Making Sense of the 2024 HR Predictions and Trends: The Role of AI-powered HR Professionals

Mashumi Tutu inavit iQ Devaan Parbhoo, MBA

Navigating the ever-evolving landscape of HR trends can feel like trying to find clarity in a sea of information overload. As HR and L&D professionals, it's crucial to maintain focus amidst the noise, understanding what truly matters and how we can lead the charge in the age of AI. inavit iQ recently hosted a webinar tackling this important topic and these key questions were addressed:

1. How do we declutter ourselves to still maintain a laser focus on our mission and purpose?
2. What should we pay attention and what works?
3. How can HR lead the charge in the age of AI?
4. Are there any use cases, for example, on how generative AI impacts the role of the HRBP, OD specialist or Learning Experience Designer?
5. Is there a new set of 3 or 4 capabilities we must continuously develop to remain relevant and effective?

Our webinar aimed to tackle these challenges head-on, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. At the outset, our audience expressed feelings of being "unprepared, overwhelmed, challenged, excited" by the shifting dynamics of work and the integration of AI. But by the end, they left feeling empowered and enlightened.

Here are some key takeaways that resonated with our audience:

🎯 Decluttering for Purpose: We explored strategies to cut through the noise and maintain a laser focus on our mission and purpose in HR amidst the influx of trends and technologies through guided reflection techniques. “What’s filling your cup?” was a crucial inflection point.

🔍 Future-fit Capabilities: The Dynamic Capabilities Framework shed light on the essential skills needed for digital transformation: #sensing, #learning and #integrating. This sparked a demand for practical tools to assess both individual and organizational readiness.

🔄 Evolution of HR Business Partners: We delved into the transformation of the HR role into one that is known for business-informed people practices, data-driven problem solving, design (organisation design, work design, employee experience design), technology and digital maturity.

According to The Josh Bersin Company (2023), "HR teams must be able to understand and prioritise problems and then design and deploy solutions, bringing along not only technical skills but expertise in culture, leadership models, and change management”.

The Academy for Innovation in HR (AIHR) goes further to propose a T-shaped approach to upskilling and reskilling HR professionals. This means that beyond functional expertise in HR disciplines, critical cross-field skills in business acumen, data literacy, digital dexterity, and people advocacy.

🤖 AI in HR: The power of AI lies in its ability to personalise engagement, increase efficiency, and enhance decision-making, revolutionising HR processes from recruitment to talent development.

The integration of new technologies is no stranger to the function of Human Capital. For years, the profession has evolved its way of work from processing payments to managing career mobility, interviewing and training employees from the physical classroom to a virtual one.

What’s new about AI if that’s the case? The power of AI in HR is that the technology is able to learn from data that it’s been trained on and once embedded in the workflow, it’s able to provide hyper-personalised engagement, increase efficiency and enhance decision-making leading to heightened job satisfaction.

📈 Use Case Spotlight!

Our discussion on a real-life scenario showcased the tangible impact of AI on HR business partners, highlighting efficiency gains and enhanced credibility.

An HR business partner was interviewed to reveal the innovative application of generative AI in addressing a specific business requirement. This individual's organization was experiencing a strategic transformation, involving a redeployment and reorganization of key skills critical to the company's growth and alignment with its business strategy. The task at hand was to develop an Operating Model to harness these newly acquired skills and capabilities. The business leaders approached the HRBP as well as two consulting firms to produce a proposal on the target operating model. 

Drawing on a robust understanding of and a proclivity for cutting-edge technologies, the HR business partner utilised ChatGPT 3.5 to formulate three potential scenario plans for an optimal operating model tailored to the provided context. After evaluating the options, the most fitting model was refined with more specific, albeit anonymised, details. An example of the instruction given to the GPT model was to generate responses as if it were a managing consultant with profound expertise in crafting operating models.

The results were notable for their efficiency, the HR business partner delivered a response to the business within a mere seven days from receiving the initial brief, outpacing larger consulting firms, which could not propose a solution in under four weeks. Once the operating model was presented and approved by the business executives, the HR business partner reflected on the professional impact of this achievement, stating that it had significantly bolstered their credibility among key stakeholders, elevating their role from a business partner to a trusted advisor.

⚖️ Ethical Considerations: Further to the webinar, we addressed the importance of data integrity and ethical AI implementation, emphasising the role of HR in mitigating bias and ensuring privacy:

• It’s crucial to understand that these models thrive on large, gigantic datasets. The smaller the dataset, the greater the probability of fabrication. The challenge in implementing AI within HR products and services highlights the need for clean, structured and semi-structured data. A review and reengineering of HR processes to ensure that when embedded in the workflow of HCMs, privacy and bias in AI algorithms are reduced.
• There has been vast amounts of talk about AI job displacement, we believe that we run a higher risk of job displacement if we don’t implement AI in HR. As we can see, it’s professionals that leverage this technology who gain credibility through speed to market and impact. Mass disruption is more likely that mass job loss.

In conclusion, embracing the 2024 HR trends and integrating AI is not just a choice but a necessity to remain competitive and responsive. Let's continue this conversation and drive innovation together. 

💬 Join the dialogue: What future trends in AI-powered HR are you most excited about? Share your thoughts and experiences!

#HRInnovation #AIinHR #FutureofWork #HRLeadership #DigitalTransformation