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On a bone-chilling day in New York City, HR Brew gathered a community of passionate HR leaders to create a brighter (and thankfully heated) atmosphere at Studio Gather.
Over 100 HR leaders joined together Feb. 20 at Studio Gather for The Talent Trifecta: Recruiting, Retaining, and Reimagining Your Workforce.
Workday, the AI platform that elevates humans and supercharges work, tackled the topic on everyone’s mind: AI and HR. During their panel, Building the Adaptable HR Tech Stack, Athena Karp (general manager of HiredScore at Workday) chatted about the ways that leading innovators are leveraging artificial intelligence to make human resources more human.
If you missed it, don’t fret. We have the lowdown on your new downloadable workplace resources.
Vetting new tech
Morning Brew’s Kyle Hagge (co-host of the Per My Last Email podcast) kicked things off with a discussion on vetting new technologies. Karp emphasized the importance of starting with iconic business outcomes and then identifying the best technology solutions to support your teams, rather than purchasing AI for its own sake or being enticed by trendy software.
“What are the core business problems we want to tackle, and then reverse engineer?” Karp asked. “What is the human and machine collaboration we need? Can we go left of today’s processes?”
AI safety
The conversation also explored concerns over balancing innovation and AI safety. Panelists discussed how to evaluate AI solutions, what skills and knowledge leaders and teams should have to deploy and operate AI in areas such as HR, and what expertise and support you should expect from your AI partner. Karp discussed how to stay current in an evolving regulatory environment and how to buy AI that meets the latest requirements but is also predesigned with future potential laws in mind.
“The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and other regulatory bodies have said they’ll govern technologies just like humans,” Karp said.
As she pointed out, most HR departments are already familiar with employment regulations and requirements, and they should bring this knowledge to how they vet and evaluate AI solutions. This is unique, as most departments are searching for a governance model for how to safely bring AI in, whereas HR leaders can really shine.
For Karp, HR professionals will need to bring their HR compliance expertise and incorporate it into a technology evaluation framework. Supporting their organization in evaluating AI for HR in a way that balances what AI can do with what AI should do provides a golden opportunity for HR to lead in how every organization should be rolling out this powerful technology.
Differentiating AI
“All AI is not generative AI.” —Athena Karp
Karp emphasized that generative AI, while powerful, can have limitations in terms of where and how it is applied and is not always the best choice for certain HR processes. It can be unpredictable, lack explainability, and struggle with consistent results.
That doesn’t mean customers shouldn’t bring any AI into those areas, as there are other types of AI that might be more suitable for specific HR tasks. For example, matching candidates to job requirements requires an AI solution that is explainable and treats similarly qualified people the same. HR leaders need to understand these differences to select the right AI tool, or the right tool that leverages different AI capabilities in different places depending on the areas of impact, such as in recruitment, onboarding, workforce planning, or employee engagement.
Fellow panelist Mikaël Wornoo (founder and president of Techwolf) agreed. “When I think about AI, there’s probably three things,” Wornoo said. “It’s what is the AI trained on, how does the AI work, and what are you going to use the AI for?”
If a vendor cannot clearly articulate these three points, that’s a major red flag. Understanding the data on which AI models are trained—including availability, quality, and compliance risks—is imperative to understanding their function and successfully managing any AI project.
AI a decade from now
Karp envisions a future where, ultimately, the Chief Work Officer will leverage technology to provide the most advanced forecast of projected work demand and provide solutions for employees that enable them to be ready and aligned to those future work needs. As work is increasingly done by human-machine collaboration, driving organizational success by strategically managing humans and agents is crucial. This Chief Work Officer will monitor and manage all work outputs, including performance and outcomes, whether from humans, human-machine collaborations, or agents.
Workday is already thinking ahead in terms of enabling this new role. Karp mentioned their Agent System of Record, which ensures organizations can manage their workforce and agents—including third-party agents—all in one place.
HR manages the largest financial line item at almost every company: its human capital. Because of this, Karp believes HR professionals will play a crucial role in leading the transformation of how work gets done in the organization.
With the addition of workers powered by AI, there’s an opportunity for HR to further leverage their position and cement themselves as foundational to a company’s success and competitive advantages. That means greater input on things like budgeting for human-machine collaboration, monitoring and tracking these investments, productizing key areas of HR to make it frictionless, and going left of today’s problems to be proactive and strategic.
Our third panelist, Sam Naficy (CEO of Prodoscore), presented a theoretical scenario in which an employee leaves. He mentioned the harmful ripple effect of even a single employee leaving. However, with the help of AI, you can better understand those consequences before they even happen.
Applied AI now
So, how is AI already making a difference? Karp cited a more than 25%–50% increase in recruiter capacity and a 10% increase in internal talent circulation in under a year for certain customers who have implemented Workday’s Recruiter Agent.
Naficy also cited additional ways AI is delivering ROI now. With the analytical assessment Prodoscore does, it’s possible to know about an employee’s departure up to nine weeks before it happens with 93% accuracy. This data isn’t meant to scare employees about an all-knowing super boss, but to find ways to prevent their departure.
For global companies, not every employee can have the care and attention needed for a human being to pick up on those signs. However, if an AI agent can alert a real human being that intervention is necessary, retention rates go up.
As we paint a picture of our future with AI, there is tremendous opportunity for HR leaders to play an even more strategic role in this top agenda item across the C-suite and ensure a safe and ethical technology rollout. AI is simply a tool, and in the hands of strategic, curious, and agile HR professionals, it can enable us to solve unprecedented problems—such as eliminating barriers between HR silos like hiring, retention, development, reskilling, and upskilling—to “fire on all cylinders” and deliver the most impact for workforces.