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Is it economic development? Financial discipline after years of cheap money? Returning to core business? Or is it: an upheaval driven by the promises of artificial intelligence? Whether Google or Amazon, SAP or Telekom, Bayer or Accenture: With announcements about job cuts, austerity in companies and the utilization of AI seem to go hand in hand these days. After the biggest hype about AI in the news has flattened out, the first major players are now apparently entering the “productivity plateau” from Gartner's hype cycle. Investigations by OpenAI scientists have already suggested that the developments described will not only know winners but also victims. Among other things, they provide mathematicians, tax specialists and analysts with an exposure value of 100, i.e. a maximum risk potential. In addition, for almost 20 percent of all occupations in the USA, they estimate that half of all tasks can be performed by AI. Against this background, the current uncertain economic situation appears only as a catalyst that accelerates the reaction of companies.
The pressure to adapt to the new reality is growing
But technological progress is not only leading to falling personnel requirements in many industries and areas. It also fundamentally transforms a number of job profiles, reveals new areas of responsibility and thus increases the pressure to adapt roles and competencies within the workforce. HR departments are therefore required more than ever to grow beyond their traditional functions and not only to accompany but to shape this change.
Recruiting & Retention is supplemented with employability
While the main focus of HR in recent years was primarily on recruiting and retaining talent, in future HR must also focus on the employability and ability to change of employees at all levels of the hierarchy — and adapt all learning, development and coaching offerings to the rapid pace of technological development. After all, AI systems are not only able to take on fundamental tasks to an unprecedented extent. They are also increasingly penetrating areas that were recently thought to be the territories of experts — keyword software programming. For many professionals, this means nothing less than dethronement, which must be responded to with regard to psychology and self-image as well as with regard to “Skills for Employability.”
We need a new understanding of human talent
Sooner or later, the penetration of companies by AI even cries out for a fundamentally new approach to employee recruitment. For example, employment in the so-called “white collar occupations” will be less and less about the knowledge and skills already acquired by employees, but about the potential to acquire knowledge and skills. But above all about the power of association, inventiveness and creativity away from statistical models or “out of the box,” as you could put it in New German. True to the dictum of Silicon Valley guru Jaron Lanier: “Without people, computers are space warmers that generate patterns. ”
From job description to fluid job profile
HR must therefore increasingly bring “playing & learning mindsets” into the organization — and help companies offer suitable framework conditions and freedom. Accordingly, job descriptions in many areas will also have a kind of expiration date, as they simply outline a status quo with an increasingly shorter half-life. Job descriptions are increasingly being advertised as a type of “fluid job profile” in order to establish the continuous development and adaptability of employees to dynamic development as the “new normal” and to make it clear to every applicant from the outset.
HR as a mediator and change communicator
At the same time, HR is required as a navigator and communicator in this accelerating change process. It is about a deep understanding of the emotional and psychological effects of these changes on employees, on the early detection (and, with regard to change management, perhaps even an early warning system) of AI-driven disruption in various areas of the company's competencies. HR must help employees overcome reservations about the unknown. And see the changes associated with AI as an opportunity for personal and professional development so that it does not become a self-fulfilling threat.
Fill the resulting vacuum with a strategic contribution
As if this wasn't enough of the challenge, HR must simultaneously make use of AI for its own work so as not to end up as its victim. Because artificial intelligence will of course do much more here than automate routine tasks. It is up to HR to fill the resulting vacuum of operational employment with a strategically valuable contribution. Preferably when HR acts as a bridge between the company's strategic goals and the practical opportunities offered by the workforce. This requires HR, together with the company divisions, to actively place the corporate goals in the context of the opportunities opened up by AI and at the same time realistically assess what can be achieved with the existing skill set and resources, but above all based on the development potential of employees.
Human (istic) resources: A profoundly human contribution to the AI working world?
Through such an approach, HR could become a mediator between the company's vision of the future and actual feasibility by taking into account both technological possibilities and human aspects in order to ensure a harmonious integration of AI into work processes. AI may even offer the opportunity to write the “human” in human resources bigger than ever — because the true value of HR in an AI-driven working world lies in the very human ability to inspire, motivate and empathetically communicate — in order to outline a desirable vision for the future of human-machine coexistence.
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