AI Revolution at Work: How HR Will Lead the Way
Performance
December 16, 2024
Taryn Hart
X min
Performance
December 16, 2024
Taryn Hart
X min
2025 will be a transformative year for HR, with AI technology at the center.
Technology is streamlining HR operations at a rapid pace. From talent acquisition, recruitment and onboarding to performance management, surveys and, of course, employee recognition.
In 2022, the world was introduced to ChatGPT (OpenAI or generative AI), with floods of companies introducing or integrating AI technology into the market.
This brought in both opportunities and challenges for people in the HR world – what is this new, fascinating technology, should we be worried about it, and what are the ethical issues that come with it?
Many HR leaders have spent 2024 exploring different AI technologies, understanding the impacts they have on their people and organizations and adapting to the waves of uncertainty that came with this new way of work.
What we know for certain going into 2025: AI technology is here to stay, and its potential is massive. Now it’s up to HR to lead the way.
Before looking at the AI technologies on the market today, it’s important to highlight the current challenges HR is facing when it comes to managing today’s workforce:
Gallup has reported that employee well-being is at a record low with the overall employee experience, or lack thereof, being the culprit. A new trend – ‘The Great Detachment’ – is on the rise where employees are unhappy at work but aren’t leaving.
Many HR leaders struggle to get their seat at the executive table. Even if they’re already a partner, there’s still critical conversations happening where HR is missing.
HR professionals call this “firefighting” – this is when HR is constantly addressing urgent, high-pressure situations or crises, often because of a lack of proactive management.
HR has traditionally always had a large workload: managing evolving workforce models, intense competition for talent, and the growing complexity of employee engagement and retention. This just scratches the surface – HR is the backbone of organizations with every department leaning on them for support.
What AI in HR tech looks like in 2025
There are a vast number of HR tech tools on the market now that are utilizing AI that have tremendous potential to address these common challenges. Here is an overview of some of the most innovative HR technologies on the market right now:
These tools offer a range of solutions to various HR functions including recruiting, talent acquisition, employee engagement, learning and development and much more.
One of the biggest concerns being discussed is “will AI take over my job?”
Carmen Barboza, Chief Human Resources Officer at Crowell & Moring LLP, had a reassuring answer to this question in the 2024 AI HR Summit:
“Clarity is kindness. We all know HR is a human-centered profession, and although AI can help augment some of the capabilities, it’s not going to replace them. So, I would encourage your leaders to be very up-front about that. AI is not here to take away jobs, it’s here to get jobs done.” - Carmen Barboza, Chief Human Resources Officer.
Transparency will be key when deciding to bring in various AI technologies into your organization. HR is truly the driving force behind this AI revolution, and it’s critical for HR leaders to lead this, be prepared, and normalize it.
In an early 2024 survey, 65% of companies reported they are using generative AI, with significant benefits seen in areas like HR and supply chain management. These organizations reported improved decision-making and productivity, especially in roles focused on repetitive or content-heavy tasks.
McKinsey & Company also reported that employees are far ahead of their organizations and already using many AI tools in their everyday work. This means in order for companies to stay ahead, they need a holistic approach to how their whole organization can work with AI and understand the strategic value it brings to everyone.
This presents a huge opportunity to HR teams who want a seat at the executive table: How can AI help HR and team leaders scale organizations while ensuring alignment with company goals?
The benefits of AI tech for HR are endless, here’s a quick cheat sheet:
With the integration of AI, many routine tasks can be streamlined, which enables HR teams to shift their focus to higher-impact work and strategic initiatives.
"UKG has embraced AI in its evolving product strategy and within our day-to-day activities within HR and beyond—always with the focus on automating manual work so that the time can be reinvested in more valuable interactions between people and better outcomes." Melissa Shore, VP of People Insights and M&A Integration, UKG
AI can streamline HR processes and unlock productivity. This sets up your organization to be a more future-proof and skills-based organization, rather than a reactive one. This is key for HR, especially for those who often struggle to be heard by their executive teams.
Take full advantage of AI technologies so you can spend your time in the areas that contribute value to your people and to your organization. Jeanette Winters, Chief HR Officer at 8x8 used a simple recruitment example from the 2024 AI HR Summit:
“We were dealing with a lot of friction between our recruiters and hiring managers because the time to fill one position was very long. We had a job posting receive 2,000 applications. If you were to spend one minute reviewing each of those resumes, that’s 33 hours. By using the AI technology that was available to us we were able to drastically shrink the time to fill a position which benefits not only the recruiter and the hiring manager, but also the new hire and the organization.”
Many may be uncertain when they hear examples of AI reducing workload and worried about losing their jobs, but Jeanette explains how it did quite the opposite:
“All this did was free up time for a lot of highly skilled employees to now do even greater things for our organization. We now had these teams doing more for our candidate experience, our employee experience, and to better our employee value proposition.”
That’s a whole lot better than just paying people to read resumes.
Jeanette also highlighted the amount of time her team spends just looking for information. That time lost could easily be going towards something that contributes value, like serving their people.
“As a people person, I'm looking at AI to enhance collaboration. To enable productivity that has meaning. Not just making a process quicker or faster, but to make people feel like they’ve been better served. Both internally and for our clients.” - Jeanette Winters, Chief HR Officer at 8x8
AI has the potential to make HR a driving force for organizations. As this new era of technology continues to dominate the working world, organizations will need HR now more than ever to help navigate this change.
HR should be driving this change management, because they’re the people behind the people. Especially to help mitigate the fear behind the unknown.
HR has a massive responsibility in normalizing AI, ensuring that it’s attainable, it’s within reach and that we’re all in this together. It’s time to move beyond the fear and take full advantage of the opportunities and benefits that come from integrating AI into everyday workflows.
AI actually has the power to make people more human. Yamini Rangan, CEO of HubSpot agrees with this:
“Rather than threatening human roles, AI orchestrates tasks that complement human skills, allowing employees to redirect their efforts toward higher-order problem-solving, relationship-building, and innovation.”
In an AI world, organizations will need to keep their people at the heart of their strategies while driving innovation and sustained growth. This is HR’s time to shine – take full advantage of AI’s capabilities to not only help you adapt but to support you so you can lead with confidence into the future.
Kudos is an employee engagement, culture, and analytics platform, that harnesses the power of peer-to-peer recognition, values reinforcement, and open communication to help organizations boost employee engagement, reduce turnover, improve culture, and drive productivity and performance. Kudos uses unique proprietary methodologies to deliver essential people analytics on culture, performance, equity, and inclusion, providing organizations with deep insights and a clear understanding of their workforce.
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