UNLEASH America Day One: Top takeaways from Deloitte, Mercer, Microsoft, Visier, HireVue, and FedEx

UNLEASH America 2024 is finally here! And what better way to kick the event off than a series of exclusive summits, featuring some of the world’s most prestigious HR speakers. 

Today, we were graced by senior leaders from Panasonic, Microsoft, Mercer, Deloitte, Drake Star Partners, and that’s just naming a few!

But in case you were unable to attend, we wanted to make sure that we keep you up to speed by sharing some of the day’s top highlights.

Vendor summit: Igniting inspiration and innovation

Starting the day off strong, Ben Eubanks, Chief Research Officer at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, took to the stage to speak on Revolutionizing Human Resources: Navigating the Future with Innovative HR Technologies. 

Throughout his 30-minute session, Eubanks drove home the critical role HR technology plays in having a cohesive and modern talent strategy, as he asked the audience the critical question: “Who is your ideal customer?”

Using research to steer his session, Eubanks addressed this, while highlighting the cutting-edge tools and strategies needed to empower HR professionals to recruit, manage, and retain talent more effectively. 

To do so, he touched upon AI’s impact on talent acquisition, data and integrations on employee analytics, and the importance of the correct deployment of tools in every role through organizations.

In fact, 50% of employers said that AI in hiring is too overhyped, or that it’s too early to tell the true value.

Eubanks explained: “Don’t lead with AI, lead with the problem you’re trying to solve, and use AI to help that. Too many leaders think that it will solve all their problems and cut their grass, too – this isn’t always the case.”

He then shares that 63% of leaders believe that their workforce isn’t adaptable to change. “We know that change causes problems,” he added, “so this should be a major focus for business leaders.

“The tools your building with will help leaders overcome the challenges of burnout, while reclaiming lost time and reigniting the passion and excitement they have for their industry.”

Next to the stage was Reejig’s CEO Siobhan Savage and Huler’s CEO, Nicky Hoyland, accompanied by Elaine Orler, Managing Director, Consulting at Cielo Talent as moderator.

During their time, the duo explored how businesses can navigate the current era of unprecedented digital transformation, while respecting the role HR tech plays in shaping organizations. 

Answering the question ‘Where are we going in the skills economy today?’ Hoyland inputted: “So many organizations don’t appreciate the skill set they already have, but this should be a priority for them.

Leaders need to look into how AI can be used to automate processes, and to help focus on the human skills that are imperative to joining an organization.”

Moving on, the panel chatted about the emerging trends, challenges, and opportunities, as well as valuable insights as to how businesses can leverage technology to streamline processes. 

Savage said: “We’ve done one official lap around the sun of our learning journey. Now, we know how to implement the key components, particularly from a technology perspective. We know we’re never going to get it perfect, but we want to co-create to get it as close to perfect as possible.”

Siobhan Savage, Nicky Hoyland, and Elaine Orler,

The third session of this summit was led by five phenomenal executives: Jason Averbook, Senior Partner and Global HR Transformation Leader at Mercer; Sujit Goswami, CEO and Founder at Flexday; Jeanie Cole, Senior Manager, Workforce Strategies at Deloitte; and Michael Watson, Global Head of Customer Evangelism at Eightfold AI. Rebecca Wetterman, CEO & Analyst at Valo took the lead as moderator.

And it’s no wonder there was such a strong panel, as the group were discussing one of the hottest topics at the moment: The Ethical Landscape of AI in Human Resources: Challenges & Solutions.

“What is AI and what are the different aspects of AI?” Averbook began. “The difference between these can often be confused, but it’s really important that people are educated on the different types.

In addition, every organization has to have governance for AI. It’s like traffic lights to keep us safe.”

Taking the microphone, Cole asked: “Are we being transparent enough with our employees? If we’re not being transparent enough, they won’t build trust – and this is imperative for every organization.”

Last, but certainly not least, Svenja Gudell, Chief Economist at Indeed and Daniel Zhao, Lead Economist at Glassdoor discussed Workforce 2024: Economists Decode a Tough Labor Puzzle, with Kathi Enderes, SVP Research at The Josh Bersin Company as moderator. 

In this final session, the leading labor economists discussed the evolving labor market, ongoing economic challenges, and the drive for transformation.

Enderes outlines four key themes: Labor shortages, organizational changes, AI transformations, and growing employee expectations.

Labor shortages will be with us for quite some time,” Gudell said. “For example, Japan and the US had a growing again populations, meaning they often don’t have enough young workers to perform the necessary jobs.”

She continued to how this impacts employee activism, hybrid working, equal pay, and leadership development, to name just a few factors.

After working through the other three other themes, Zhao concluded: “I’m a big believer in the power of AI, and it will have significant impacts on the economy moving forward but it will just take time.”

HR tech & transformation summit: Optimizing HR tech strategies for sustained organizational influence

Over at the HR Tech and Transformation summit, Kyle Lagunas, Head of Strategy & Principal Analyst at Aptitude Research took center stage to discuss: Navigating the Future – Embracing Digital Transformation. 

Opening the session, Lagunas addressed three key HR trends that are impacting businesses currently, with the first one being that HR is going big on AI. This, he explained, is because 61% of companies are increasing investment in AI for HR objectives.

The second trend he highlights is skills and skills-based strategies, sharing that 43% of companies are embracing a skills-based approach to talent. “Skills are the currency of the future of work, and HR is ready to start printing,” he added.

The third and final trend was that there needs to be a roadmap for it all, particularly in terms of strategic workforce planning. Supporting this, Lagunas highlighted that 48% of companies reported the greatest impact to transformation is SWP. 

We then swiftly moved on to looking at the value of AI in HR to improve employee experience, with Prena Ajmera, GM HR Digital Strategy & Innovation at Microsoft stating: “On a day-to-day basis, every act, every task that we do… It’s really a revolution versus the incremental gains that we have typically seen technology deliver. 

That’s where I see we are just getting started and as we look at every function within HR, every task and workflow, and more importantly the way we are talking about HR helps the business transform – that’s at the heart of where the technology needs to be.”

Continuing on, the pair, alongside Gary Bolles, Chair for the Future of Work at Singularity University as moderator, explored how to enable HR to gain a deeper understanding of engagement and performance, whilst still fostering a productive workplace culture.

Last, but certainly not least, we saw a panel discussion from five amazing industry leaders: Dr. Mike Hudy, Chief Science Officer at HireVue; Rebecca Carr, CEO (Interim) and Chief Product Officer at SmartRecruiters; Paul Rubenstein, Chief Customer Officer at Visier; and Sachit Kamat, Chief Product Officer at Eightfold; with Gary Bolles, Chair for the Future of Work, Singularity University as moderator.

The session, titled Revolutionizing the Workplace: Harnessing HR Tech for Transformative Impact saw each leader offering a unique perspective on the game-changing developments in HR tech.

Carr said: “As a product leader, I think about building AI products in terms of outcomes; what do I want my customer to feel, or as a candidate what do I want to achieve?

“If you just go at it blindly with the goal of just incorporating AI tomorrow, you end up with a piecemeal setup of a lot of little things, that when put together aren’t actually delivering against the outcome that your business needs right now.”

Day One of UNLEASH America

Elevating talent acquisition to new heights

Kicking off the Talent Acquisition (TA) Summit, John Vlastelica, CEO of Recruiting Toolbox, joked with the audience, does anyone in TA have a t-shirt that says ‘I survived the pandemic?’ 

It’s been a tough few years for the recruiting function, and more changes are here and incoming; in fact, Vlastelica described the incoming disruption as “unbelievable”, but reassured the audience that it’s a great time to be in TA. 

“Our function is the hot seat,” stated Annie Rihn, Talent Acquisition Leader and Advisor at Voray, during a panel session. 

In another part of the summit, Vlastelica welcomed two HR leaders to the stage to chat through these challenges, and their secrets to success on AI implementation. 

The key is for the TA function, and hiring managers, to “get out of the business of admin”, according to DJ Norman, Global Head of Experienced Recruiting at Atlassian. 

FedEx’s Kylie Kingston agreed. 

While there’s a lot of “muscle memory that we had to unlearn”, and some change management to go through, for Kingston, this move away from admin is actually creating an opportunity. 

It allows HR to now “really invest our time in the things that will make the ROI happen”, aka those really value-adding parts of TA and strategic planning for the future. 

The conversation turned to quality of hires.

Vlastelica expressed a phrase that captures the progress that HR has made in recent years.

“If 2021 and 2022 was about speed and scale, 2024 is all about quality.” 

He added: “But, we are still stuck as a profession” when it comes to measuring quality.

His top advice on mindset and TA? It’s time to move away from hiring from pedigree companies, and over-emphasizing low attrition. 

As Kelly Cartwright, VP of Global People Acquisition, Technology and Operations at Splunk, shared during the panel session, it’s often employees who aren’t from top performers who may want to stay.

So, it’s more essential than ever that companies lean into data, together with adapting their mindset, to make 2024 the year hiring managers own recruiting.