From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

HR Brew

Sam Blum

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Employee sitting at desk with laptop, resume in the background

Why ChatGPT writing résumés might not threaten the hiring process

Despite the popularity and sophistication of the AI chatbot, ‘We still can’t fake the human element’ of recruiting, says one director of talent acquisition.

ChatGPT writing résumés and cover letters needn’t be feared, HR pros say

A woman wearing a button down shirt speaking into a smartphone 

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One-way video interviews are impersonal, candidates say, and raise privacy concerns

 Automated interviews are used by 61% of organizations globally, according to new research. 

Susanna Vogel

What does an “audit” for bias in automated hiring tech really mean?

In conversations with automated hiring vendors, we learned that processes for bias audits vary widely.

artificial intelligence robot with gavel and scales in front of a wall of binary code

An illustration of a photo of HR Brew reporter Paige McGlauflin.

Paige McGlauflin

 say they’ve received any comprehensive, job-specific training for AI, despite 82% using the technology daily.

HR Brew spoke with two experts about the technical and human skills HR practitioners need to stay on top of AI transformation.

, for example, could handle much of an HR generalist’s workload, allowing them to focus on more complicated projects.

“Fundamentally, we believe that a lot of the operational, tactical tasks that we spend time on today are going to be solved by AI agents,” Brandon Roberts, ServiceNow’s group VP of people product, analytics and AI, told HR Brew. As a result, “you’re going to have less folks who are supporting that type of work, less of the operational world, and more of building the technology to support the HR business partners on these really complex topics that they’re going to be spending their time on.”

That means that the skills required of HR pros will change, as well. Experts say HR’s new must-have skills fall into two categories: AI-specific skills, and 

The former includes technical skills like understanding how generative and agentic AI tools work, an intimate knowledge of data literacy and analytics, and an understanding of how algorithms work and ability to identify their biases.

“I think if you think about everybody who’s in HR today, imagine you had to train them on becoming an expert on people analytics. Those are the types of skills that I think we have to build,” Roberts said.

Having a proper grasp on prompt engineering will also be critical: “I like to say that AI is your assistant. So if you’ve got a HR assistant in the workplace, are you just going to tell it to write an email for you? You’re obviously going to be giving it more information, more depth. That’s where prompt engineering comes in,” said Lucy Schott, General Assembly’s subject matter expert on HR and AI.

Soft skills, like critical thinking, will also be “really crucial,” Schott said, because agents don’t currently have the ability to account for nuance, or fact check, when analyzing data.

Adaptability will be similarly important amid rapid organizational transformation. HR leaders will want direct reports who are actively re-imagining their roles with AI in mind, Schott said.

 To start, HR leaders should focus on job-specific training. According to General Assembly’s survey, 85% of HR practitioners with formal AI training feel “very or completely confident” using AI, compared to 63% of self-trained HR pros.

“AI training is really crucial from that specific job skill level, because it’s one thing to just learn about ChatGPT or Gemini, but it’s another to actually unpack it within your daily workplace and understand what does a prompt engineering look like for talent acquisition, or for performance management, and how to apply that,” said Schott.

That said, it’s one thing to know your team needs to reskill, and another to address it. HR teams tend to prioritize their workforce’s needs while ignoring their own, Roberts said.

“If HR isn’t involved in this transformation, we’re going to get much worse outcomes, and it’s going to be less of a transformation and more of a technology implementation,” he said. “There is both the enterprise role we need to play…but we can’t forget that HR needs to transform our internal operations and how we support the organization in order to be successful.”

Photo collage of shapes containing a recruiter looking at a resume and a close up of a laptop with floating binary code.

The must-have AI skills for HR pros

Experts share the technical and human skills HR practitioners should develop, and tips for following through on reskilling.

The AI-related skills HR pros could develop to stay ahead of technological transformation

Adam DeRose

Gen Z and millennial employees are using AI at work, regardless of whether or not you want them to, according to a new survey by Cox Business.

These digital-native employees are regularly using “AI agents to support their productivity at work,” according to the company, but are reluctant to reveal how much they’re relying on it.

The findings didn’t surprise workplace and remote work social media creator Corporate Natalie, known offline as Natalie Marshall, who told HR Brew they’re in line with DMs on social media and comments she’s read below her videos.

“The survey findings show that there’s actually a lot of congruency between these two groups. It might lead to more cross-generational harmony than we might think,” Marshall said. “There’s nothing worse than that feeling of being scared to talk to your manager…whether it’s your mental health at work, how you’re handling your workload, or how you’re feeling about these tools and tech, it’s important to escalate how you’re feeling.”

Cox found that about half of Gen Z and millennial employees are nervous to report how much they’re able to accomplish with AI. And they often use AI tools that aren’t administered by their organization, with 65% saying they are “more familiar” with their personal tools than those offered by their company.

MIT this month released findings that echoed the sentiment reported in the Cox survey. 

’s State of AI in Business 2025 concluded that hampered enterprise AI adoption persists in business, while a “shadow AI economy” erupts as employees leverage unsanctioned tools to complete their work, 

“What if the IT department sought counsel in these early-career individuals and created more of an open door policy? Especially with Gen Z being such digital natives; they’re using all of these AI tools and offerings,” she said. “Asking them what they’re using [and] what we can apply to work, would prevent them from using their kind of rogue personal devices, which is what we’re seeing with this shadow IT concept in the survey.”

Marshall said that organizations can leverage what’s working on the individual level and license professional versions of their most beloved new tools. They just have to ask.

“A lot of times those are early-career individuals and the companies that I see tapping into these people and using them is where it actually leads to a great culture of AI-use,” she said.

Millennials and Gen Z employees are using unsanctioned AI tools at work

They’re reluctant to share with companies how they’re leveraging the technology, and it’s a shame.

The Covid-19 pandemic may have been the biggest blessing for some HR leaders’ careers. It may have been the biggest curse, too.

As employers scrambled to respond to a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, CHROs 

 for everything from remote work to layoffs or furloughs and employees well-being.

“You just have to think about the magnitude of how work has changed since then. The CHRO was at the hub of all that,” Roger Philby, global leader of Korn Ferry’s people strategy and performance practice, told HR Brew.

Regarded for decades as corporate America’s red-headed stepchild, HR had been primarily focused on administrative tasks, like payroll or snooze-worthy trainings. The only time executives paid attention was when one of those tasks went wrong. This moment marked a 

“We’re like the ducks that are on the water. We may look good above the surface, but underwater we’re flailing viciously. That’s how I felt life was, definitely pre-pandemic, where nobody knew what we did,” Mai Ton, a fractional HR leader who previously worked in-house at growth-stage Silicon Valley tech startups, told HR Brew.

“All of those previously under the water systems became very prominent and very in front of everybody, because we were all remote and virtual. So I feel like that’s really what led to the final kind of elevation of the role,” Ton added. “It was previously HR was always begging for a seat at the exec team, and now we finally had it, because we were tasked with all of these things.”

Since then, however, something seems to have changed, leaving CHROs’ power and influence at risk of stagnating, if not declining.

 has shifted power back to employers, who are hiring and 

 less. Economic pressures, including high interest rates and tariffs, have employers returning to the age-old strategy of cutting costs by cutting workers or employee-focused programs, like learning and development.

Some employers have also started following a new playbook for addressing challenges like those that, just five years ago, they would have relied on their CHROs to navigate. For example, employers like Amazon (and the federal government) have announced full-time return-to-office mandates for their global workforces, despite HR leaders’ feelings about them: 81% of CHROs in America and some European countries surveyed by people management platform Leapsome 

believe strict RTO mandates are ineffective

, and 63% from America said they feel pressured by their CEO to embrace them.

While HR leaders still play a critical role when it comes to addressing challenges related to diversity and immigration, these issues are not currently as top of mind for executives as they were in the early 2020s, according to Emily Rose McRae, senior director analyst at Gartner.

On top of all this, many practitioners who were CHROs during the pandemic have simply 

: “HR has been running the equivalent of a 100-mile marathon now, and there’s almost no end in sight,” Dan Kaplan, managing director and co-head of the CHRO practice at ZRG Partners, told HR Brew. “And every time you feel like, okay, we could take a breath, war starts in the Middle East, tariffs come. It’s just a never ending set of challenges that HR has to be prepared to solve.”

And, as companies have sought to fill vacant CHRO roles, some have found they 

 with comparable expertise and appoint greener practitioners instead.

Moreover, not all C-suite leaders see CHROs as a strategic asset. Research from 

 found that 42% of C-suite executives don’t view HR as equal partners, and 36% see HR as only slightly critical to business strategy. SAP’s research also found that C-suite leaders tend to agree more with non-HR executives than CHROs on top priorities.

That perception has, at best, stagnated since the pandemic. In 2021, for example, 57% of C-suite executives based in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia viewed the CHRO as equal leadership partners in their organization, according to a survey by cloud-based business services company Sage. Additionally, Sage’s survey found that 87% of executives agreed that the pandemic transformed HR and gave it greater influence, but 52% of respondents thought those changes were temporary.

Now, AI poses a risk to CHROs’ strategic influence.

As AI technology evolves and reshapes tasks, HR leaders will be 

“If you’re a CHRO, and you’re not focused on AI, you’re already behind. Because AI is moving so fast,” said Tiffonia Noussi, a fractional CHRO who works with growth-stage private equity backed firms.

 surveyed by Gartner this year believe their CHROs are AI-savvy—lower than any other C-suite roles surveyed.

This perception “is a problem when the big change that everyone’s talking about is technology,” said McRae. “It’s particularly a problem when the fact is that one of the greatest weaknesses to the technological approach right now is that people do not have enough conversations about the impact on roles and workflows.”

 into AI, despite not yet seeing an ROI, they’ve been more frugal with workforce development, said Philby. Research from Accenture found that companies 

 of generative AI budgets on technology than on people. And a 2024 Gartner survey found that 

 consider employees’ work or well-being when making decisions about generative AI.

This has left CHROs torn between investing in long-term goals and keeping up with short-term demands: The top two strategic priorities for CHROs over the next two years, according to a 

, are growth and market expansion (69%) and cost efficiency (56%).

“They’re sort of being pulled in two directions,” said Philby. “It’s like, ‘How do we invest in the risk? How do we transform our business through our people, and at the same time, maintain or reduce our costs?”

As a result, CHROs—particularly those who haven’t had exposure to strategic conversations in recent years—are missing out on the most important C-suite conversations.

“We’re fighting about whether someone should be in the office three days, four days, or five days, instead of saying, ‘In five years, are we going to need the same people, and are we going to need people that have a different AI toolkit, and maybe we need to set up offices elsewhere in the world to attract those people?’” Kaplan said.

It’s critical that HR leaders not only be included in AI strategy conversations, but also bring insights and ideas to the table.

“In the past, HR has always been very reactive. And I think there’s an opportunity to be proactive and really saying the hard things really early, rather than waiting,” said Noussi. “And so I think that’s one area that we don’t talk about, but courage is a wonderful, wonderful virtue when it comes to being impactful in the HR space.”

HR leaders should have “both ears to the market” on AI, Kaplan said, including understanding the technology’s innovations and evolutions, engaging in forums with top AI leaders, and integrating their learnings into talent strategy. They should also make sure they’re included in five-year planning and AI strategy conversations with their C-suite peers, and advocate for HR priorities.

And while many functions are competing for money amid tightening budgets and AI investments, HR leaders should still make long-term financial plans, said Tamesa Rogers, a fractional CHRO who was Netgear’s chief people officer until 2024.

“I think doing nothing is the wrong decision,” Rogers said. “Even if you have to stagger it out, having a plan on what you can invest this year, next year, the following year. And then how do you, with that investment, make sure that you are also developing your workforce, or planning your workforce to accommodate it?”

For top CHROs, the question around HR getting a seat at the table is long over, said Kaplan. And those waiting for the CEO to seek them out as a strategic partner will likely be waiting a long time. “The best HR leaders aren’t waiting to be asked,” he said. They’re prepared with insights to share and an understanding of the AI ecosystem.

“There’s still a large population that is waiting to be asked and doesn’t realize that the plane has already left the terminal.”

Rear view of mature businesswoman discussing strategies with colleagues in board room at office.

CHROs saw a rise to power during the pandemic. Are they now losing traction?

The pandemic elevated the CHRO role to new heights of importance. Now, their influence is at risk of waning.

The CHRO's new seat at the table might be at risk

The promise of AI lies in its ability to tackle the rote, mundane tasks associated with some jobs, so employees can spend more time on higher-level activities, rather than being stuck in the drudgery. But what if one of those rote, mundane tasks were completing mandatory compliance training?

In controlled testing, compliance training platform Ethena found that ChatGPT’s new agent tool completed compliance training content without any human intervention and was able to mimic real-interaction with the module and avoid detection.

“We believe at this stage it’s fairly nascent, that is, based on everything we’re seeing and hearing and understanding in the space,” said Ethena’s VP of marketing, Chris Vandermarel. “We think it’s unlikely that a lot of employees are doing this at this point in time, but as the technology matures, as the knowledge gets shared, as one colleague whispers to another colleague…We think this is one of those things that’s nascent today, but could change very quickly.”

When ChatGPT released its “agent mode” 

, Ethena’s engineers began thinking about its different use cases and understanding how it might apply to the compliance training space, according to Vandermarel, including the potential for more nefarious uses, such as the possibility of using the tool to complete a compliance training. The company tested several vendors, including Ethena, and concluded that the problem was “widespread” across the platforms.

“[We] very quickly discovered, wow, this tool is so good at mimicking human behavior, that it just does it all flawlessly,” he said.

The discovery raises issues for HR leaders too. Soon, companies and compliance pros may not be able to fully trust that training courses were actually completed by a human. Compliance and legal requirements mandated by federal, state, and local governments, or those mandated by the court or via a legal settlement, could be at risk of true compliance. Enforcement efforts and company policy might also require updating.

“It’s a very, very simple prompt, which is part of what makes this story so wild, because people skipping mandatory training is not a new concept. This is something that people have been doing for a long time,” Vandermarel said, adding that the ubiquitousness of the ChatGPT tool and AI agents more generally could prove a big risk for compliance teams.

, told HR Brew that it could be time to reassess the value of compliance training to employees, and make sure an 

 with real-world scenarios and situations that employees might actually encounter is delivered.

“From an HR perspective, what really comes to mind for me is that the fact that it’s so easy and that there are so few barriers to making it happen risks it becoming more normalized and feeling less like you’re breaking the rules,” she said.

HR teams can also offer test-out options for employees, work on building leaders’ to model behavior and demonstrate the value of trainings, and monitor training data and analytics to be on the lookout for unusual activity. If everyone in a department completed the training in the exact same amount of time, that’s worth a bit of sniffing around.

But Vandermarel pointed out that AI systems are evolving much faster than prevention methods and vendors, so simply fighting fire with fire—using AI tools to monitor and prevent this activity—probably will not succeed. It’s a more useful strategy to deliver a compliance training that’s relevant and tailored for them and respects their time and prior knowledge.

“The tech is the surface-level problem,” Naranjo said. “If you’re addressing that and nothing else, then I think what you’re actually missing is a really key opportunity to take this moment in time to take a step back and reflect on what is your actual compliance strategy, and is it effective? If it was effective, you wouldn’t have employees using AI agent mode to take their training. They would actually want to take the training. They would understand the value.”

Are AI agents taking your employee compliance trainings?

Testing reveals ChatGPT’s new agent can complete some trainings without detection, raising issues for compliance teams.

Welp. In the age of AI, perhaps it’s time to retire the old adage, “Go big, or go home,” and replace it with, “Go micro, and then keep going.”

Business and technology consulting firm West Monroe found that organizations that targeted “micro” AI interventions were better able to deliver faster results and limit risk, and it’s a trend among top performers, according to the firm.

The analysis comes as companies and organizations work to navigate the choppy waters of the ongoing 

. Businesses are directing millions of dollars toward new AI products and systems, but the technology offers unproven ROI and is itself evolving rapidly.

According to the analysis, which appeared in the firm’s 

 report released in July, “organizations winning today are shifting away from ‘big bang’ implementations and are instead prioritizing initiatives that yield faster results.”

This appears to be a departure from innovation that prioritizes big ideas and big risk…and a big budget. But technology is evolving, and 

 and new AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT) can reduce implementation of transformation projects from months to days. Additionally, with the right infrastructure, teams can deploy new AI interventions independently of other projects.

West Monroe found: “success stories are smaller, and come from companies that build foundational capabilities and apply them to specific business challenges.” The winning strategy, according to the firm, is to keep up the momentum going through small, manageable projects that build towards larger goals and priorities.

There’s work HR and people leaders can do now to help support their business and prepare the workforce.

The report outlined a number of strategies that could impact the HR team.

Foster a culture of experimentation and learning

Develop processes for sharing information and learnings across the business

Focus on adaptable skills across the workforce, like “problem-solving capabilities, adaptability, and continuous learning.”

robot head shaped stairwell with person climbing the steps

When it comes to AI, think (checks notes) small?

Research finds small, targeted AI interventions can yield faster, more nimble results.

Girish Ganesan, CPO at S&P Global, took the reins of the financial information and analytics giant’s HR function last fall amid a C-suite shake up following the appointment of CEO Martina Cheung 

. Ganesan told HR Brew he’s spent the nearly year-long journey focused on three main priorities: supporting the executive team’s efforts under a new CEO, readying the workforce as the company and world evolves, and maximizing the people teams to best deliver for the company and its employees.

He said a big chunk of his work involved deploying a new employee value proposition for its workforce: people forward. Ganesan said the organization needed to evolve its people philosophy to reflect changes inside the organization and outside more broadly.

 The new framework guides all company messaging and communication and is “embedded across the employee life cycle,” according to Ganesan.

“It’s an evolution from our people-first philosophy, which has existed at S&P Global for many years,” he said. “It’s a mindset that guides how we invest in our people, largely underpinned in continuous growth and development.”

The shift to people forward reflected not only a strategy shift from new executive leaders, but also acknowledged ongoing AI-disruption and new economic and geopolitical realities.

S&P Global focuses on employee career development, trust and transparency amid a changing workplace and world, and a renewed focus on employee well-being with emphasis on the entire person.

“We want our people to grow and come along the journey as the organization evolves, so it emphasizes momentum, propelling our workforce towards keeping up with the pace with market changes, emerging technologies and shifting work-life needs,” he said.

Ganesan said people forward is an evolution of the company’s previous “people first” philosophy, designed to equip the workforce for continuous innovation and adaptation.

Empowering employee growth and career development requires a focus on employee agency over their own career development and equipping employees with the training and tools to succeed in a new economy. It’s no secret an AI-enabled economy is where 

“We’re not just adopting AI. We want to prepare our people to thrive alongside it,” he said.

S&P offers in-house generative AI tooling to every employee. Every employee, 42,000 of them, is required to complete a training program on the tools. The organization is doubling down with additional role-specific training for specific groups of employees and managers.

S&P focuses its education both on essential tech and essential skills training, largely focused on human skills or leadership skills, which will be more urgently needed as AI becomes more enveloped in the day-to-day of business, he said.

“You both need to be technically astute to be able to leverage AI, but you also need to have those power skills to be able to supplement where AI is going to leave a gap,” he said.

As businesses transition amid the ongoing AI transformation, and S&P Global moves ahead with its AI plans, company execs are working to include employee listening and needs. AI transformation questions are included in employee surveying, and AI technology showcased to employees also “generates a lot of commentary and questions.”

“We want to make sure that we’re building a community in which everyone feels connected and valued,” he said, “It was fundamentally important to us that…our people feel that their voices are being heard and that we are on this journey together.” 

Ganesan also said that employee wellness and well being is paramount to S&P’s new strategy. The company boasts of its wellness days, five days a year when its offices are closed and employees are asked to focus on their lives and families. It also focuses on hybrid work, an essential resource for supporting employees’ ability to work the way that works best for them.

“AI is truly turning into a life skill very quickly, beyond a professional skill,” Ganesan said. “It’s seeping into our lives. It’s in society everywhere. I wake up to an AI feed every day, and that’s how life’s going to be, but combining that with human connectivity, empathy, respect for human race, also respect for human intelligence, that’s going to bring about judgment…even more profound as we move forward.”

business people walking on a windy path towards progress

S&P Global’s employee strategy builds on human talent by investing in their skills and development in AI and beyond

“People forward” invests in developing the next generation of workers equipped for working in an AI-powered future.

An illustration of reporter Courtney Vinopal's headshot.

Courtney Vinopal

As the war for AI talent continues, it’s become pricier than ever.

At least that’s the case for a small group of companies seeking to capitalize on the revolution that proponents of the technology are promising.

Meta, which is going all-in on AI investments with the creation of a “superintelligence” lab, is reportedly offering multi-million dollar pay packages to poach top AI talent from competitors like OpenAI. At least one offer reached $1.5 billion, but the prospective hire turned it down, according to 

Some of the companies Meta is looking to poach AI talent from are outside the tech firms it has traditionally competed with for workers. To field his superintelligence team, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reaching out to employees not only from OpenAI, but also Anthropic and Thinking Machines Lab, which OpenAI alumni founded and only launched in the last five years.

While not all HR leaders can afford to hire AI talent for the price Meta is paying, they may well be taking a similar approach in their hiring strategy, forming separate AI “peer groups” to understand where top talent works, and what they earn, according to compensation experts.

How companies use peer groups to recruit workers, set salaries. 

Establishing peer groups is a longstanding practice in executive compensation. When determining executive pay packages, compensation committees will look at market data from a select basket of companies they typically compete against (at Meta, for example, this group included Alphabet, Microsoft, and Netflix in 2023, according to a 

When determining peer groups, employers typically “look at [their] competitive labor market for this pocket of employees that [they’re] thinking about,” Jonathan Jebson, compensation insights director with the compensation software firm Compa, told HR Brew. They ask themselves, “who are we hiring from? Who is hiring our people?” Companies also take into account factors like size and industry when selecting a peer group.

While this practice is common when setting pay for executives, it’s also used by companies seeking “more granular benchmarking data” for a broader set of employees, Jebson explained.

Such data is particularly valuable for companies hiring for AI-related roles as the field is fairly nascent, said Tom McMullen, senior client partner with Korn Ferry. “It’s not a mature space,” he said. “The technology is new…organizations are figuring out how to use it.” While employees may be using AI in their jobs, their roles may not be entirely dedicated to it, he said.

“When you don’t have firmed up roles…the published compensation surveys aren’t going to survey those jobs because the jobs aren’t firm,” McMullen explained, though he added that HR professionals may be able to glean how companies are paying for AI roles through job postings, given the increasing 

To help determine what pay might look like for roles requiring AI skills, compensation teams are identifying peer groups that look different from the set of organizations they would typically compete against for most roles, said Compa CEO and co-founder Charlie Franklin.

Compa sees many companies “explicitly targeting” Magnificent 7 firms for their AI peer groups, he said, referencing a term to describe a group of tech companies with large market capitalizations that includes Microsoft, Meta, and Nvidia. Organizations are looking not only to these firms, but also “some of the largest, most famous, private AI companies” to pull AI talent from, he added.

Once HR teams identify an AI peer group, they have to figure out if their company can afford talent from the firms they’re targeting, sources told HR Brew.

 for certain AI skills means engineering and HR teams are having to strike a balance in discussions about talent, Jebson said. While an engineering lead might be hoping to hire a candidate that hails from OpenAI, Anthropic, or a big tech company, the compensation team must then ask, “Can we effectively afford this?” and consider how hiring an elite machine learning engineer may affect internal pay equity.

Compensation teams lean on peer groups to guide these conversations, Jebson said. If the market for pay looks too high for a very narrow peer group, they may point to a different set of companies where talent is more affordable.

Paying top-of-market salaries for AI talent may be out of the question for many smaller startups, but Kaitlyn Knopp, founder and CEO of the compensation management software firm Pequity, encourages them to consider other factors that may drive talent to their company. A generous equity offer, work-life balance, and the opportunity to “work really hard at cool, new problems” are all things that could hold sway over a promising candidate, she said.

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