Five quotes that tell HR’s 2023 story

As 2023 draws to a close, it is time to reflect on a busy year for the HR sector.

Much like 2022, this year has been dominated by debates about office vs remote work, talent shortages, geopolitical uncertainty and economic difficulty, for employers and employees alike.

But a major differentiator in 2023 has been the debate about the pros and cons of AI and emerging technology.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT onto emerged on the scene in November 2022, and it triggered excitement about the potential of a new type of AI – generative AI.

But there’s also been a lot of consternation about the downsides of automation.

Risk and ethics around AI have become a headache for HR leaders. They’ve also been grappling with alleviating employee fears about their job security, at the same time of dealing with ongoing extreme worker burnout and stress.

Here at UNLEASH, we have been reporting on all these topics – and many more – this year.

We’ve sat down with experts from across the field – analysts, investors, vendors, HR and tech leaders – to find out the actions that organizations need to thrive in 2023 and beyond.

To round out the year, here are five of the best quotes from our interviews that really tell the story of 2023 – the ups and the downs – and focus our minds as we prepare for what 2024 has in store.

“You should not do any AI whatsoever unless you have a responsible AI framework” – Florin Rotar, chief AI officer at Avanade

The term that has been on everyone’s lips in 2023 has been AI.

Although there has been a lot of skepticism and concern about the long-term impacts of this emerging technology – the big question has been: Will AI steal all our jobs? – in the short-term people have been playing around, and experimenting, with AI tools at work and in their personal lives.

Yes, it might feel productive to use AI at work – a Salesforce survey of 14,000 global workers found that one third are using AI at work.

But the issue is that 55% are using unapproved tools, with a whopping 2 in 5 using actively banned tools in the workplace – and this is a huge problem for organizations, and specifically HR and IT leaders.

This is because it means employers cannot control what data employees are putting into unsanctioned, unvetted tools, and how that can be used by external actors, potentially maliciously.

The solution is to HR leaders to get ahead of the game, and put guardrails in place that don’t extinguish the innovation going on in their workplace, but ensures that AI is being used in a responsible way.

The good news is that HR leaders, and the C-Suite in general are very aware of the need to put trust and transparency front and center.

UNLEASH has heard from all sort of HR experts about how AI ethics must be the priority in on the ethics; examples include with Workday’s chief responsible AI officer, futurist and Mercer transformation leader Ravin Jesuthasan, Fujitsu’s CTO, KPMG’s CPO and Avanade’s chief AI officer.

2024 will bring more of the same – employers want the productivity gains, but not at the expense of their security.

“One of things that we have done very poorly in the West is we have over relied on credentials, on traditional job pathing. We hired people who look like us, and have resumes like us” – Sayan Chakraborty, Workday’s co-president

Alongside with AI, skills has been a major theme of 2023.

2022 saw lots of talk about how people no longer want jobs, they want careers – they want their employer to invest in them, and their development – in this context, learning has rocketed up the reasons that people would look for a new job.

As attrition rates, and talent shortages, have continued in 2023, employers have started to realize that their future success depends on a re-evaluation of how they think about skills – both in hiring and promotions.

Skills have replaced degrees and credentials as the new currency at work – being a skills-first organization is a necessity in 2023 and beyond.

Organizations are starting to realize that relying on old-school metrics, like CVs, degrees and job descriptions, to try and fill open roles wasn’t working.

Speaking exclusively to UNLEASH at Workday Rising EMEA in Barcelona, the HR tech giant’s co-president Sayan Chakraborty shares: “I see a lot of job descriptions…that [require] an undergraduate degree, but do you really need an undergraduate degree for that job?”, asks Chakraborty.

Instead, thriving organizations are focusing more on the actual skills needed to do the job and hiring (and reskilling existing employees) in a more focused way to suit the business needs.

In exclusive interviews with UNLEASH in 2023, brands like Accenture, Siemens, IBM and The Body Shop shared their experiences of saying goodbye to CVs, and focusing in on skills, but also potential, when hiring.

Just because someone’s CV doesn’t look quite how you think it should, doesn’t mean they aren’t the perfect fit for that role in your organization.

“What we don’t want it to be is just the HR team that’s pushing [the DEIB] agenda. We need to make sure that all of our leaders are there as well” – Claudia Osei-Nsafoah, Sky’s group talent and D&I lead, and chief people officer for UK&I.

A central reason why The Body Shop in particular adjusted away from CVs in hiring was because to be more inclusive as an employer.

Diversity, equity and inclusion – UNLEASH added belonging into the mix in 2023, transforming DE&I into DEIB – has remained top of mind for HR teams in 2024.

A lot of progress has been made, but there is still lots of work to be done, particularly in making the business case around DEIB to the C-Suite.

While all the data shows that diversity is good for business – diverse perspectives are always positive, but organizations only leverage their full power when people feel included and like they belong – in 2023, HR leaders have been working hard to ensure they aren’t the only ones responsible for DEIB success.

In an exclusive UNLEASH interview, the British tech giant Sky Group’s diversity and inclusion lead Claudia Osei-Nsfoah shares the secret to success: making the C-Suite accountable for DEIB success.

Sky is doing this both through KPIs, but also through a Diversity Advisory Council made up of external experts.

“We wanted to make sure that we weren’t marking our own homework. Those external experts can hold the mirror up and sense check [that] Sky is doing what we said we were going to do,” continues Osei-Nsafoah.

This is something that other brands like Salesforce, Pfizer, PwC and Lenovo have also experimented with.

Talking to UNLEASH, Lenovo’s chief diversity officer Calvin Crosslin agrees that while DEIB is an “essential skill that every HR practitioner should have in their HR toolbelt”, “it is not a responsibility just to be owned by the DEIB team, but integrated…into the business to fully immerse within the company culture.”

Getting company culture right is tricky, but when organizations succeed, they really do reap the rewards of happy, engaged, productive and loyal employees – as O.C. Tanner found in its latest survey of 42,500 employees worldwide.

“All the apps, all the programs, all the investments in the world aren’t going to solve the [burnout] problem” – Brent Cassell, VP, advisory, Gartner

Gartner data showed that 2022 was the worst year on record for stress and burnout – and 2023 was more of the same.

While the COVID-19 pandemic may be in the rear view mirror, there was more than enough for employees to be worried about this year – not least the climate crisis, wars in Ukraine and Israel, and potential political turmoil linked with upcoming elections in the US and major European countries.

Technology is another cause of worker stress and overwhelm – that’s according to new data from Asana’s Work Innovation Lab.

They are wasting 1.5 days a week navigating the huge number of tools they have to use at work – 38% are using four or more technologies – and this is leading two in five to feel burnt out.

So, what’s the solution?

According to Gartner’s Brent Cassell, the answer cannot just be more apps or programs – wellbeing “is not a problem that we can solve exclusively through technology”.

Instead, HR leaders need to address the root cause of why people don’t seek help: stigma.

The issue is that “discussing employee mental health at work is still a taboo”, and “unless employees are comfortable having these conversations at work, they’re not going to get the help they need”, Cassell tells UNLEASH.

Managers are a key part of the puzzle – 2023 was the year that HR really embraced the need to partner not just with the C-Suite, but with leaders and managers across the organization, if they want their investments to have a real impact on employees.

“As a large enterprise, you will not get all your innovation from your incumbent vendors” – Thomas Otter, general partner, Acadian Ventures

HR tech has boomed in 2023 – funding rounds and mergers and acquisitions have continued unabated this year, spurred on by businesses’ (and investors’) perspective that “their most valuable asset is people” – in the words of Drake Star MD Ralf Holfmann.

It is clear that HR tech is truly mission critical to the successful future of businesses – and the wider economy.

Here at UNLEASH, we have covered the big funding rounds of the year – but in 2023 we also launched a new Editorial Series called ‘VC Voices’ where we sat down with the biggest HR tech investors to find out their perspectives on the future of HR tech.

We’ve done five editions of the series to date, and they are full of gems of insight for founders and HR leaders alike.

Thomas Otter, general partner at Acadian and our third VC Voice, is very clear of the value of startups to organizations.

“What I’d say is as a large enterprise, you will not get all your innovation from your incumbent vendors,” notes Otter.

“There’s a lot of good value coming from your incumbent vendors if you’re managing them correctly and effectively. My most important advice to enterprise buyers is: You need startups.”

allygatr founder and CEO Benjamin Visser – our second VC Voice – notes that HR leaders need to make sure to “avoid tech that promises too much without tangible evidence of value”.

The underlying message is that HR leaders need to invest in the right tools aka the technologies employees actually want to use – that will make their lives easier, not harder – not just the flashiest, latest tools with the best marketing.

Lots of food for thought for HR teams here – bring on 2024!