
everything that we do. Yeah, I love that so much. Antonio, you want to add this?
Antonio Calco' Labruzzo 32:02
Yeah, if I can add something, because I'm really, really on the very same page. On what was just said, I mentioned in one of my my LinkedIn post last week, a very nice and nice quote that I will use it again from Kareem lakani, Ai is not going to replace humans, but humans with AI skill are going to replace humans without AI skills. So again, it's about lifelong learning attitude. It's about staying open and agile. So when it comes to the downplay AI, I'm fully on the same page. So I'm the first skeptic person. When someone comes and say, AI will, will solve all the problems we have in the workplace. No, it won't. It will. It is already an amazing tool, which is probably revolutionizing. Someone is talking about fourth, fifth revolution in the business world, whatever it is. But what is for sure, is that in today's world, no one can stay out of the space where they know this, this new tool, this new technology that is coming to our life. It's our role as HR leaders, as an organization, to make sure that we provide the right environment for our pill to for our people, to experiment, to try it out, to have the right tool at the fingertip. But then it's up to the people to embrace this lifelong learning mindset and grow mindset, to jump on it and try to make the use of it.
Serena Rahme 33:31
And just if I may, add Matt to Antonio's point, which I think is very, very important, what is the role of HR in this us as a people, function as a performance culture, all the aspects that we handle, and that is to create an environment, and maybe that's a way also to help with the skeptics, but also in a bigger picture, is how to create an environment where we downplay the threats that could be Real or not real, but at the moment, they're not looking like major threats, I would say. But then how to create this environment where people are not blocked, or using it, even sometimes, as an excuse in order not to deliver something or to hold back or not to go the extra mile or so on? So I think that that is also a big responsibility that we have, but also a big opportunity in terms of culture change change management, but also shaping the future of the working organization, not just in our organizations or our companies or our playgrounds, but also together in the HR communities, in the HR and the CHRO network, for example, that we have, we discuss it most of the times, is, what is the environment that we want to create for our employees, where we're moving from this kind of, oh, AI is coming? By the way, it's not just AI. Employees have are skeptics about many other things, not just AI. But how do we. Create this environment, and how do we upskill our HR leaders in order to deal with it? Because it's not a matter of just us telling them what to do, but it's more about them being able to be responsive to those situations. Well, I think I know what you
Matt Burns 35:14
and Antonio are talking about a coffee when you meet in Zurich. That's gonna be a good conversation. Make sure you record that so we can put it on a future broadcast. Guys, that would be great. Shmuel, like I'd let you get weigh in on this. We got a great question from the audience here, from Kevin Dooley, who asks many traditional HR processes are very personable, very human centric. So how do you see generative AI adding value to them without taking the human out of the process for things like interviewing, performance, assessments, selection coaching. How do we get the best of both?
Shmulik Barel 35:44
Yeah, so I think it goes back, you know, to something that I said on the beginning, which means that on one hand, the technology allows each and every employee, people, leader in the organization, actually to act like they have their own HR assistants and get the better informed decisions with, you know, more of know how and stuff like that. But we need to understand that with all the excitement and hype around Gen AI, there is no magic when that, you know, in one day, everyone would become expert in all, you know, the various domains with, you know, taking decisions based on the Gen AI output, and that's it. So it goes back to education. It goes back to making sure that we use AI as an enabler to take decisions as another partner that we are partnering with to take decisions. And as you know, we have a forum or a committee or team which take decisions about recruitment, if we want to hire a specific candidate or not, then AI plays now as another partner to that to that team. So I guess, you know, the human approach will always be there. The AI will help us to get better decision and more informed decisions, even, you know, to improve efficiency in so many ways around HR processes and to modernize so many things. But eventually we're all people, and we need the human interaction and the human touch, and that won't be replaceable with any technology, as good as it will be
Matt Burns 37:29
agreed. And even more tangible, what we're doing in our organization is actually doing the traditional journey mapping exercise and then having parallel tracks for human interaction and digital interaction to make sure we're thoughtful about where does that make sense to have digital interaction? And I get it. It's generational. We have folks that are in the boomer age group that are thinking about social interaction being coming together, and they value that connection. And then we have our Gen Z and Millennial folks that are like, I just want to deal with a chatbot interface asynchronously outside of my work. We have to provide both so but think thoughtful about that plan allows us to be able to meet those needs, and I think the optionality that AI provides to us is just massive in today's world. Senya, you mentioned something earlier that stuck with me, and I want to just double click on it. You work really closely with cross functional partners in your organization. It's a big part of your strategy, bringing generative AI and more broadly, digital transformation to the organization. Are you seeing your partnership with the CTO change? It's a question from Paul Fenwick, are you seeing the partnership with the CTO change as a result of the adoption of AI in your business? This
Svenja Dietrich 38:29
is a good question. So maybe, kind of coincidentally, we we started a Technology Academy. I think looking back, it was the first time that actually I realized it kind of at the same time that Gen AI was also kind of the thing, right? When was it like November 2023 or something? So what is kind of more, at the same time we also started our Technology Academy. Of course, it has quite a run before, before we really launched it. And with the start of our Technology Academy, we already kind of created a much closer relationship with our with the CTO and with the tech leaders, to an intention originally was to help to upskill our tech folks and also bring like basic technological skills and digital skills to everyone in the company. And I think actually this coincidence that we created this academy at the same time, and also the with the advent of Gen AI, created a very close bond, and that we work very closely together. And actually I have people in my team. So the the my colleague, she used to be an engineer, so she's really some from engineering who joined the people development team, and actually runs the academy, and she knows the people. She know what she's what she's doing, and how actually engineers think, and therefore we have a very, very close relationship. That's great.
Matt Burns 39:50
And that's the kind of symbiosis you get in organizations now when you have aI kind of that binding force, and I think that intentionality of deployment, I'll be super curious to hear how that evolve. Calls for you in the future, as you continue to get more integrated within those departments, we're getting close to the end of our session today, and I want to leave our audience with something tangible. We're all practicing HR professionals here or business professionals here, and we know that people are looking to a number of sources for information. So I'll start with yourself, Antonio, work our way around. If you could leave our audience with one parting thought, one thing they should pay attention to, one person they should pay you know, one person they should pay attention to. Where should they go to for information as they're seeking to inform themselves about how to think about AI in the future? That's
Antonio Calco' Labruzzo 40:33
a That's a great question. There is an overflow of information. My big recommendation on this, on this topic, is to drive the learning process and not be driven, because in today's world, you can be pushed a lot of information. You just open your LinkedIn page and you you get so overflowed with information that you stopped thinking what you were looking for, and you just read what you are fed with. So my big recommendation is to find those 234, people that you believe are thought leaders. So for example, I like reading our business view. I like reading papers from McKinsey. So everyone finds that the source of information that they they find more suitable for their language need for their level of education as well in terms of the of the specific topic, but I I strongly recommend everyone to be purposeful when it comes to learning and when it comes to educating themselves on on specific topics. Instead of being just recipient of information, I personally find LinkedIn a great source of sorts of information that needs to be filtered. It
Matt Burns 41:43
needs to be curated. Serena, how about yourself? I
Serena Rahme 41:47
totally agree with Antonio. I think creating awareness and choosing the source of information is extremely important, especially in a topic where we are not experts. We're just taking, you know, like, one part of it, trying to apply, to customize it, so it's not a plug and play. It's not like, oh, you know, I'm just going to take this tool and I'm going to go and apply it, or I'm going to take this information and consider it, you know, the Bible or the source of truth. And I think what is really important as well, is to make sure that you bring in experts into the organization, and you allow them to do what you brought them in to do, and then to leverage them even in things where sometimes you might consider yourself very knowledgeable. So I think that that is really important, is bring in the experts and people or or maybe people not necessarily, that have a lot of experience in that, but have the willingness and are able actually to develop the information and the and the knowledge, basically, for the organization and Celia,
Svenja Dietrich 42:53
I would like to be very concrete and give a tip for a book. It's called the digital mindset, how to thrive in an age of algorithms, data and AI from Paul Leonardo and some co author. And it's a great book, kind of just to get a basic understanding how to work in a world where everything becomes more digitized. And it's definitely not a book for for engineers. It's, I think, more for, I think for HR people. It's a perfect book. And it really it gave me some insights how we could do things differently, especially in having AI, data, whatever, as a partner to work with
Matt Burns 43:27
Angela yourself,
Shmulik Barel 43:29
I guess that for us, it's not about a specific person or podcast to follow. There are many. And you know, I can recommend few of them, but I would say that on the organizational level, it's more important for us to build the right framework and mechanism to train and educate people around the organization. So for example, we have founded like an AI Learning and Development Council, when we actually push to each and every employee, different resources. You know, recommendations about great books, podcasts, stuff like that, and by that, enriching everyone and educating everyone around the around the the AI stuff. So I think for us, it's more about, how do we make sure that we are providing these resources organizational, on the organizational level, there are many great stuff out there. There are many, many. There is a lot of stuff been written by AI, so you need to be cautious on the right one, this was from
Matt Burns 44:31
it's a great way to encourage conversation. Thank you so much to our panelists today. It was a great chat. I certainly enjoyed it, and learned a lot from the conversation. A big thank you again, to the panelists who joined us and really appreciate your support and a special thanks to our friends at work human for helping us bring this panel together again by clicking that green button below, you can download the workhuman guide to embracing AI revolution in HR and find three amazing ways to jumpstart culture innovation today. And as many of you know, we. Recently launched Atlas copilot, the world's first AI copilot for HR, which has been built by HR leaders. For HR leaders like us, it helps Up skill and reskill teams and stay ahead of the curve. So if you're just looking at that and getting free access to the platform, make sure you check it out with the update below. And if you enjoyed today's conversation, we're back again after the summer on September the fifth for a panel discussion on how to transform workplace culture for better mental health, why it matters and how it works. Make sure you again hit that green Follow button in the right hand corner to be notified when we go live and apart from that, I hope you enjoyed today's content and look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks, everyone.
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