SHRM executives are optimistic about AI in the future of work

What does the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) think about AI in the workplace?

Well, its president and CEO, Johnny C. Taylor Jr., wants HR pros to embrace the evolving technology.

“If you want to do the job that you’ve done for the last 10, 20, hell five years, then you’re in trouble…Embrace AI and use it to do the strategic value-added stuff that makes HR really valuable,” Taylor told HR Brew, later adding: “If you stand still and say, ‘I’m not going to embrace it, and this is bad for mankind,’ you will be left behind.”

HR Brew spoke with several SHRM executives at the organization’s annual conference in Orlando last month to get their thoughts on how HR should approach the technology.

Ultra-focused on skills. “The focus today should really be on skills, and skill competency, and capability. Why is that? Because if you have a set of skills, and you learn how to keep those skills fresh and alive, then no matter what that next skill is that you’re gonna have to learn in order to be ready for the next 30, 60, 90 days, you’re already gonna be a lifelong learner. You’re already gonna have that mindset of continual growth and continual development, and that’s the absolute best thing you can do to be prepared for whatever lies around the corner.”—Jim Link, SHRM’s CHRO

HR pros becoming AI pros. “Jump in. One of the things that we’ve seen from some of our other research of that is that a hesitancy of HR professionals to want to lead the way in terms of AI. When AI rollouts are happening, most HR, even HR leaders, are stepping back, saying, ‘IT is going to take it, and then when it comes to training the workforce, I’ll step in,’ but that’s not the best way to go…You should be as knowledgeable about AI as anyone else in the organization, and I think that’s a challenge…but because this technology is so interwoven in its future with how it interacts with the human aspect of it, HR really needs to be that AI leader.”—James Atkinson, SHRM’s VP of thought leadership

The future of HR is work execution. “What I see is really a future where this profession starts to move towards what I call ‘the work execution profession,’ and it’s thinking specifically about not just the humans that it takes to do the work, but actually the artificial intelligence that it takes to do work, the combination of the two, and where it is that each of those really brings value to the organization.”—Alex Alonso, SHRM’s chief knowledge officer