In my last post I provided my reasoning of why “AI or NOT AI” is not the question you should ask. It is a must that you are working actively on PoCs in the AI space and it is a must that you work closely with your HR Tech vendors to push them but also to leverage what they have to offer early on. In the end, even with AI the simplicity rules for your tech stack that I have described here should stay true. This means that you should try to avoid too many different technologies and vendors in your environment. Two many different technologies on the front end mean that your employees will get confused what to use for what and how to use it. As I have iterated a few times, every technology works different, looks different and therefore asks your employees to learn it. Less is more here. But also as little “big” changes as possible. Make sure you slowly implement changes if you can so that your employees continue being used to your landscape, the UX/UI and know their ways around. You don’t want them to lose time or get frustrated when something that they need suddenly looks, feels different or is found at a different spot. Of course, every now and then you have to bring UX/UI advancements, but make them count then.
And in your back-end, the same rules apply. The more and the more different technologies you push into your back-end tech stack, the more complications you have to manage it, to keep things going, which in turn leads to higher maintenance effort and slower upgradability. Two things you don’t want: Wasting time, effort, resources and money to just keep the status quo running.
So, also in AI consider what your current vendors have to offer first or work with them to get in return an integrated (Gen) AI experience. This is far more preferable and impactful than integrating another tool, another way of operating. But also, (Gen) AI is still new and in the hype-cycle. So, continue to watch the landscape – new vendors, current vendors and try things out. Don’t just wait until the market has settled – you will be too late then. And if only half of the promises of AI hold true, you cannot afford missing out on the efficiency promises as well as on the talent promises. Your competitors won’t wait and will have an advanced state and knowledge to make even better use.
So, don’t wait. Invest in PoCs with your current vendors, new vendors and available toolsets. But watch out, many companies come out with ideas and tools to be used in that space. And not all of these are actually properly backed by security and privacy. We have already seen that some enterprises do not allow usage of such tools anymore – and that is a good thing. At the heart of these models is continuous, life-long learning embedded, and so they absorb all content you provide to it. And if this is any confidential information or even PII, these are in the wilderness quickly and you cannot control it anymore. This is a worst case scenario that some of the first adopters of AI technology face now.
Similar caution has to be exercised when you either develop your own solution or go with current OOTB solutions. Make sure your environment is secure and no information is leaving it or is used for generic AI training – and if, that all that this AI is actually learning, stays within your organization only. You actually want continuous learning of your AI to get smarter – you just want it to be smart with your data only within your (virtual) 4 walls. Securing your AI environment is the first key step – regardless which way you follow. And of course be careful with PII in general.
Now, looking at AI, there are many interesting use-cases. Maybe not all will be a success in the end, but I believe that all are worth exploring. To structure, I am turning towards the outcome and experience lens: Which use-case provides a good outcome for whom with what kind of experience? How can AI transform the way we operate today for which persona? – in my next post I will go into detail for the personae of HR Services, Business Partner as well as the regular Employee and People Manager. For each of them, (Gen) AI has something to offer – actually a lot. It is so exciting how work will change, how our whole function will change. But more next time. – do you do any AI PoCs? Let me know in the comments.
Chief HR Officer 