Al Adamsen – HR Tech 2023 – Thoughtfully Integrating AI Into the Workplace Experience

Connect with Al Adamsen:

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Connect with David:

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• david.turetsky@salary.com

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• Salary.com's Consulting Practice
• PAFOW
• People Data For Good podcast
• Season 6 bonus 5
• Season 6 bonus 3

• “[Organizations have to adopt a] continuous work strategy in the age of perpetual disruption.”
• “There’s an underlying assumption that AI is going to make people more efficient and effective, . . . and what I’m concerned about is that leaders are going to say, ‘. . . I’m going to need less people.’ ”

Announcer: 0:02

Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology, invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record, pour their discussions into a beaker, mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate, and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.

 

David Turetsky: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host, David Turetsky. Like always, we try and find you fascinating people inside and outside the world of HR. We're at the HR Tech Conference 2023. And we have with us, Al Adamsen from the PAFOW.

 

Al Adamsen: 1:02

People Analytics Future of Work!

 

David Turetsky: 1:03

And you know, what's amazing is, is that there's always a future. So there's always going to be a PAFOW, right?

 

Al Adamsen: 1:09

That's why we named it how we did.

 

David Turetsky: 1:12

Brilliant! Thinking about the future all the time! Al, what's going on with Al Adamsen?

 

Al Adamsen: 1:18

Well, there's a lot going on. Number one, people analytics historically has been yes, very important. And people are saying, Oh, you're going back 20 years HR metrics reporting are top 1, 2, 3 priorities in an organization. And now you look at the floor, like data is embedded in all of these analytics is embedded in all things. Now, obviously, AI is leveraging a lot of that quantitative data, but also through large language models, we're in a different place. And that's all affecting work itself, the very nature of how work's getting done. And we have data and analytics to actually shed light on how that's affecting the human experience at work.

 

David Turetsky: 1:53

So really, this isn't as much of the HR Technology Conference anymore as to how is work going to get done conference.

 

Al Adamsen: 2:00

I want that conversation to happen, actually, more than it is and I agree with you. I from a practitioner standpoint, particularly with AI, I would love to see work strategies formulated. In other words, an organization has the responsibility and opportunity to get work done to achieve certain outcomes when developing a product or service. How is that work going to get done with human beings, employees, contractors, outsourced providers, robotic automation, AI, so there's, you know, that ecosystem, the governance and decision making processes within most organizations aren't there yet.

 

David Turetsky: 2:35

But is that starting from Workforce Planning? Or is it coming from a completely different place?

 

Al Adamsen: 2:40

Well, you know, workforce planning has baggage. And so

 

David Turetsky: 2:43

Right, that's why I said it that way. Because workforce planning has kind of been, no offense to people in workforce planning, it's kind of in the bastard stepchild of all of this HR technology, right?

 

Al Adamsen: 2:51

Right. Yeah, absolutely. 100% agreed. And historically, has been from a financial orientation. And here a skills are all over the place. So skills based workforce planning, skills based organization, all wonderful, right? But it needs to be put into a larger conversation, which, again, and I say this compassionately, the operating models within organizations aren't there, so there's a lot of room for creativity! If you're CHRO, it's not like, Oh, I'm gonna buy a skills based solution, everything with an AI based solution, everything's gonna work out, right? How do you fit it into a larger ecosystem?

 

David Turetsky: 3:24

But but that comment you just made, though, it's not a CHRO's call about how the work gets done.

 

Al Adamsen: 3:30

Correct.

 

David Turetsky: 3:31

So who the hell are they talking to? Are they talking to the CFO? Does the CFO really have to come here? Does this really become kind of like the executive conference, where you're bringing the CIO, the CFO and the CHRO, to talk about as they look around here, they're getting ideas about how work gets done?

 

Al Adamsen: 3:48

If you're listening, you can't see me, but I got a big smile on my face. Because I've kind of been driving this home, maybe we talked about last year, this notion of governance.

 

David Turetsky: 3:56

Yes.

 

Al Adamsen: 3:57

It's not a wonderful topic, doesn't make people warm and fuzzy. But bringing these formerly disparate functions together to think about work, the future of work in my organization, and make conscious trade offs, iterate on those trade offs as the external environment shifts. So I'm saying that we're not only in the age of AI, we're in the age of perpetual disruption.

 

David Turetsky: 4:18

Yes.

 

Al Adamsen: 4:18

So are you building an organization that's going to be agile and responsive to these ongoing changes, not only to market conditions, but to the talent markets?

 

David Turetsky: 4:36

When we were in the early 90s, companies were making the decision, who should I invest in to get a computer and I went to interview at an automobile manufacturer from Europe, and they said, Hey, you're gonna be working in this cubicle, and the computer for the department sits next to you. So if you have to use it, it's right there. And I said to them, wait a minute. What do you mean? Why don't I get one? Why doesn't everybody have one? Because HR wasn't in control of how they worked. You had to go to the CIO or the chief technology officer, whoever it was to get that. And to your point of, it's constantly being redefined. We're not as organizations keeping up with the pace of change, not just in technology, but in the world. We're not keeping up with it. And it's overwhelming us now. We're getting legislation that's being put on chatGPT and those people don't even understand, they might be able to spell it. They may think it's something strange and wonderful, but they don't even fundamentally understand it. So Al, how do we bring this back to being whether it's an HR or a business oriented, forget about whether this conference belongs in in a different context, how do we bring these decisions back so HR can actually help it?

 

Al Adamsen: 5:48

I view HR ultimately, as a facilitator, and meaning when you talk about designing work in that example of bringing the computer like whose decision is it, IT brought this in? And so that was a almost like a centralized decision, we're gonna put this out and people are going to use it for this purpose. And did the employees ask for it? Well, you know, do we offer iPhones or there's room for discontinuous innovation in this right. But ultimately, the work is getting designed and executed at a lower and lower levels of the organization. And maybe I shouldn't use the term lower, but at the place where the work is actually getting done. All the way down to the individual level. Right? So are we giving agency are we empowering people in teams to actually make conscious decision and resourcing them accordingly? Right, I think we do that at scale, then it invites the question, how do we measure it? How do we know the skills are being developed in accordance with the overarching strategy in our organization, right, those underlying processes and the human beings that are going to make those decisions, conscious trade offs, you know, those? I'd say, 98% of organizations aren't there yet.

 

David Turetsky: 6:53

But the governance happens on an individual by individual basis today, based on David uses his iPhone for work, there's no BYOD strategy. So David signed up his exchange on his phone to Outlook and he can do email remotely. I mean, this was years ago, obviously. And, you know, I talked to person I worked with and they said, Well, I don't have it on my phone. By the way, that's an ancient statement. But, but that's what happened. Work started overwhelming because of the consumerism, and consumer based technologies. And then we started introducing them into work. And it was basically a, ask for forgiveness. Are you basically saying, because of the lack of governance, either teams or people are making these decisions and then the organization has to make a decision whether or not they're going to adopt it?

 

Al Adamsen: 7:47

Yes. And I'll frame it in this way. Continuous work strategy in the age of perpetual disruption.

 

David Turetsky: 7:55

Wow.

 

Al Adamsen: 7:56

So if I put those words together and think about it, okay, I'm acknowledging that we're in this age of professional disruption, I need to continually think about how work is going to get done. Am I going to resource the individuals in teams to make those decisions? And when they actually make those decisions, how am I going to know if they're efficient and effective and aligned with the organizational strategies? That is a very, I was about to say systematic, and Josh is putting systemic HR and starting to appreciate the distinction. But thinking about how all these dots connect, and again, when I say 98% of organizations aren't there yet, I don't say that as a criticism, I say that there's massive opportunity to improve how we do things.

 

David Turetsky: 8:36

If we start introducing something disruptive, like artificial intelligence, into things, it may start out small, like someone using ChatGPT to produce a report, or research. Or a developer uses chatGPT to write code, and then that snowballs. Those are things where the, again, the technology is coming in from the people up. But the governance on it, like if you ask the lawyers, hey, they're using this, do we have the right to use this? Do we need to get the copyrights do we need to get you know, and then all the legality comes in? How are we then how are we going to clean this up? Because it's happening today!

 

Al Adamsen: 9:16

Oh, it's happening day. And there's liability all over the place, potentially, both currently and in the future. And that's where solutions like holistic AI and fairnow.ai that effectively audit the algorithms across an enterprise are going to massively valuable moving forward. Let me comment on that real quick, because there's an underlying assumption that AI is going to make people more efficient and effective. And that almost assumes that the work is static. There's a fixed amount of work, but there's always more work to be done. And what I'm concerned about is that leaders are gonna say, well, AI is there, we're going to have greater efficiencies, and thus, I'm going to need less people. And now what happens to the employee experience? How

 

David Turetsky: 9:51

Exactly. are people thinking and feeling about their work and are they lacking confidence? Is it compromising trust? Like, okay, am I gonna lose my job? Or is my job going to change drastically so much that the skills that are needed for the job are not going to be aligned with not only who I am currently, but where I want to go professionally. So being really thoughtful about the human experience at work. Are you developing people in the age of AI appropriately? Are you instilling confidence that they're going to be around and valued? That's really what I'm concerned, I see a lot of like, the hiring numbers are still good. However, there's still a lot of, there's a lot of layoffs happening. Yes.

 

Al Adamsen: 10:32

And so there's more transaction at the employment level, and that's causing anxiety among workers. So how do we solve for that socially? Ultimately, in my view, as an organizational challenge slash opportunity, that if I can elevate competence among my worker base, high value talent in particular, then I'm gonna have a hard, I'm gonna have unique hard to replicate competitive advantage over time.

 

David Turetsky: 10:53

But the confidence comes from

 

Al Adamsen: 10:54

Correct. competence. And so in order to develop that competence, then training needs to be incurred, the cost needs to be incurred. And then also, the redevelopment of the responsibilities and the expectations, just adding AI, think this was your point, just adding AI doesn't make someone better.

 

David Turetsky: 11:14

It changes their job, it changes the expectation of their job. And so you need to redefine their job description needed reallocate skills to them. And this is one point I'm making in an upcoming book I'm writing HR Data Doodles 3, 3D, no seriously. I'm actually doing this.

 

Al Adamsen: 11:33

That's the title!

 

David Turetsky: 11:34

But I'm, I'm actually building in the concept that when we actually implement AI, we actually should treat it as a resource! Give it a job title, actually allocate resources to it appropriately, so that people around it understand the goals, understand the expectations of the AI, or whatever type of AI you're bringing in, and then be able to train people around it, not just to take advantage of it, but for it to be able to take advantage of people! Bring those unique skills, so the AI can utilize them can ask the right questions, and we then get trained on asking the AI the right questions in order to be able to take advantage of it.

 

Al Adamsen: 12:14

Yeah, I love the way you put that together, because that's absolutely spot on. And one thing I'll say, because I want to be sensitive to this notion that AI is, can be esoteric, it can be confusing, yet, it's something that we all have to respond to in one form or another in our own jobs, and obviously, systematically across an organization. I see AI getting commoditized very quickly. Meaning it's going to be part of how we do business, the idea of buying an AI solution here and there, like everyone's gonna have AI.

 

David Turetsky: 12:49

Absolutely.

 

Al Adamsen: 12:50

You know, so it's just, it's part of how we're going to deal with it. What I get, how should I say I don't want to say concerned, but I get hopeful, I get excited, is that if we're smart about the application of it, we can in fact be more efficient and effective. I just don't know that we've created the space to actually think about it. And this is where it goes back to, again, this notion of continuous work strategy, and whose responsibility is it? Right? Because you mentioned performance management, and you know, I think OKRs I think, okay, am I leveraging AI to achieve the outcomes. And there's a study by BCG, where AI was actually most beneficial to the low performers! They actually brought it in the analogous is, okay, if someone's farming with a hoe, and the bigger, stronger, you know, person is going to be more efficient than the weaker person, but the tractor was a level setter.

 

David Turetsky: 13:42

Exactly.

 

Al Adamsen: 13:42

You know, and that's what's happening with AI. And so

 

Announcer: 13:57

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David Turetsky: 14:08

That's where the programmatic approach you were talking about before, the conscious approach, the one where there are leaders in it who are saying, this is how we employ it, then has that ability to do that. Whereas the, hey, I'm gonna use chat GPT to create this report and, you know, my boss won't know. That's the disrupter that's the bad one, isn't it?

 

Al Adamsen: 14:30

Yeah, I, I think so. I mean, we have to be disciplined in the application of it. And I'm using that word more and more, not only accountability, but because, you if I can consciously apply it, you know, good things are know, we both live in the world of data and we have for some happening. If I'm unconsciously applying it, it's going to be time. And now the ability to measure and manage how people overly disruptive, and it's going to disengage the are impacted not only at scale, but down to the individual and workforce. So we've got to be really thoughtful about it. team level is going to be really, really important moving forward. So if I do not have a measurement strategy and am able to iterate as we go, there's going to be again risk all over the place. It's better if we're good at it, if we're thoughtful about it. And we have the governance model in place, and we're able to iterate at scale at speed and in sustainable ways, then, I mean, great things can happen. I just don't see that being commonplace in most organizations yet.

 

David Turetsky: 15:15

Do you see any example? And you don't have to name names, but do you see examples of organizations and even industries, where they've done the measurement upfront, they're now doing the test to actually employ and I use that word carefully employ AI, and then be able to test the result? Is anybody doing that experiment today?

 

Al Adamsen: 15:32

Nvidia.

 

David Turetsky: 15:33

Oh really?

 

Al Adamsen: 15:34

I think they're the best in the world at it, based on my knowledge. And I don't work with Nvidia, full disclosure, but I know about them operationally just because of relations that I have, both personal and professional. And I have these conversations, I'm like, wow, you know, you're really thoughtful about work down to the task level, how skills are applied to achieve those tasks, and leveraging AI and automation to not only visualize the work and see what work needs to get but prioritize it and in turn, allocate it, respecting the intentions of the worker, in addition to their

 

David Turetsky: 16:09

But have we, have they done though, I'm sorry skills. to interrupt, have they done the investment to measure before and after to see what, whether its productivity gains or the changes on work?

 

Al Adamsen: 16:17

Again, I don't want to speak out of turn, but yes, yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 16:22

That's just cool.

 

Al Adamsen: 16:23

Yeah. And again, I don't want to go too deep into it, I don't want to compromise. Because I think it's important that like, leading practice companies like Nvidia, that the world investigates what they're doing. I mean, they're an AI company that leverages AI, and how are they able to do this at scale at speed in a sustainable way? So I would be investigating those companies, obviously, they're in tech. So if I'm in a different industry than I might well, that's

 

David Turetsky: 16:46

But there are lessons that can be learned!

 

Al Adamsen: 16:47

100%

 

David Turetsky: 16:48

Even if you're a food manufacturer, and you're looking at Nvidia, and you're going, Wow, they make technologies that make everybody work more efficient?

 

Al Adamsen: 16:54

Yeah, at the end of the day, it's about achieving a certain outcome, whether it be a service or a product. There's humans doing that work. It has to be done and there has to be visibility and accountability. And that to your point around measurement, you're not going to know if stuff is not only getting done, but if it's going towards getting done, you know, it's progressing towards that end. And, you know, we can talk about performance management, OKRs, and scrums and all that. But now with AI, a lot of that can be surfaced. And I'm not going to get into the ethics of some of these behavioral data that can be captured. But at the same time, it's there. And we might have a responsible, I would say, we do have a responsibility to look at the data that we are, in fact, collecting and take appropriate action. And that could affect not only productivity, but affect belonging, inclusion and other outcomes like that.

 

David Turetsky: 17:49

Now, one of the things that might stand in the way in all of this happening is employees actually have rights to not be measured. And there are whether it's GDPR or other regulations and rules in effect that say, that's great. I'm glad you're doing this for the company. I'm glad you're seeing that my benefits are being utilized. However, forget me. Does that affect our ability to be able to change the way in which we work with AI and without AI? But does that change the way we're, because one of the things I'm contemplating is that conversation about measuring before and after? It's not really perfect if I don't have all my employees in it.

 

Al Adamsen: 18:29

Yeah, it's, it's a great question. Definitely to be determined. You know, I have my thoughts and ideas on where we're headed, but it relates to my last comment. Is, if individuals who are authorizing the sharing and consumption of their data benefit from that process, then the propensity is much higher to engage in that process. Historically, what many organizations have done, oh, grabbing that data? Number one, I do not know if that's, that's actually happening, right. It's, you know, page 18 of some document I signed, you know, when I first joined, and so.

 

David Turetsky: 19:05

I've given up those rights already.

 

Al Adamsen: 19:06

Yeah, I've given up that. So, if, however, I can not only see how it's being used strategically, yeah because I don't want it to be used to okay, I'm gonna get laid off next week, because this data is shared. But if I see it's actually empowering me to do my work and perform better. If it's actually helping me be more employable, if it's helping me create a safer place psychologically and otherwise in the workplace. Then I'm like, okay, yeah, I can see this data actually, I understand why it's happening. Not only strategically, but for me as a human being at work.

 

David Turetsky: 19:40

I think there are people who have tin hats on though, who are kind of concerned about what we know about them.

 

Al Adamsen: 19:47

Yeah!

 

David Turetsky: 19:48

And I think that's where maybe some of this privacy stuff has come up.

 

Al Adamsen: 19:51

Yeah. And that goes, that's a communications challenge. That's an ethics challenge and that needs that goes back to our governance. You know, who's involved in making these decisions and it's not the CHRO, it's not the head of IT, it's not even the head of data privacy. It's a collective decision that okay, yeah, there's these legal constraints, certainly. But there's these ethical, what kind of organization do we want to be? Do we, if we're doing this is it compromising trust, and then if it compromises trust, you know, I would advocate you don't do it.

 

David Turetsky: 20:20

Right, exactly.

 

Al Adamsen: 20:20

But if there's an enhancer, where it's actually empowering me, as a worker, then let's give it a go!

 

David Turetsky: 20:29

Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this? Well, you're in luck, we have a special offer for our listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast, or whatever is on your mind. Go to Salary.com/HRDLconsulting, to schedule your FREE 30 minute call today. Is there any issue that's come up lately that you may have heard here at the conference or something that's come up, that gives you pause for concern about the future of work and about automation coming in, and the use of technology?

 

Al Adamsen: 21:08

So great energy here, as always. I mean, this is but this is a different stage of development, I think for HR tech, in general. We're having more systemic, systematic conversations about how the dots are connected. And skills and generative AI are leading the charge. And of course, as we just discussed, it's impacting work. What I'm really concerned about, and again, I'm going to try and be careful with my language, the business readiness to adopt many of the solutions just isn't there yet.

 

David Turetsky: 21:40

Right.

 

Al Adamsen: 21:41

And that's where I go back to this notion that there needs to be a lot of creativity, courage, to create the processes within an organization that are appropriate for this point in time. Not just taking what you're used to, you know, over the past 30 years, you know, okay, we're gonna do it this way. So, yeah, anyway, that, if there's an embracing of that, I think there's room for this tech, and it's gonna benefit the employee, it's going to benefit the org, right? But if you try and go and like, buy this tech, and okay, here's the guy's whatever it is, and try and slap it in and not appreciating the broader ecosystem, not only of HR tech, but of work tech and bringing in IT, then, then there's gonna be a miss. So a great opportunity.

 

David Turetsky: 22:20

You know, I always talk about data, data readiness, when you're trying to implement any of this crap.

 

Al Adamsen: 22:25

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 22:25

And I don't mean crap. I mean, it's all great stuff. But it actually becomes crap if you're putting it on top of data that's just totally bad.

 

Al Adamsen: 22:31

And can be counterproductive if you don't take a data centric orientation, because all these tools generate data. They collect and analyze as well, but we have to have a data strategy certainly. And you've been trumpeting that for a couple decades!

 

David Turetsky: 22:45

Al it's been a pleasure.

 

Al Adamsen: 22:46

Yeah, Dave, thank you for having me.

 

David Turetsky: 22:48

My pleasure.

 

Al Adamsen: 22:48

True pleasure.

 

David Turetsky: 22:49

And thank you so much for being on the program again. Take care and stay safe.

 

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