“Are we working for AI at this point, or is AI working for us?” Maxine Carrington, chief human resources officer at Northwell Health, asked a group of human resources and HR executives gathered for dinner on a recent rainy night in New York City.
“How can we use these tools as enablers to achieve our goals? That’s the mindset we need to have instead of chasing tools.”
The people around the table nodded in agreement. The group, convened by Business Insider, spent 90 minutes in a conversation hosted by Indeed titled “The Future of the Workforce in the Age of AI.”
“I think this is an organizational and transformational challenge, not a technical challenge,” Gareth Lewis Louis People & Culture Advisory said at one point: “But the conversation right now is all about tools, efficiency, and headcount reduction, and less about how we actually redesign our roles.”
Redesigning roles is exactly what Agnes Garaba, chief human resources officer at UiPath, is trying to do, but it’s not easy.
“So we basically asked all of our department leaders to think about what the future holds,” she said. “If you could go out today and dismantle your entire HR team and reimagine it from scratch, what would that look like? And that’s a lot of work. We often find that imagination is the biggest barrier to getting there, so to speak.”
The tension between driving holistic transformation with AI and a focus on integrating AI tools was a top concern for the assembled executives. However, many other topics were also discussed during the wide-ranging conversation. Below are some highlights.
How to help your employees become “power users” of AI
“In my opinion, you can’t drive change with just a stick,” said Katie Burke, Harvey’s COO. Neromedia
Katie Burke, COO, Harvey: One of the things you have to start asking yourself is whether your organization is experimenting and dipping your toe in, or is it driving real impact and change? And, not surprisingly, in every industry there are patterns of what makes a difference.
Number one is that senior leaders are actually involved in the work. So you don’t say, “Here’s an example I can share.” For example, I actually build agents myself and participate in hackathons.
And in my opinion, you can’t drive change with just a stick. You need some carrots and rewards and excitement. And I think people operate at their best when they’re not acting out of fear.
Let your partners prove the value of the AI tools they offer
“Shareholders and leaders are (asking), ‘What is the big revolutionary shock that will liberate our teams?'” said Roz Harris, vice president of talent at Zillow. Neromedia
Roz Harris, VP of Talent, Zillow: Put pressure on your product partners and the vendors you use to justify their roadmap and why they get your money. Because shareholders and leaders are asking, “What’s the big revolutionary thing that’s going to liberate our team?” Does it open up business opportunities and move things forward?”
I can promise you that many of us are not companies trying to build something like that ourselves. But we have product partners who make those things possible. But are we clearly communicating our needs to them? Are you able to express them well?
Employees shine at company-wide hackathon
“People don’t think of the sales team as the first team to build agents,” said Maggie Hulse, chief revenue officer at Indeed. Neromedia
said Maggie Hulse, Chief Revenue Officer at Indeed. That’s why we hold a monthly contest open to all employees to submit ideas for agents and use cases. Sales teams are absolutely running away with it. And people don’t think of the sales team as the first team to build agents. So this particular person, who we thought was a salesperson, was maybe thought to be one-dimensional, but now it looks like they’re wearing five functional hats.
HR leaders play a key role in encouraging companies to adopt AI
“We should be a lighthouse in terms of the adoption of (AI) agents,” said Dickie Steele, a partner at McKinsey & Company. Neromedia
Dickie Steele, McKinsey & Company Partner: How do you build a culture that pursues dramatic productivity improvements in molecules? Who would do 1,000 clinical trials instead of one? As an HR community, I feel we should be a lighthouse when it comes to (AI) agent adoption. We need to be inspired to start a business with a far more compelling value creation thesis than the question, “Can we build something that makes our employees marginally more productive?”
Beware the hype about how AI will dramatically increase your revenue
“The concept of continuous, step-by-step progress every day is totally fine with us,” said Liz Dente, chief human resources officer at Priceline. Neromedia
Liz Dente, Chief Human Resources Officer, Priceline: Dickie, just push back a little bit and you’re asking for this amazing thousand-fold return. The concept of constantly moving forward, a little bit each day, is perfectly fine with us. It would be great if we could sell 1,000 times more airline tickets, but I don’t think that’s realistic. And I think there’s a lot of hype in the market that you can make these huge profits. However, I don’t think that’s true.
