Insights from Leading Women in HR: AI and Preparing for the Future of Work

?A HUGE thank you to Ellyn Shook , Ashley Goldsmith , and Rhonda Morris for sharing your insights and participating in this article!?

Like nearly every aspect of business, innovation and the employee experience are deeply intertwined. Advancements in technology present fresh opportunities to engage, recruit, and train employees. Existing roles evolve and new ones emerge, demanding updated skillsets, which means that training, reskilling, and upskilling are table stakes for any organization. Here at 英特尔 , we’re focused on helping employees build upon their strengths and acquire new skills, not only through training but also by enabling internal movement and rotation assignments.?

With the introduction of generative AI (GenAI) tools to consumers, we’re seeing a new shift. People are experimenting outside the workplace, exploring its potential, discovering countless use cases, and broadening their knowledge and skills. This technology, when used responsibly, opens new doors, allowing us to scale, increase productivity, and think differently.??

Many companies have restricted or banned the use of GenAI tools within the workplace. While we must exercise caution and apply safeguards, I believe we should also bring employees along through training and education and consider their inputs while establishing the guardrails and oversight to ensure safe, secure, unbiased, and inclusive AI creation and usage. To this end, I’m currently working with a group of industry peers to formulate a set of AI guiding principles for use in HR (I’ll share more about that effort in the coming months).??

With these topics on my mind, I was curious to understand how others are thinking about these topics. I reached out to some of my peers, including Ashley Goldsmith, Rhonda Morris, and Ellyn Shook, to understand their top priorities for this year and the role of AI, especially. I’ve provided their answers below.?

How do you see emerging technologies like AI shaping recruiting and HR processes and/or the employee experience???

Rhonda Morris, Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Chevron?

“We will need different approaches to recruit, develop, and retain our workforce as emerging technologies like AI help advance our goals and help us build the energy system of the future. ?GenAI has the potential to optimize our HR processes and enhance the overall employee experience.?

“The energy business is rapidly evolving, and that presents a real moment of opportunity for HR at Chevron. AI and generative AI can automate and augment various HR processes such as recruitment, performance management, learning & development, and employee engagement. For example, an AI-powered virtual agent can provide employees with quick and accurate responses to their queries and free up time for our HR professionals to focus on more strategic advisory and partnerships. In recruitment, a generative AI tool can create new content, such as coaching and career development guidance to support hiring managers in providing personalized feedback to candidates and employees as part of the talent selection process.? We're also excited to utilize AI for improving our talent acquisition initiatives by streamlining the recruitment process and helping our teams make data-driven decisions.”?

Ellyn Shook, Chief Leadership & Human Resources Officer at Accenture?

“GenAI, when used to its fullest capacity, has the potential to reinvent companies. And to capture this tremendous opportunity in front of us, we need to reframe how we think about talent and HR. In our profession, there have been few moments for HR to really help drive the change – and this is absolutely one of them.”?

Ashley Goldsmith, Chief People Officer at Workday?

“I am especially excited about new technologies that can help make life a little easier for people leaders. We are already seeing the benefits of GenAI, which can save time (something we all desperately need!) by drafting job descriptions, creating growth plans, and providing a starting place for performance reviews. And through advanced analytics and intelligent listening, we now have the ability to slice and dice people data in new ways, giving managers a new level of insight into their teams, what motivates them, and how to develop them. Creating a great people leader experience is foundational to creating a great employee experience. As we roll out new tools and platforms for managers, it is so important that we make them intuitive, integrated, and built for success.”?

What is your top priority as an HR leader in 2024???

Rhonda Morris, Chevron?

“Building better and stronger leaders. We believe building strong leaders allows us to safely deliver the energy the world needs today and the lower carbon energy systems of the future.? We are working to solve one of the greatest challenges facing the world: delivering affordable, reliable, and ever-cleaner energy to a growing world and building the lower-carbon energy system of the future.?Leaders are essential to this process.? Our people are essential to this process – that’s why our people strategy is to ‘engage the full potential of our people to deliver the future of energy’.”?

Ellyn Shook, Accenture?

“One of my top priorities is executing Accenture’s talent strategy for GenAI. We’re focusing on how we reinvent core processes and the work itself, reshape our workforce, and prepare our people. This starts with helping our leaders lead and learn in new ways – because GenAI is so different than anything we’ve ever experienced. Our learning roadmap helps leaders deeply understand and be hands-on with this technology, lead the change, and navigate risks, responsibly. Because ultimately, the best outcomes are ours to shape.”?

Ashley Goldsmith, Workday?

“Doubling down on skills. Workday began our journey to become a skills-based org in 2019, when we first turned on Workday Skills Cloud (which uses machine learning to surface skills that exist across our 18,000 Workmates). Since then, we have been embedding skills across our core talent practices, and we even launched a weekly internal newsletter, ‘You’ve Got Skills!,’ because it touches nearly every part of our business. This year, we’re focused on improving the quality of our skills data and scaling practices like skills-based hiring and upskilling. Investing in skills is a triple win. It supports employees in their career growth, helps to build new and diverse talent pools, and ultimately creates a more agile and high-performing workforce.”??

I truly appreciate these insightful answers from my HR peers at Accenture, Chevron, and Workday and learning what’s top of mind for each of them. AI will play an increasingly important role in HR, transforming how we recruit, engage, and support employees and prepare employees and leaders for the future of work. The possibilities are seemingly endless, and I look forward to seeing how HR, training, and the employee experience evolve over the coming years.?

How are you thinking about AI, innovation, and skilling? Please share your thoughts and insights below!?