Building an AI-Ready HR Culture to Transform Talent Insights

UNLEASH is recognized by SHRM to offer Professional Development Credits (PDC) for SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP recertification.

In this exclusive UNLEASH webinar, in partnership with Workhuman, watch Taylor Maltz, Principal Program Manager at Workhuman, Zachary Chertok, Research Manager, Employee Experience at IDC, Noelle Russell, Founder & Chief AI Officer at the AI Leadership Institute, and Jesse Harriott, Head of Analytics at Workhuman discuss the topic of the moment: AI.  

The conversations started with Maltz from Workhuman asking the panelists how HR can embrace the opportunity AI presents now and in the future.

IDC’s Chertok kicked off the discussion by sharing that AI “isn’t just another technology”, it could fundamentally transform how businesses operate.  

The issue is that there is a gap between CEO expectations of AI and what functional leaders, like HR, can actually get done.  

CEOs have this really great vision in mind”, but “we’re really far from being able to execute on that.”

Zachary Chertok, IDC  

The starting point needs to be “data cleanliness in the HR environment”, and then “bringing tools and stakeholders together”, according to IDC’s Chertok.  

“There’s a long road ahead for companies to fully define, and then embrace its potential and what it means for them”, noted Chertok. Unfortunately, this path is going to be longer for larger organizations.  

Responsible AI and data must be top of HR’s mind

Russell from AI Leadership Institute agreed that AI presents huge opportunities for professionals in the space to do more with less, and “really take care of our employees in a new way”.  

In doing this, Russell emphasizes that HR leaders must keep ‘responsible AI’ top of mind.

For Russell, HR leaders need to focus not just on the technology itself, but also on whether they have built an AI-ready culture.

It is more than just saying, “are we innovative? Are we using technology in the right way? Are we being responsible?” – those are important questions, but it is also about “our core values as an organization” and having clarity in terms of how to train an AI system.  

Harriott from Workhuman picks up on this thread – “you’ve got to be thinking about where that data comes from”.  

For Harrott, technology can help “stop the bias” during the collection phase – having a feedback loop can help to continually enhance the data that goes into the system.  

IDC’s Chertok added that HR leaders shouldn’t just rely on “the tool itself to set those guardrails” – they need to be more proactive and be constantly challenging the AI models.  

Regarding HR, Harriott calls on them to think about their goal – “What are we trying to understand [about] our talent pool?”  

Russell agrees – she calls on HR to not “boil the ocean” and build something “that’s so big we lose sight of it”.  

Instead, focus on building “minimum remarkable products” –

“How do you build something that’s tangible and beneficial to the organization, but not have to worry too much about [it]?”

Noelle Russell, AI Leadership Institute

If you want to find out more about driving business success in the AI Era, make sure to check out our upcoming roundtable for senior HR leaders and apply to join the exclusive conversation.