The Leaders Championing the AI Workplace Movement - Part 1

The following is an excerpt from my FREE Workplace Intelligence Insider Newsletter. Subscribe now and you’ll immediately get the full article delivered straight to your inbox.

AI has profoundly transformed the workforce by automating routine tasks, enhancing decision-making, and reshaping job roles across various industries. In sectors like manufacturing, AI-powered robots have taken over repetitive tasks, improving efficiency and reducing errors. In knowledge-based industries, AI tools analyze vast amounts of data, providing insights that guide business strategies and decisions. AI-driven automation has led to the creation of new roles, such as data scientists and AI specialists while making others obsolete. This shift has required workers to develop new skills, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning and adaptability.

Recent research shows that 38% of HR leaders have explored or implemented AI solutions to improve process efficiency and 76% of HR leaders believe that if their organization does not adopt and implement AI solutions, such as generative AI, in the next 12 to 24 months, they will be lagging in organizational success compared to those that do. In addition, 61% believe AI will positively impact HR practices over the next five years including HR analytics (46%), employment law (37%), and learning and development (35%).

Looking ahead, AI will continue to drive workforce transformation by enabling more personalized and flexible work experiences. As AI systems become more sophisticated, they will take on more complex tasks, freeing humans to focus on creative, strategic, and empathetic work. However, this evolution will also raise challenges, such as the need for robust ethical frameworks and the potential for increased economic inequality, requiring proactive measures to ensure that the benefits of AI are broadly shared.

A conversation with leaders about AI

Since 2020, I've highlighted the leaders championing workplace movements including Web 3.0 , corporate social responsibility (CSR) , diversity and inclusion , remote work , mental health , gender pay equality , financial wellness , virtual learning ,?and the post-Covid workplace experience . Today is the first of a five-part series where I ask leaders about how they are adopting and implementing AI in the workplace. For this first part, we look at how AI is being used to enhance HR processes and decision-making.??

I spoke to six Fortune 500 HR executives to hear their perspectives on this timely topic. These leaders include Donna Morris (Chief People Officer, Walmart), Michael Fraccaro (Chief People Officer, Mastercard), Cornelius Boone (Chief People Officer, eBay), Kirsten Marriner (Chief People & Corporate Affairs Officer, The Clorox Company), Maria Zangardi (SVP, HR, and Corporate Officer, Universal Health Services), and Karen Dunning (Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Motorola Solutions).

Below is a sneak peek of our conversation — subscribe to my FREE Workplace Intelligence Insider Newsletter and you’ll immediately receive the full article.

How is your organization currently using AI to enhance HR processes and decision-making, and what has been the impact on efficiency and effectiveness?

Donna Morris (Walmart): At Walmart, we use our in-house generative AI tool called My Assistant. We launched it approximately a year ago to our 50,000 campus-based associates in the U.S. and have been expanding to our international markets and our frontline managers in Sam’s Club since. My Assistant helps associates save time on administrative tasks so they can focus on the most important work. It has broad applicability, such as drafting emails and product specs, summarizing content or searching for Walmart policies. It also has role-specific uses – for example, there’s a feature for managers that allows them to seamlessly perform 25 different actions, such as updating job details, viewing information about team members and more. All of those things would have once required logging into our core HR systems – now, managers can do all those things in a matter of seconds. We’re continuing to take feedback from our associates and build experiences that are the most impactful for them.

Michael Fraccaro (Mastercard): We’ve been using AI for decades to fight fraud for our customers and partners. More recently, we’ve been expanding our AI use internally to help deliver improved employee experience. In the HR space, we are exploring AI and automation to reduce friction in workflows and provide additional capacity to our teams - especially those that have a high volume of data-entry and manual processes. For example, we’re using AI with our talent acquisition teams. We have an automated scheduler that puts interviews directly on calendars of our hiring managers in their available space, eliminating multiple communications back and forth over meeting timeslots. It has increased our speed to schedule by 90%. We're also using AI for our internal talent to help match employees to short-term projects and mentoring connections that align to their experiences and desired areas of growth. It’s become a strong tool for talent mobility, as we’ve found 1/3 of employees who take part in a short-term opportunity have made an internal career move of some sort.

Subscribe to my FREE Workplace Intelligence Insider newsletter and you’ll immediately receive the full article with responses to this question from the other leaders representing eBay, The Clorox Company, Universal Health Services, and Motorola Solutions.

And be sure to join the conversation below and let me know your thoughts on this topic!