AI is Not a Skills Strategy

I had love to welcome these three amazing leaders and,
and individuals who are doing this work in a few different
ways, uh, within organizations right now.
Uh, if we could give 'em a warm welcome
for spending some time outta their busy schedules
to share their expertise and,
and perspectives on these things, I'd love if you kind
of share that in the chat or maybe hit the emojis with them
to make 'em feel welcome.
We have Deline Wood Chief People Officer at Syntax,
Elizabeth Egan, director of Talent Management
and Organizational Development at Sarz ai,
and Joe Mills president at Fuel 50.
Yeah, so welcome to the three of you.
Lemme stop sharing here quick.
Uh, I would love one, like as we start to unpack this,
like if you saw anything interesting in the chat with
how the community is looking at these things today,
but to the three of you, thank you so much
for taking some time outta your busy schedules,
spending some time with our community
and network to kind of unpack what we're all trying
to navigate ourselves within our companies.
So that being said, maybe we can just do quick introductions
and share a little bit of what you're working on
and maybe give your initial perspective on
this topic and its, you know, role in the workforce and,
and skill strategy.
So Joe, I would love to pass it to you first to kick us off.
Uh, welcome. And yeah, uh, why don't you kick us off here.
Hi everyone. Super excited to be here.
So I'm one of the founders of Fuel 50
and we work with absolutely amazing organizations
around the globe, globe,
and they have really big business goals.
And essentially what is in common across our clients is
that, um, they believe that having aligned, engaged
and skilled people is the way
to meet these big business goals.
And we help them by creating clarity
around the skills they have, the skills they need,
and how to build a bridge through a really compelling
employee experience to meet that need in terms of
what a skill strategy is.
Um, basically it's the method
and the the engine to achieving your business goals.
Um, and what I really love from the chat just then was, uh,
Jay talking about how AI can be an amazing equalizer.
And that's such a beautiful perspective.
You know, how do we use these tools to really
democratize access to these tools?
How do we make sure everybody has them at their fingertips
to be super successful?
So yeah, really loved that comment.
Thank you for sharing that, Jay.
Well, thank you for kicking us off, Joe.
And yeah, I think that's an amazing kind of point there,
Jay, which we'll talk about maybe how do we actually bring
that into our skill strategy
and different operations so that it is, uh, equalizer
and can level up our people in, in many ways.
So Joe, thanks for kicking us off.
Uh, Darlene, welcome back.
I know you've been part of our AI at Work program earlier in
the year, and there's some amazing things you're already
doing in this space at your organization.
So yeah, maybe you can reintroduce yourself
and tell us a little bit about like yeah,
how's your skill strategy looking or today?
So hello everybody. I'm Deslin,
I'm the Chief people officer at Syntax.
We're a cloud ERP implementation
and management, uh, for Oracle and SAP.
So that's, you know, a little bit about
syntax and it's global.
So I've been navigating, uh, a global role in 15 countries
as well as all the new technology.
And, you know, it, it's a lot at the same time.
And I saw some comments in there about, you know, it's a lot
and I think we're, you know, we're a mix of confused
and excited, which is usually
how you are at the beginning of something.
Uh, but we've really been focusing on, which I'm excited
to talk about today, is the mindset around AI
and normalizing its use
and also providing clear, I would say, examples of
what we're trying to do when we're talking about leverage AI
or implement ai.
'cause a lot of these comments that we hear, you know,
are you, you know, integrating AI into everything you do,
it's really unclear what everything is
and what we're talking about.
So I think this lack of clarity makes it hard for you
to know if you're a two
or a 10 in terms of your maturity in the current landscape.
So I'd love to chat about that today.
Yeah, excited to unpack that.
And, and I think you on that point, point
where like you're trying to create this clarity
and awareness internally so
that people feel excited about it.
And if you're not helping create that clarity,
then people are probably creating their own narratives
around it, which is typically not very productive, right.
For, for anyone. So yeah, excited to unpack that with you.
Uh, Elizabeth, welcome. Thanks for joining us for today.
Yeah. Share a little bit about you
and what does skills strategy look like for you today?
Yes, thank you for having me.
My name is Elizabeth
and I'm the director of talent management
and organizational development at Ceren ai.
Um, so that's a little hint there
that we do in fact use AI often in our jobs here.
Um, but I do wanna comment.
I think there, it's great that there are a lot
of people excited about it,
but I don't blame a lot of people saying, wait a minute,
I'm cautiously optimistic.
Or maybe there's a little doom and gloom creeping in there.
I think what we wanna talk about when we talk about the
strategy is how we amplify the work that humans are doing
with AI as a tool.
It's not about replacing people, it's about taking some
of those tasks that might take away from actual critical
thinking, creativity, eq,
and using it as a tool to make it easier
to understand the data reporting, things like that,
and putting more time back into the human part of the work.
And that critical thinking, creativity, EQ that can really
revitalize a company
and is actually the strategy that you want
to be moving forward with AI as a tool.
Wonderful. And, uh, Naday asked a quick question,
what is eq emotional intelligence?
Is, is kind of what we're speaking about there.
So yeah, how do we lean into some more
of those human elements
and amplify them where
that can be our biggest differentiators,
the special qualities of the organization.
So getting ahead a little bit, let's unpack
and like what that means and actually
how do we actually then support that?
Um, let's maybe talk through the narrative piece
before we actually get to some of more
of the tactical things of how this starts to show up
or work within our companies or actions our HR leaders
and people leaders can do to help support this kind
of change or revolution within their company.
So as you see in the chat,
and we've seen all over the media, right?
There's a lot of mixed narratives and,
and feelings around this
and doesn't really not think you hit on a good point, right?
Like it's common at the early stages
of something big like this.
There you can be really excited,
but also like, it's the land of unknown
that feels really uncomfortable
and that makes people wanna like not act
like resist it in many ways.
So, um, Joe, maybe I'll love for you
to maybe kick off this piece
and especially working with
so many organizations across the globe,
where have you seen some
of these narratives really come from?
And as a, like an advisor
and a partner to a lot of companies, have you found
that there's different pressures that cause people
to react in these different ways,
both short term or long term?
Yeah, it's a really good question.
Z and I, and I think, you know,
what we've seeing is there's a lot of pressure
and intense urgency right now to, to solve this problem
or to come back to the business
with some solutions around ai.
And there's some somewhat competing pressures there.
So on the one hand, um, our clients are telling us
that their CFOs, their CEOs are saying to them, Hey, look,
we, we need to optimize our workforce.
We need to reduce costs, we need to increase productivity,
and we need to do it today.
In fact, we should have done it yesterday, so get going.
So there's kind of this amazing pressure from the business.
And then on the other hand, there's also this, um, fear
of the unknown in terms of what's coming in terms
of technology and AI
and, you know, macroeconomic conditions.
So the other message is we also need a really engaged,
agile skilled workforce who can pivot,
who can take advantage of opportunities coming our way and,
and who are gonna meet the future head on.
So those two things are a little bit in conflict
because to have that future ready for workforce, they need
to trust your business, they need to be passionate,
and they need to be as equally excited about their future
with you, um, as you are about your big picture goals.
So I'm interested in the panel in terms of how you grappling
that, how do you make sure that people aren't super fearful
of what's gonna happen to their own jobs
and what's happening to them
and, you know, their experience with, um, technology and,
and AI
and how do you make sure
that they're aligned with your organization?
And it's a big challenge our, our businesses have
that we're working with have, you know, three
to five year strategies around their talent.
So they do have that long term view,
but equally they need to make sure
that things are working well today.
Yeah. Deline, you kind
of started off in your intro even talking about
that tension right away.
Like how has you, as a chief people officer,
how have you felt that tension from
your peers internally as a business?
And yeah, how do you start to maybe, like,
how are you navigating that?
And I know you've already done some things
to help build a more, so I'll,
maybe that'll be the second part,
but first part, like how have you felt that pressure
and then how have you started to balance both those,
the long-term sustainability
and health versus the short term, like, you know,
maximizing our output and things like that?
Well, I, I think there's something
so interesting about any kind of whatever the narrative in,
in, in the media is, whether it was, you know,
remote work is gonna kill all culture.
It was gonna do, you know, it was all these doom and gloom
and now it's, you know, AI is gonna replace us
and we're gonna remove all these roles.
And I think, you know,
unfortunately it gets a lot of clicks.
And so it does feel like, you know, if I bring,
I'm bringing this thing in that's going to take my job.
And that scarcity fear has been
around since the dawn of time.
You know, any new group
that comes in is gonna take away from us as opposed to
by having this tool enable us to do less
of this, I'll do more of that.
And, you know, I do think there is a reality.
Every business, if you wound one you'd think the same way,
would love to grow quickly on their bottom line,
but not have to keep adding head count.
And many of us, you know, the minute we have something new
or more work, we just say we need head count.
And I think what we're looking at here is we're saying we
need to find a way to get this work done.
What's the best way to get it done?
And if people are thinking that way in your business,
then we want them in your business.
We want them to be thinking, okay, I think this part
of the work could be done this way
and then this part of the work that's really
important for me to be doing.
I'll do that work. But to be defending
and protecting work that could one day be done
by technology is the last thing
you wanna be doing for your career.
It should be thinking, what differentiates me?
What makes me special? What makes this organization special?
And what can I do to get into that field?
And I think our upskilling, as much as it's around how
to leverage the AI tools your company currently has,
it also has to be how to understand what you do
that is really valuable and how to do more of that.
And if you're not doing both
and you're just talking about task elimination,
it is gonna make people fearful.
If the task elimination comes with critical thinking on
how you could bring more value, then it becomes exciting.
Yeah, I like that differentiator of like,
are we incentivizing just output for the sake of output?
Or are we incentivizing the creation of value
and impact, right?
And is that the purpose
and the reason why someone's employed
there, you know mm-hmm.
Are they pushing widgets?
Are they creating this type of type of, uh, impact
for the organization?
And, um, I think that starts to help create
that more energizing type of experience.
And we'll talk through how, how you've been doing that.
But Elizabeth, I'd love your thoughts on that.
Like, have you, as someone in, in talent management
or organization or development,
have you really felt those pressures or those tensions
and how have you all maybe started to, to approach that?
And I think maybe it'd be interesting for you to share too,
like being an AI organization that maybe
that maybe changes things a little bit.
Sure. Yeah. I think we've all probably said it
ourselves and certainly hear it.
I wish there were more hours in the day, right?
There's always something more to do.
There's always something that you think, oh my gosh,
it's 11 o'clock at night and I forgot to do something,
or I need, you know, I had to step out
so I could do this other activity, help with a child,
a parent, a pet, and now, you know, I don't have the time
and I'm stuck after dinner trying to do something.
And I think that's where we say, well,
this is a tool to help with that.
It's not about saying I'm taking away a job,
but the critical thinking pieces as Deline mentioned,
or the strategy or the, um, you know, what are,
what are the business things that we need to do
and where can I leverage this as a tool to help me?
And I think some
of it is just educating ourselves on what's available
to us, what's out there.
Um, I know I often, from the talent space and,
and supporting managers, especially first time managers,
there's often trepidation in having things like a difficult
conversation and they say, well, you know, they,
they don't want to have them because it's uncomfortable
and it's awkward and then they have to live with it after.
Um, and part of that is they haven't had time to practice.
There's ways now that you can role play
and you can put in the entire scenario
and the type of personality
and the responses that you might get,
and you can have that exact conversation, play it out,
feel better practice if you want to.
Things like that are huge.
And they are tools that we now have available.
It doesn't mean that all of a sudden managers go away
or that that position goes away, or, um, the work goes away.
It's about having the tool set to be able to better
amplify your own ability in that space.
And I think that's applicable as Deslin mentioned,
across the entirety of any organization.
Um, certainly from an HR standpoint, I think there's areas
that we can utilize it to better prepare our team members.
It might better prepare leaders if you need to
practice things like presentations.
Um, some people don't like speaking in front of crowds.
There's an easy way to kind of mimic some of those things.
And I think that's a great way to just lean into that
and say, where's the information that I can gather
and tools that I can look at that would help me rather than,
um, you know, think of it as a worry piece
of something's being taken away,
but what is being gifted to me in a way
that would give me some of those more hours back in the day?
I don't have have to run this report.
I don't have to panic about this thing.
I, this is automated for me.
Where can you build those pieces in,
really help yourself out into your own bottom line
or business strategy?
And definitely I'd love to pass it to you
'cause you've taken a really, I think, effective approach
to get people involved with, like, creating the use cases.
And Elizabeth, you pointed out like a really interesting,
like different, two different narratives.
Like there's one end, maybe there's the innovation team
where they're saying, Hey, we're gonna take these task loads
off your plate and we're just gonna automate it
with this thing that we created over here.
Versus saying, Hey, we're gonna gift you
and enable you with these resources
that are gonna take those tasks off of your plate.
Like, it's a whole different kind of just approach
where they're saying like, oh, I'm actually being enabled
to do the tasks that I have ownership with.
I'm not losing ownership of these things.
I still have a purpose over them,
but now they're off my plate
to work on the more meaningful stuff.
So I think that's where like just an interesting like,
I don't know, approach to it.
And, and Delin,
I know you've always kept like co-creation at the center of
what you do, so yeah, tell us how you've helped bring
that type of narrative to life.
So I'll bring it. So at Syntax we have a very,
very involved CTO
and, uh, he was really passionate about us implementing
ai, I'd say early on.
So our version of of copilot came out a year before copilot.
And we, and he was named, uh, Gandalf, you know,
from Middle Earth, and if you go on teams,
he's there as an employee.
And he just said, okay, Gandalf is live
and then did a town hall, which is a really interesting,
a technology town hall and did a demo of it.
And there was a moment of like people like cool
and the early adopters,
but there were a lot of people who were nervous to use it
because if you remember the very beginning of these things,
why people would sneak off and use another tool outside is
because they didn't want their employer knowing
that they weren't doing the work themselves.
Similar to how, you know,
a college student wouldn't like say,
I wanna thank chat GPT for this paper.
You know, it it, and so this idea of kind of hiding it
and then re-skinning it to be your own
and looking like you're a genius, that was still even part
of our company, even though we launched it
as a tool for everyone.
So the mindset shift, which is really early, was the,
the leader started saying, I asked Gandalf to do this.
Oh, look what Gandalf did,
or I, I just dropped this in Gandalf.
And then our, our CTO at the next town hall did a heat map
of by department for who was using it more
and who was using it less.
So there was a bit of shame for lack of using it,
and it really flipped the narrative that you wanted
to get out there fast saying, well, I use Gandalf.
And so I think that is small, but huge.
And the truth is that you're, your, your your gen AI agent,
this comes smarter as it's being used.
So the more that we're using it, the better it became.
What I can say is internally,
he also launched a hackathon early on around agents,
and this was when agentic AI was not even really understood.
Everybody thought it was all the same thing.
There's the search engine version,
and then there's the, the one
that has like an autonomous being vibe to it from the future
and, uh, explain what they were
and then invited people to give their ideas.
And my team, I would say, I think gave the most ideas,
and you would think a lot
of back office roles people would be nervous about,
but it was framed like, you're gonna win getting an agent
and you're going to, you have to make a business case
for why your, your agent should be there.
And we did get, we got an onboarding agent,
it was really exciting and there were several
and everybody put in all the work like RFPs, things
that are hard to, you know, checking contracts, work
that's real long and hard, not necessarily easy
or bottom, just challenging.
And then he, we did another announcement
of which agents were gonna be made.
So you won your agent, it didn't happen to you
to steal your job, you won it.
And I think this is really great.
And again, we were so early in it.
Uh, what ended up happening though is we realized you have
to co-create because the agent will only do
what you explain, it needs to be done.
And an external developer isn't gonna understand
what are the value tasks and how they're done.
So your team needs to be active in making sure
that those agents are going to actually add the value.
We all have shelfware, right?
We have a lot of stuff we don't use.
Just 'cause you have it doesn't mean it's gonna get used.
And so we're in that world now as we've launched some
of our agents, uh, making sure that people know where
to find them and how to use them
and how to build new agents based on those agents.
What I like about that approach
as well is you're really incentivizing
and building the technology around people who are excited
to also use it and kind of put in the work
and the right, you know, value proposition of
how it's gonna fit into their roles.
And they're like, Hey, here's my RFP, here's the things
that are bogging me down from me spending time on these
other really meaningful tasks.
Mm-hmm. Don't you want me spending
more time on these meaningful tasks?
Like, I would love that. So help me
build this agent out, right?
Mm-hmm. Um, so okay, let's, maybe now I'd love
to transition a little bit.
We've kind of talked a little bit about like the narrative
and how do we reinforce more positive narratives internally.
You know, let's maybe now shift like, okay,
how do we actually start
to look at this within our skills tra strategy?
How do we really understand what skills, tasks
and responsibilities should go to AI versus a human?
And, and in many ways, as only you answered some of
that already by like co-creating
and doing it with your people.
Uh, but Joe, I'd love to pass it back to you.
Um, maybe start just as a baseline.
I know we have HR leaders
and people leaders in the room, so this might be, you know,
you know, basic knowledge for a lot of us,
but can you just give us like an intro, like
what is a skill strategy at a foundation
and how do we go about starting to be intentional
with our skills strategy?
Yeah, I, I think that's, um,
yeah, a really good place to start.
So a skills strategy is simply part of all of the, the tools
and the strategies you have at your disposal
to meet your bigger picture goals.
So it always starts with, you know, what is it
that we are trying to achieve as an organization?
Really understanding what is unique about your business
and your people, you know, what makes you special,
what's gonna help you win in whatever market you're in?
And, you know, what risks
or challenges do you have in that strategy as well?
So all of those things are really important to understand.
And then how do you get there is through people.
So even though we've got amazing tools at our fingertips
and we can automate some tasks and,
and have gandalf's running some of the functional elements
of, of jobs, we still need people
and their expertise to really drive our business success.
So your skill strategy is simply that, you know,
what skills do I need to, to build?
What do I need to, um, borrow or,
or buy in terms of those skills
to meet our bigger picture picture objectives?
What I really loved, um, about what Declan just said though,
and I think it's really important for us to, you know,
reflect on, is that the tools
that we have at our disposal only really work if we're
applying a level of expertise in terms of how they're used.
So would've been pretty pointless to get, um,
somebody from a different function
to design your onboarding agent.
You know, they could have probably crafted something which
was okay, but they wouldn't have crafted something which
really, um, d modeled their onboarding experience.
You want your people to have,
it would've been very cookie cutter.
It would've been very generic.
What your team probably created was something
that really expressed the values of your business
and the way you wanted people to feel.
And you couldn't have done that without the skills
and that team that relate to that onboarding experience.
So I think in essence, your, your skills is the engine
to achieving your strategy,
but it's gonna be unique to your organization.
It's not a cookie cutter replica of the business next
to you, and you can't just simply create it out of chat GBT,
it has to be unique.
It's interesting, like the onboarding's a great example.
Like I know a member for a fact within our network
that had a different innovation team department
that was like, no, we're gonna
automate your entire onboarding.
And she's like, hold up. Like, this is wild.
Like this isn't gonna work with what you're talking about.
Like, they didn't understand the intimate ins
and outs of what goes into that actual experience
and keeping people engaged
and productive as they start their career at your company.
Right. And,
and Joe, in your experience so far, right, fuel 50 has been
around long before AI started being a conver in the
conversation of a, like a skills,
like a skills mapping or skills strategy.
How has that conversation sh changed as you are working
with organizations today?
Right. So at, at first right,
you're helping organizations understand
what are the skills necessary to, to thrive
and perform at a high level, what skills do you have, right?
You're able to map on, do all those things.
Now organizations maybe are coming to you already like, Hey,
can you find all the skills that we can automate for ai?
And like, you probably have to push back
and help consult them in a way.
Like, where have you started to really yeah.
Help consult 'em on how AI fits in
and doesn't fit in into this.
Yeah, and I think Elizabeth said this earlier as well,
that, you know, there's a level of, um, discernment around,
you know, what tools and technologies you're bringing into
your business and, and
how do they really amplify your organization.
So, um, all
of our organizations have had long-term digital strategies
in place for many, many years
and, you know, they have a longer term, um,
strategy again in terms of what
that looks like in practice over the next three
to five years and AI and automation
and, you know, agents are simply part of that toolkit,
but when they're looking at, you know, what does that mean
for their skill strategy, they're really focused in on
what skills do we really need to amplify so
that people can use those tools to,
to meet our business goals.
Automation and AI isn't an end goal.
It's not something that we're trying to achieve.
It's simply a tool
to help us meet our bigger business objectives.
So our organizations, what they're looking at is, you know,
what are the AI skills people need to have, you know,
we all need to be embracing this
and we need, as Declan said, not to be blocking progress.
We need to be, you know, a automating what can be automated,
but we need to be growing the skills that allow us
to do that in a meaningful way.
So, you know, judgment, discernment, um,
communication skills, all
of those things are still really critical
and without them, we can't make good
AI and automation choices.
So the organizations we're working with are building
not only the AI specific skills,
but also the adjacent skills that wrap around that.
Yeah. It's like almost, and,
and maybe we will get to that part a little, little later.
I don't wanna, uh, spoil it too much,
but like the difference between upskilling and reskilling
and like, what does that actually mean?
And uh, okay, we want to kind of offload some of these tasks
so people can spend more time on the needle moving
activities and the more meaningful work,
but then there's still some upskilling
that's needed on the AI aspect for that to be possible.
Right. So, um, yeah, I'd love
to unpack that a little bit too.
And, and Elizabeth,
you brought up some really important points in your
introduction too, of like the power of how
this is enabling you to do more meaningful work
and kind of delegate and offload some of those tasks.
Yeah. How has that shown up for you
and your skill strategy or even your own role?
Like have, how have you been able to kind of uncover
that? Yeah,
I mean, I think Joe, Joe put it really well, right?
You have your business strategies,
you have your team strategies and goals
and AI can't replace that.
And you are looking at things, you know,
maybe you're looking at trends
or you're looking at something
statistics that'll give you insight into something.
But you as a human and or your team, right?
You have a collaborative team that needs to look at
what does that mean for your business, your team?
What are the nuances that are applicable to you
and the work you're doing that an AI model isn't going
to tell you, nor is it going to be able
to spit out the same information.
Um, you know, it will give you
reporting, but what do you do with that?
Reporting is gonna be the important part.
How are you, um, how are you utilizing
that in your day-to-day strategy versus your
long-term strategy?
You might have a goal that is something
that you're working towards, uh, in the immediate timeframe
that you need certain information for,
but other information might be outdated
by the time you get to the next set.
So having something
that was stuck from the one time output isn't necessarily
going to be helpful to you.
So I think that's the piece of the critical thinking piece,
the strategic piece.
Um, again, collaborative things, shift, change,
adapt based on other information coming in.
So we all, of course, I'm sure, uh, look at, you know,
market strategies,
what's going on in it could be if you're a global company
like we are, a lot of it might be some, some intricacies
around certain regions.
So something might be applicable in one,
but not in the other.
It might be looking at
what potential issues are coming down the line, right?
So all of those pieces, AI is not going to be able
to do at the same time in respect to your products
or your team goals.
And that's the piece where you want to utilize them
but also understand their limitations.
Um, I always think of it too, kind
of dumbing it down a little bit,
but you know, you can look up right now,
you can plan your vacation, right?
Chachi, PT it, put it in, you wanna go to Portugal today?
Um, and it will say, oh yeah, you know, tickets are $600
and um, it's going to be these days and here's the hotel.
It has no idea if the hotel has vacancy right now.
Um, it could be looking at the Delta prices from five weeks
ago, and oh, by the way, it's the middle of summer,
so people are, are traveling
and it's actually $3,000, right?
So it's only as good as the information
that's coming into it as well
and what you're being specific as.
So that's going
to change maybe tomorrow I decide I'm actually not
going in that timeframe.
I need to switch it. So I need to get that information
as it's coming to me based on what I need.
And I think sometimes we just get ahead
of ourselves in saying, oh, AI's gonna replace everything.
It simply can't.
But it can be an enhancing amplifying tool to
what I'm looking to do with my work, my strategy,
my team, my goals.
Um, and I think that's the important piece
to keep in mind is where can I use it to?
Maybe it's running, you know, daily reports,
but is it going to fix the end goal for me?
Is it going to build the whole project for me?
Certainly not.
And delan, I'd love to expand on kind
of the question Elizabeth just spoke through on the, like,
where, where can this have its place and purpose
and drive impact today in long term?
And, and I appreciate Elizabeth, you kind of providing
some different ways to think about it, right?
There's actual more long term strategic things
to consider on in terms of the industry,
the market and the things you're in.
And then there's also more short term of just like, yeah,
where is a lot of my time going that isn't providing value.
Can I uncover those things through my own kind
of critical thinking exercises to then help guide
the use case and the purpose?
And, and delin, maybe you can talk
through like more critically like
how the hackathons are done
or how, what questions you're ask, ask
actually asking mm-hmm.
To figure out those things.
Like where do you, how do you uncover what tasks
and things are actually worth designing
or investing into AI
for versus should be double down on
the human side, you know?
Well, you know, it's interesting
'cause there's so many unique roles
and what I can say is that doing that town hall,
and if you don't have an internal expert,
like we had the experts internally,
it might be worth getting, uh, one of even one
of your vendors that has advanced AI in their tools.
But the idea of having people first understand
what the differences between the prompting and,
and how advanced that can go, and then the agents,
and really those are two big differences
because we're already talking about agents
and people don't even know how to use the gen AI tools
to their fullest potential.
And so I think we're just excited with terms,
but when you ask somebody really,
what does this mean for you today?
They'll say the same things, well, I use it
for job descriptions and it writes an email for me.
And you're like, okay, so we're still down over here,
but we're all talking all about being replaced
by an entire workforce of robots.
But I just have job descriptions are written like, like,
you know, there's a lot that's gotta happen
between mind me losing my job and this.
And so I think what what we did is, uh, by showing the demos
and showing use cases, even just regularly
with leaders in my own global town hall, I shared a screen,
I showed a conversation with Gandalf
and then we did, I know this probably sounds silly,
just a few months ago in Valentine's Day,
I had it generate a syntax Valentine's Day card.
And you know, I thought mine was pretty
good by the end of the day.
I have a decent sized team. The cards were kick ass.
Like they were so much better
'cause people were like giving it more and more.
And just doing that is a great activity for people
to understand how to get AI to work.
So sometimes we're really making it very complicated when
it's really about practice and use.
So what we're launching now is, uh, is an enablement
training, but the enablement trainees isn't so
that you can code your own ai.
And I think this is what scares people.
We're talking to you as if you're gonna be like
a low-code developer.
Well, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be
just gonna tell you right now.
Uh, so you know,
what we're doing here is saying beginning is really just
understanding AI
and understanding how to leverage AI in your vendor tools
as well as our own internal
and the, I saw in the chat the comments about security
and safety and really like, here's some examples
and then prompting training.
'cause that's a really big thing.
It, it only gives you anybody who says,
oh, it just gives me garbage.
It means you're putting in garbage.
You know, it's only as good as what you're willing
to to invest in it.
Kind of like an employee, right?
You, you hire someone and you
never talk to them and they're no good.
Well, guess what?
Think of your a your your gen AI tool as a person
that needs time and uh, and attention.
And then the second level is really about taking parts
of your role in a kind of functional analysis,
understanding which parts could be automated,
and having an understanding of how to get more of that done.
But we're not enabling the entire company to develop agents.
Only a small few will be doing that.
What we're really saying is understand
what you either wanna look to see
that your vendors are already leveraging inside a tool
or how do you use the platforms
that we have more effectively.
I'll just say one last thing here.
Everybody here probably uses Outlook or Google, right?
Some people use it to,
there's OneNote, they use it for everything.
And then there's people like me
who just use it for email on my calendar.
My inbox is a disaster. It doesn't matter. Nobody cares.
There's people who use OneNote for everything.
There's people who still carry around notebooks.
We have a lot of people
who don't leverage technology
currently that all have their jobs.
Just so you know, what I think is different in this is
that if you're not leveraging it, it will be more visible
and more noticeable when everybody gets used
to how it's supposed to look.
On the flip side, if you're trying to do really unique,
interesting work and you're using a chat bot,
that also will be obvious
because there's some places where we're really looking
for critical thinking, storytelling and creativity,
and you are just gonna get a bunch of those bullet dots
that these things generate and you're gonna be like,
yeah, I could have done that myself.
So it's, it's, you sit somewhere in
the middle of both of those stories.
I think it's funny you bring in that last point
because I think we can all agree,
we can tell on LinkedIn which prompts are like captions are
AI generated or not?
It's usually the double dash that gives it away
for me. Um, but, uh,
So cringing, Yeah, I mean I'm, I've been,
I've been using myself, I can't talk too much of it,
but it's like, it is very true of like, I think one
of the key points you kind of talked
through at the beginning there was like understanding like
almost where your breakthroughs are and,
and how even like just a breakthrough would be
learning prompting exercises
and entering quality prompts into the engine, right?
Like, you don't have to get outta orbit status
and using all these ent AI right away.
Like just get on on the train
and start building wherever you are, whatever
that breakthrough is, right?
Um, and that's where you can start to level up your people.
And it is interesting how like, okay,
you created your Valentine's card, you shared it
with someone, they got aware
that they could do something like that in the tool.
They brought in their own creative expression into it,
and now they created something even better.
So it's like that's
how these breakthroughs happen is like slowly becoming more
aware and, and enabled
and all of a sudden you're,
you're creating amazing things from it.
Um, so I appreciate kind of that like try not
to get too overwhelmed by like the huge breakthroughs
that media announces with AI and kind of just base yourself
and ground yourself on like, okay,
where are we as an organization?
Where can we start taking stepping stones
to build our our awareness and capacity on this?
Okay. So maybe we talk through
that evolution a little bit more.
And, and Joe, you even talked about it as an evolution
as we connected before this, this, uh,
this discussion today.
We kind of talked about how even a skill strategy
is an ongoing evolution.
You don't just do a skill strategy once and now you're good.
It's a ongoing kind of evaluation and exploration.
Um, it, it's not a one and done strategy.
Could you maybe talk through that on, for our audience
as it goes to their skill strategy and how AI plays a role?
Like how should leaders approach the ongoing nature
of skill strategy in this AI era?
Yeah, and I, I think it's really important, um,
that you mentioned the leaders as well, and,
and that they've got such a critical role to play.
So, you know, when we are thinking about what skills we need
to achieve our goals, you know, leaders
and their people, you know, they're at the, the front of
that and they're the best people to ask in terms of,
you know, what's, what do we need to do to achieve,
you know, these big tasks that we've got for the year ahead.
Um, and then enabling them to, you know, choose the tools
that make sense for them in that moment.
The skills that you need to bring to play
to achieve your goals, the tools
that you need are always gonna be changing.
And, and as you iterate
and grow those, you're gonna be moving away from some tools
and introducing new tools over time.
And so really we need to be building organizations
that have people who have the agility to be able to pivot
and make those decisions as part of their work.
So upskilling our leaders is gonna be really critical.
We have to help them, enable their people
to make really good decisions around tools,
but also to identify the skills that are new and, and,
and that we need to build for our future as well.
Skills change depending on what's happening in your broader,
um, macroeconomic environment as well.
So, you know, if we're in a recessionary period,
we need different kind
of skills than if our business is in a really growth period.
And so being able to recognize that
and focus people's attention on building those particular
skills in that moment is really, really critical.
And equally choosing the tools that make sense
to help us with that.
I think the key message is amplification.
We need to amplify the great people that we have already.
We need to help them add even more value
and help them to be enabled to take advantage of the tools
that are at their fingertips.
So building that judgment, that discernment, you know, all
of those things are super critical.
Yeah, it reminds me of the book, the, you know,
the learning organization where
that came out a long time ago, right?
Mm-hmm. And we're really at the center
of that today though, right?
Like, how can we find
and enable this culture where people are excited to grow,
to learn, to continue reskill, to provide more impact and,
and valuable work to the table?
And, and are we hiring
and engaging our workforce in a way that creates that hunger
to grow and adapt?
And Elizabeth, you, you shared a point that I've shared,
I've seen quite, you know,
frequent in our own community achieve engagement sometimes
specifically in the HR community,
sometimes this can be viewed as a very scary thing, right?
Like having to learn and grow with these new skills and,
and evolve the ways that we've done things.
Like how have you maybe seen effective ways to kind
of build the energy to shift that mindset?
Or what are some of the reskilling
and upskilling, you know, initiatives
that you've done in your own team?
Well, yeah, within hr, I think it's still is, uh, a scary,
a scary tactic, right?
As, oh gosh, you know, we're gonna
be replaced by these things.
But I think again, it's about, um, a as Joe mentioned,
it's about amplifying.
Um, you know, we still are, uh, a,
a human connected world.
We are still human connected space
and certainly hr, um, I think is is one of the, one
of the key points of when we look about those human
connected pieces, especially at work, there's a lot
of nuance that happens, right?
There's a lot of personal pieces that go into things,
especially if you're, uh, on the benefit side
or, um, you know, any of the interpersonal things.
Those are still going to have, um, specific
nuanced conversations and relationship building.
And so for us, I think it's a lot of looking at, um, ways
that we can take some of the, uh, pieces
that I would say are, are,
we're taking away from us being able
to have those conversations.
Things like, um, are we seeing the same question either,
either by region or even globally over and over?
And is there a way that we can, I mean, we are, we're,
let's, let's go down to simplistic versions here of
how many times are we getting that same question?
How many times are we seeing this?
Is it always from someone who is a new hire?
Is it always from someone who's been here 10 years?
Where is that question coming in?
And can we proactively have that information available
to them in some way?
Um, so that we're taking that off the plate
of an HR business partner, let's say.
Um, there's a lot of times we get in
and someone says, oh, I spent x, y, z amount of time
this week, uh, you know,
fielding questions from the same group of people,
but it was question, question, question.
Well, is there a way we can help you so that you don't have
to be, um, you know, going through one by one with
that question when actually we needed you over here, um,
helping with some larger, uh, you know, goal of ours
that we have implementing a new system, right?
Something like that that we have going on.
Is there an employee engagement endeavor
that we were looking at, but we're you were spending extra
time doing this over here.
Um, so where is it that we can, we can help with that?
And I think there's also, uh, you know,
an upskilling piece as well.
There's plenty available on the HR side, um,
that people haven't maybe had access
to if they are in niche parts.
So if you are in, uh, benefits versus
HR business partner versus talent versus
compensation even, right?
What that looks like, how
to start upskilling each other in different spaces,
and that's now available.
There are plenty of spaces that you can look at it,
it might be something like a certification,
but maybe it's just learning some of those prompts
that desal was talking about.
Where is it that we can amplify some of the pieces
that we've already got going on,
but we're not utilizing the best course of action
to gain that information?
And I think that's a, the biggest piece that I think of
as a takeaway is where is the information hiding somewhere
that we can pull from it, learn from it, and,
and add it to, uh, our, our repertoire of items of knowledge
that we have and act on those pieces
of knowledge rather than having them all scattered around
and taking time to go try and find things periodically.
So I think from an HR standpoint, the idea of having,
you know, a, a, a data center for yourselves of reports,
trends, activities, understanding people is going
to only help you better the support
that you can give your team members, the employees,
the managers, the leaders of all of those areas.
But it's not going to replace you
because every company is going to be different,
every leadership is going to require different things.
The goals that you're looking for are slightly different.
And those are the nuance pieces of
how do I support this person in particular with the tool set
that I have behind me.
So I think that's the important piece too,
for HR leaders in particular to, to keep in mind.
Yeah, and I'll just even build off of kind of some
of the things you shared in terms of like,
how do we access some of the knowledge and information.
It's like, it's endless out there, right?
Like there's communities like achieve engagement,
there's certifications,
and then I think one
of the most effective ways is really just to start using
and engaging with the technology, right?
Like as you become more comfortable with it
and actually aware of its capabilities, it'll start
to unlock these new ideas of like, oh,
actually maybe it could be really useful
as this knowledge center
for these questions we're getting a hundred
times a week, right?
And, and now you're starting to be strategic with it.
And, and Delin to kind of continue this,
you've really brought up some interesting points
before about like the difference between reskilling
and upskilling and where should we push and invest
and what does that actually mean?
Could you provide some of y Yeah.
Your perspective on that piece?
Well, you know, it's another buzzword.
You know, I've heard it for so long.
I remember there was one point
where one major US telecom company was making a shift
and it says, and we're gonna take everyone with us.
And I was like, really? Are you, you know,
like these statements,
because generally people say, okay,
this is the new skill set, it's super hot on the market,
we all go and try to buy it.
And, uh, and that's junk. What happens?
So what do we mean by upskilling or reskilling?
And I think it's like you're hearing pieces
of it already happening.
It's as if it's an event that you haven't started,
as opposed to some people are already upskilled
and reskilled and other people aren't.
And so there's twofold.
There's the one of, uh, you know, talking
and just doing demonstrations
and encouraging use, which is really how we started.
It's just use it.
We're monitoring use, but not the way you think.
We're monitoring it, we're monitoring
to make sure you're using it not to check on you.
And then there's the actual, uh, skills, which is, you know,
the, the enabling learning to the point
of what's important in your job.
And we've heard this from our,
our different from Elizabeth and from Joe.
Different jobs have a different expectation
of leveraging technology,
and they have a different access to it.
So if you're a customer facing person
and you have to get through as many tickets
as you can in the day,
and we have a way if you use our internal gal for you
to go faster, uh,
or for you to recommend a way, well,
this is obviously huge value you're bringing.
If you're somebody who spends a lot of time, you know,
trying to aggregate information, you're wasting your time.
Now you don't need to aggregate information.
And so this is a better way to, to do it.
Uh, so I think it's an understanding of
what work the AI tools you currently have do,
and what's the expectation?
And then if somebody's like, okay,
I understand what's expected, but I don't know how to do it,
then it sees very basic.
And there's so much out there whether you look at YouTube
or if you have people who create and you can purchase.
And we're building, uh,
just a basic enablement for everyone.
But what I can say is
that many people are just using what there is out there.
And an example is, is you can ask your AI agent
or your AI bot what do what, here's my job profile,
what should AI be doing in here?
Like, you could ask AI what AI should be doing,
and you can ask ai, you know,
what should I be focusing on in here
and what's the most value add you can do?
And I think that is such an interesting thing
as a way to just practice.
So if we can give people these, these activities to do, uh,
the thing about the real upskilling
and reskilling I think of as managers
and leaders, which was already brought up, which is
how do you look at the work your team has to do?
And your, and I believe, Joe, you said this, you know,
AI isn't, uh, a goal.
AI is a way you're gonna achieve your goals.
And so I think people are saying like, we need
to like AI ourselves.
That's what starts our focus for 2025.
And it's really like, we need to move faster
and we need to move faster without growing headcount.
How are we gonna do that? How are we gonna provide better
service, differentiate and not grow our headcount?
Well, AI is gonna help us.
So every leader should be like going, well, given
that I had these challenges, how do I bring AI into that
as an enabler?
Uh, the way we brought other things in before.
And you know, ED people used
to think when we had brought software in
that we wouldn't have any people left.
Anybody thought that now we have to have Baha people
to manage the software we just bought.
So I have a pretty optimistic view
that we're all gonna still be around in
a few years, just so you know.
I think it's funny, whenever we think we're all gonna get
erased, we thought movies were gonna
go away with the H House.
Just so you know, we're remarkably
wrong at predicting the future.
That's my cheery moment for everybody here.
We don't know what we're talking about.
And in fact, I'm just gonna give you a funny thing.
If you ask AI to predict the future,
and you ask people to predict the future,
AI only predicts the future.
Well, when you give it what the people thought,
and then it aggregates
what the people thought, then it predicts future.
Well, without the people's predictions, it doesn't do it.
So we still have to give it things to think about.
One day will it turn into how from 2001, you know,
I'm not worrying about that now I'm really worrying about
how do we help people leverage the technology available in
their companies right now so that they're not left behind.
I love that. I love the the one,
it's just a greater reminder.
Like we, we often, you know, think we're able,
we're future tellers and we're able to anticipate
and sense what, you know, things are gonna bring,
but we've been proved wrong plenty of times, right?
So, uh, what delin, that was some amazing,
like, closing thoughts here.
We're about a minute until the hour.
So yeah, Elizabeth show, I'd love to pass it you two to kind
of like, as you think about the future
and of, I'm not trying to predict it,
but like, as you go into the future, any maybe closing words
and Elizabeth I'll go to you first.
Uh, for our community of HR people, leaders
as they go into the future with their skill strategy
and ai, uh, any suggestions
or strategies on, on what they should do next
Or, yeah. I, I love
that, uh, that segue there, deline.
That was, that was pretty good. That's a good point.
I think one of the greatest things
that you could do is educate yourself on it.
Give yourself as much information as you can on the thing
that scares you, right?
That, and that's a applicable to anything.
But I think if you, the more information that you have,
the more confident you will feel in what it is.
It's when it's the unknown that makes people nervous,
anxious, because you don't know how it could
or could not, um, help or affect what you're talking about.
So in your space, whatever that space might be, find out
where you can get yourself into some
of these trading sessions.
Start using it, start using chat GPT if
you're not already, right?
It's like the, the Excel. Same thing, right?
You get some people who can do equal some
and they know how to do that.
And then there's other people who can build
50 page spreadsheets that are all connected.
And so there is going to be a vast number of people
who are somewhere in the middle.
But where you can find that value, use it, educate yourself
as much as you can and implement it from there.
And keep learning. You will continue to learn,
you will continue to develop that.
It is a skill for you
and yourself to even learn how to use it.
And that's a great way to just keep yourself involved.
But also not maybe necessarily overwhelm yourself,
but keep yourself in the know of how and when to use it.
I love that. Thank you, Elizabeth.
All right, Joe, bring us home as people start
to go into their next steps with their skill strategy here,
what are some of your, uh, parting words
of advice and mentorship?
Yeah, and I think this has been a
really uplifting session.
So, you know, thanks to Lyn and Elizabeth
and Zach for, for bringing us all together for this topic.
Um, in a few short words, I think
what we've clearly articulated is that the future is human.
So use ai, use tools to amplify what makes us special to,
to really bring your values, your unique expertise,
and your business differentiators to life.
Let let the machines do the rest,
but um, use the technology to really amplify
what makes you special.
Thank you, Joe. And,
and everyone, thank you so much
for taking some time outta your busy schedules.
Uh, as even Delin shared, like it's a really valuable
to talk to some external leaders and advisors
and people who really understand this space.
So make sure to check out and reach out to Joe
and these leaders via LinkedIn.
Reach out to Field 50.
They're really innovating
and supporting people in this space right now,
so they can provide a ton of expertise.
And, uh, to the rest of you though, thank you
for taking time outta your day to sharpen your craft
and uplevel and upscale reskill, whatever skill you want
to call it, uh, uh, within this space.
And as your community lead it, it warms my heart to kind
of see all of you working together to do this.
So thank you again everyone,
and we'll look forward to seeing you at the next one.

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