AI at Work: The HR Transformation Journey - with Jessica Yuen
💡 muffin.ai: the media to understand the challenges of AI and leverage them in our society and jobs — by a collective of French engineers & entrepreneurs.
Hello everyone!
Today we are sharing our conversation with Jessica Yuen, Advisor to People-focused Leaders at Jessica Yuen LLC.
Jess is a 3x startup executive who has experienced the ups and downs of 10x+ growth across different industries.
Her roles have varied a lot : Chief People Officer at Couchbase and Gusto, Chief of Staff to the CEO and Head of International Growth and Strategy at Khan Academy. Throughout those journeys, she was a fundamental force behind defining and cultivating distinctive, iconic cultures that enabled greater business impact.
As a former management consultant at McKinsey, product manager at Yahoo, and Stanford-educated engineer, Jess is grounded in first-principles and systems-thinking to transform businesses.
🧁 Special thanks to Jess for sharing her valuable insights on how AI is reshaping the HR landscape, covering everything from operational efficiency and client engagement to recruitment, leadership development, and cultivating organizational culture!
On the menu today:
🚀 AI's HR Breakthrough: Jess's insights on tech-enhanced workplaces.
⏱️ Efficiency Unlocked: How IBM's AI integration saved thousands of hours.
👨💼 AI in the C-Suite: Executives' new tech ally for smarter decision-making.
🤖 The AI Recruiter: Streamlining talent acquisition with intelligent automation.
🌐 Culture Crafted by AI: Fostering workplace inclusivity and collaboration.
If anyone shared this newsletter and you’re willing to subscribe, it’s here:
🧁 MF : AI is on everyone’s minds these days. As a thought leader in the HR and People space, what are your initial thoughts about its effect on the workplace?
👉 Jess :
I'm very excited for the potential of artificial intelligence to revolutionize the way we live and work. I’m hopeful it’ll augment many jobs, help minimize repetitive or less engaging tasks, and support more meaningful interactions and productive work overall.
For example, IBM’s Chief HR Officer (CHRO) shared that their team saved *12,000* hours over 18 months by leveraging AI to automate 280 tasks, including back-and-forth exchanges between managers and employees. On the other end of the example spectrum, startup Knoetic has built a “Genie” for CHROs to leverage to answer strategic and tactical questions based on their CPOHQ community’s inputs.
That said, AI is still in its early stages of development. It’s shifting quickly, and what may be an ideal strategy now may evolve into something very different in even just a few months.
And there are still so many open questions: To what extent will AI play in many jobs? And for those that are displaced, how can they be upskilled or reskilled? And how far in advance can we anticipate and prepare workforces for that shift? And to what extent will governments play into all of this?
We also need to be mindful of its limitations. With AI comes security risks, particularly when it comes to privacy and proprietary data. Like a smart intern, AI has so much potential yet also needs clear guidance and boundaries, and its output needs to be carefully reviewed.
🧁 MF : How are your clients—founders and executives—using AI?
👉 Jess :
There’s a lot of experimentation happening! And while each company is exploring differently, I’ve seen a few patterns for how my clients are leveraging AI:
1. For day-to-day personal work.
One founder-CEO client of mine runs most everything through ChatGPT—he’ll type in bullet points to get back email verbiage, or for ideas he’s contemplating, he’ll run it by ChatGPT to get a more structured list of considerations and criteria. His team has experienced much clearer communication and direction, so it seems to have upleveled and expedited his work.
As leadership teams, I’m also seeing the use of meeting AI tools that help transcribe, record, and synthesize meetings. This is ensuring more consistent documentation and tighter communication and collaboration.
2. For customer-facing experiences.
Some clients are having AI integrated directly into their product (e.g., Notion AI that allows for faster and better writing) or using it to streamline external-facing processes, like the response and routing of customer issues.
3. For internal business use.
AI is also a big area being explored in other facets of the business—whether with candidates for recruiting, to expedite research or learning, or to streamline internal processes more broadly.
But besides the obvious benefits to being able to leverage GenAI tools that allow for augmentation and acceleration of work, for VC-backed companies, there’s also the consideration that AI company valuations thus far in 2023 have been much stronger than companies without AI. So there’s a direct business value that’s being attached to integrating AI into the business.
🧁 MF : As a prior Chief People Officer, how do you see AI being integrated to enable better HR and recruiting processes?
👉 Jess :
Nearly every part of the employee experience and people space is experimenting with AI to provide more consistent, efficient, and data-informed opportunities:
Upleveling recruiting: Because AI is automating tasks such as sourcing candidates, reviewing profiles, and scheduling interviews, recruiters can focus on more strategic tasks, such as strengthening relationships with candidates and employer branding. For example, Stripe uses AI to analyze resumes, cover letters, and GitHub profiles to identify candidates who are likely to be a good fit.
Improving onboarding: Investing in onboarding has been shown to extend employee tenure, so opportunity is huge here. In recent years, automation of tasks like sending welcome emails to personalizing the experience with recommended modules, matching of onboarding buddies, or providing virtual assistants to provide real-time guidance have been more common levers. GenAI is so good at ingesting content that creating an AI onboarding buddy or chatbot feels like the next step from there which would enable real-time, anytime support.
Deepening performance management: AI can analyze performance data and identify trends and patterns, which can help managers to provide more accurate and timely feedback to employees and to develop targeted development plans.
Personalizing learning and professional development: AI-powered learning platforms can recommend courses and content based on an employee's individual skills, interests, and goals.
Analyzing employee engagement: If AI can collect and analyze employee feedback data, it could identify areas where employee engagement is low and help develop targeted interventions to improve it.
Increasing diversity and inclusion: AI-powered tools can be used to review job descriptions and performance reviews for bias, and to ensure that hiring and promotion decisions are made with diversity and inclusion at the forefront. However, this is an area where potential is high and execution is tricky. Some AI bots, like an Amazon recruiting tool that was subsequently scrapped, have actually increased issues of discrimination. So although AI could have the capacity to offset human subconscious bias in people processes, understanding how to do that effectively is still being navigated.
Overall, AI has the potential to revolutionize people processes and help organizations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of them. Again, however, this is a newer technology that should not replace human involvement in people processes. There’s still a number of considerations around privacy, security, and biases that need to be carefully considered for any AI applications. So instead of immediately diving headfirst into a rip-and-replace scenario, AI should be used exclusively to augment human capabilities.
🧁 MF : You mentioned personalizing learning and professional development. How are you seeing AI leveraged in supporting leaders and leadership development?
👉 Jess :
This is still in the early stages of experimentation, but I’m seeing some positive progress here that will allow for more widespread support in organizations:
Providing personalized leadership coaching: AI-powered coaching platforms can provide leaders with personalized feedback and coaching on a variety of topics, such as communication, delegation, and decision-making. These platforms are available 24/7, so they’re available at any time a leader needs support. AI can even offer immersive training experiences, such as virtual simulations and role-playing exercises.
Identifying and developing leadership skills: AI can be used to identify leaders' strengths and weaknesses, and to develop targeted skill development plans. It can also provide feedback on behavior - like body language and tone of voice - which can help leaders become more aware of their impact on others.
Of course, there are limitations. For example, if someone has malicious intentions and asks for coaching on say, how to undermine a colleague - these platforms are not yet able to flag those. Still at this point, the potential is massive, and I am optimistic that guardrails will evolve.
🧁 MF : As it evolves, do you think AI will take over for executive coaches?
👉 Jess :
AI can be a great tool to augment and enhance executive coaching, but it’ll be really tough to replace the human element. Although AI is great at automating tasks and synthesizing insights, it will be a long time, if ever, before it can replace human empathy, for instance, which is essential for effective long-term coaching.
In the immediate, I can see AI being a somewhat informed thought partner to pose a situation to and see how they suggest responding. As with any collaborator, don’t just run with their suggestions verbatim—make sure to apply your own thinking and filters.
The strongest coaching relationships are built on trust, respect, and collaboration, which are much harder for AI to replicate today. As an executive coach, my clients value my responsiveness, confidentiality, ability to call out biases, and ability to ask powerful questions. They trust me to help them develop their self-awareness and set and achieve their goals. So, for now, AI can be a potentially helpful assistant in the coaching process, but unlikely in the near-term to fully replace me!
🧁 MF : How will AI impact culture within organizations?
👉 Jess :
To me, culture is defined as the words, actions, and behaviors of a group of people. In the workplace, AI will absolutely impact the words, actions, and behaviors of the organization. It has the positive potential to help create better workplaces for everyone. Two specific areas include:
1. Communication consistency.
For remote and hybrid workers, AI is making it easier to stay connected and collaborate. For example, teams often struggle with bridging communication across in-person and remote participants. I remember years ago dreading joining meetings remotely because I wouldn’t be able to hear everyone or effectively participate. AI-powered tools can help transcribe meetings in real time and record and highlight key moments. This helps those who might not be physically present in the office to have a more consistent experience.
2. Cultural consistency.
AI-powered tools can also nudge appropriate behaviors—identifying and mitigating bias in communication and providing real-time feedback on behaviors. For example, an AI tool that monitors meetings might track how much speaking time each employee has, and nudge the facilitator to prompt inputs from less active participants or switch up the approach (e.g., ask everyone to input ideas into chat before opening up to conversation). This helps encourage inclusive collaboration and make it more comfortable for others to share their ideas.
At the end of the day company culture is nothing without people, so however the impact of AI evolves, people will be essential in steering AI in the right direction.
Enjoy your week !
— muffin.ai team
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