When it comes to AI transformation, having HR on board is critical. But some people leaders experience difficulties being included in such big changes.
Those who are feeling left out in the cold might want to look to ServiceNow’s Jacqui Canney for guidance.
In January, ServiceNow announced a title change for Canney, making her its chief people and AI enablement officer. The change reflected an expanded role for Canney, who’d led HR at the tech giant since 2021, and put her at the helm of the change management aspect of AI transformation within the company.
That decision, to tie developing the company’s workforce for the future and creating a desired company culture to AI technology investment, felt like a “very natural extension” of her role and “the right move to make in the market,” Canney told HR Brew. But the interest she got from other HR leaders was somewhat unexpected.
“I think HR leaders are starting to see…why you would want human capital strategy, human capital investment to be something bigger than that, as it ties to this really powerful technology that’s moving very quickly,” she said.
Canney spoke with HR Brew about some of the AI-related initiatives that her team is leading at ServiceNow, including launching a new training platform and honing in on AI-related skills during hiring.
AI education. Canney’s team has embarked on revamping the company’s training approach, including combining employee and customer training under one team. Over a year ago, ServiceNow focused on teaching all employees the basics around AI terminology to ensure everyone was on the same page about AI terms and how they are used at the company.
These trainings were disseminated by bringing in speakers, creating use cases, and encouraging company leaders to explain what it meant when terms like AI, generative AI, and agentic AI were used within the organization.
In May, the company launched ServiceNow University, an online learning platform. The platform uses AI to help chart the path that workers can pursue to attain the skills and expertise they want. The service is also available for its customers, and the company aims to get 3 million people learning on the platform by the end of 2027.
“It’s ambitious, but it feels really good,” Canney said of that goal.
Soft skills—which experts argue are important to develop along with AI use skills—are also a priority. Canney said one example of how these skills are being developed is through manager training. Her team has created classes around different kinds of managers—such as first-time people managers, or a manager of managers—which teach them how to navigate trickier situations like having a difficult conversation with a subordinate.
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“We’re seeing humanity come through as [being] equally as important as it is for someone to feel confident using AI,” Canney said.
Hiring shift. The company’s investment in AI has also impacted its hiring processes. Earlier this week, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott said in an interview with Bloomberg that AI adoption is helping the company save money by slowing hiring demand for roles he described as being “soul crushing,” such as IT support and customer service.
Hiring has picked up dramatically, though, for roles focused on using AI. Over the past two years, ServiceNow quadrupled its AI hires. ServiceNow has posted more than 1,200 jobs focused on or requiring AI skills, a 163% year over year increase. AI skills don’t just encompass AI roles, however.
“We did say we are the AI platform for business transformation. So it can’t just be like, here’s the AI team, here’s the employee workflow team, here’s the CRM team. It has to literally go across,” Canney said. “And that’s why we’ve put more hires into the pipeline, so that we can cover off on the entire platform instead of maybe being viewed in a more narrow lane.”
Recruiters are also trained to understand AI-relevant skills and how to identify them while navigating high résumé volumes. This has in part been driven by Amit Zavery, ServiceNow’s president, COO and chief product officer, who joined the company last October.
“It’s been a learning across the whole team, but they’re delivering, and I feel like Amit’s been the driving force, because he knows what great looks like, and I believe that his point of view is why we have accelerated where we have and the success that we’ve been having in the hires that we’ve made,” Canney said.
The company is also training recruiters to watch out for candidates using AI during the hiring process.
“That path on AI skills is really important in HR. It’s the ability to use critical thinking, your instinct, deciding when things need to be in person, maybe, versus on the Zoom like that’s all going to get sorted out a little bit from where it is today,” Canney said.
“And I think the HR function is probably going to lead in a lot of that, to be able to discern: When is it a human interaction? When’s it human plus machine? When can it just be machine? It’s not something that HR teams have grown up having to figure that out.”