AI is indisputably transforming workplaces of the future in real time, and that includes the roles of HR professionals. In this episode of Career Compass, hosts Kevin Abbed and Aly Sharp speak with HR Action’s Ben Madden, SHRM-CP, about the importance of students and emerging professionals developing a solid grasp of the technology’s usage and accompanying implications for HR processes and workflows.
AI is indisputably transforming workplaces of the future in real time, and that includes the roles of HR professionals. In this episode of Career Compass, hosts Kevin Abbed and Aly Sharp speak with HR Action’s Ben Madden, SHRM-CP, about the importance of students and emerging professionals developing a solid grasp of the technology’s usage and accompanying implications for HR processes and workflows.
Earn 0.5 SHRM PDC for listening to this podcast; all details in-episode.
Rate and review Career Compass on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
Aly Sharp:
Welcome back to season eight of Career Compass, a podcast from SHRM and the SHRM Foundation. Career Compass prepares the future leaders today for better workplaces tomorrow. Thank you for joining us for this episode. My name is Aly Sharp.
Kevin Abbed:
My name is Kevin Abbed, and I'll also be your cohost. This season, we're covering topics related to returning to the office, mental health, and AI. In this episode, we're excited to talk about AI and its future in the workplace.
Aly Sharp:
We are extremely excited about today's conversation, and with that, Career Compass would like to warmly welcome Ben Madden, owner and CEO of HR Action LLC.
Ben Madden:
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Kevin Abbed:
Great. Let's go ahead and get started. Ben, can you, before we get started, tell us a little bit more about yourself and your HR background and what you do?
Ben Madden:
Sure. I've been in HR for over 20 years and spent a vast majority of that in, actually, government contracting. But about a year ago, I started my own HR consulting firm to support small and growing businesses, up to about 250 employees, that really want to believe in their people processes, in their practices, to ensure that they're really meeting the needs of their employees. I enjoy helping companies from all sorts of sizes and shapes to really be as efficient as they can be, whether it's fractional project-based or support for outsourced HR.
Kevin Abbed:
Awesome. Just jumping right into the conversation, how do you see artificial intelligence revolutionizing traditional HR practices in the coming years? And what areas do you think are going to undergo the most significant change?
Ben Madden:
In HR, AI really started in recruiting. It was an easy sell to recruiters who were looking at hundreds of resumes daily. If there was a way to plow through resumes quicker, wouldn't you want to do it?
But we're starting to see more and more of the routine tasks really across HR supported by generative AI. I've started to see it used for performance management, feedback, training, helping managers lead those discussions, and making them much more personalized. Some draft creation of policies using the actual law as the basis or source material. It's really starting to get its reach out into a whole host of different areas.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. I feel like HR always had that, at least when I was applying to jobs, there was always that your resume's got to be perfectly tailored for whatever job you're looking for, because if it doesn't have these certain keywords that companies are looking for, that this AI is going to just sift you out almost immediately. I feel like we've always been hearing about AI, especially in talent acquisition like you're talking about.
But definitely utilizing AI, again, labor employee law is complicated. Being able to get a synopsis of thousands of pages of legal documents and federal and state laws distilled into paragraphs at the drop of a hat definitely makes for an easier life, I would say.
Ben Madden:
Absolutely. I've used it to summarize the FAR, the Federal Acquisition Register, which is a great cause for curing insomnia. But having distilled down large sections into manageable chunks are great.
Aly Sharp:
And I was going to say that last month, I actually focused all of our email campaigns on how students can learn how to use AI when applying to jobs. Not only are they going to need to use it once they're in HR, they need to at least have some practice with it now to tailor their resumes to the applicant tracking systems. We talk about that in literally every article about AI right now. I think it's really critical.
And that leads into our next question, and you can definitely provide more insight than I can. But why is it important for students and emerging professionals to have a strong understanding of AI?
Ben Madden:
When I was growing up, it's funny, I would often hear people talk about that the job that you somehow want to have when you grow up doesn't exist now. That is 11% the case with AI. The skills needed to be an AI prompt generator no one would have thought was a thing five years ago, yet alone 10 years ago, and now those are six figure income jobs that people are applying for.
The technology has really only gained traction in the last 18 months. I think ChatGPT hit critical mass literally within the last 18 months, which means there are more people using it than not. AI is only going to get better, faster, stronger, more reliable.
College students now really have a chance to help shape the collaboration that's going to be critical for businesses with AI as it continues to be refined. The more data analytics, the more of some of these skills that aren't necessarily thought of in the traditional businesses senses, are really going to become those critical skills as AI is dragged into and brought into the forefront further.
Aly Sharp:
Actually, I have a followup too, because we always say it's important for them to use AI and get practice with it, but just yesterday, I think, I was talking to a coworker, and she's like, "College kids these days are putting in sections of a text book to get back a summary."
And my first thought was, "Oh, my gosh. We're going to be really dumb. If we're not reading, our population is going to be really dumb." What kind of warnings or recommendations do you have for not getting so reliant on using AI?
Ben Madden:
AI is good for a lot of things. It is really, really dumb for a lot of other things. I saw an article that I was reading yesterday that there are some AI apps for identifying mushrooms that are safe to forage. I know it doesn't have to do anything with HR, but it only hit correctly on 47% of mushrooms that are safe. I don't think I want to be taking a 53% chance that the mushroom I'm going to take is going to kill me.
It's only as good as the information that's in it, and it can't make critical decisions. I can't decide what you want to do. It can give you all this information, but without a critical eye of understanding, of reading, of being able to synthesize the data that you have, it's really just another sort of textbook.
It really does require people to still have that human ability to think critically, to have emotional intelligence, to really drive forward a lot of the ideas that are going to be critical for taking what is ostensibly all of human knowledge synthesized down to as little as possible.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. Absolutely. I think you put that perfectly, and AI, to start, at least where we are now, is only as smart as the people that are putting it together. We've seen other companies, not just ChatGPT specifically, but their AI software has gone off the rails on occasion. And there's a tendency for that to happen with any machine learning AI when it gets [inaudible 00:07:27] start.
But also, we've slowly discovered that AI can also be biased as well based on what information it's pulling from. It can formulate opinions based on what it is attaining from that information that it reads, and I think that in itself is a little bit scary, where it's not able to decipher emotion and understanding of society quite as well as it can from just reading everything on the internet.
Ben Madden:
Absolutely. You saw that with Amazon. They had to take down their AI tool because it was doing recruiting sifting, and it was biased against the word woman. Women were getting excluded. Anyone who had listed being a women's soccer coach was getting excluded. The whole system was so biased and so far out of whack that it could not function effectively.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. And even if that is unintentional, the repercussions are drastic, because that is, you're automatically taking out 50% of the workforce.
Ben Madden:
Well, that's why it's not being used, and that's why you're seeing more states trying to at least figure out some way to regulate it. New York City had a law that required, if literally you were having your entire process for hiring decisions done by AI, within a year, you had to do bias testing. The problem is, there was no teeth behind it, so companies just ignored it. Something like 10% of companies that were doing this just were reporting the information, and even those were biased, but there's nothing to stop companies from doing this.
We're really in the wild, wild west of handling all of this. How do companies decide when to use it? How do governments try and keep people safe? How do we deal with things like labor laws when it comes to biases and all of that? It's not like you can sue a computer when it comes to being biased, but that then opens up a whole host of other liability issues for an organization.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. Absolutely. And I think you put it perfectly, where AI is growing faster than the law can. Everything is happening. AI's going to do something, and then a law is going to come six to 18 months later. It reminds me a lot of the steroid era, where they were like, "We need to test for these substances," and then they'd go, "Okay, well, I'm just going to take this." And then once they realize that, now we're going to test for this. It's going to be a little bit of a cat and mouse game for a little bit, I have a feeling.
Ben Madden:
Yeah.
Aly Sharp:
I just looked off-
Ben Madden:
Absolutely.
Aly Sharp:
... to the distance because I was trying to remember the name of a deep fake, which was probably my first interaction with machine learning and AI where we're modifying what someone is seemingly saying, like Taylor Swift was in the news.
And I just keep thinking there's so much Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., content on our page. It just really terrifies me to think that machines can just take his face and make him say something completely outlandish that never happened, and then SHRM is in hot water.
Ben Madden:
Yeah. It's insane how much that has advanced already. I saw something on Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it now, yesterday of somebody who purposely used a deep fake to do an interview. It was entirely just interacting with somebody as an interview, and they completed the interview. It was for a high tech position, so-
Aly Sharp:
Like they were the interviewee?
Ben Madden:
They were the interviewee.
Kevin Abbed:
Wow.
Ben Madden:
They were just sitting back, and it was a live video cam. It was just having two people on screen, and he was not talking, and this interview was happening.
Aly Sharp:
That's so scary.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. That's terrifying.
Aly Sharp:
The next question's about the benefits.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. Exactly. Now that we've put the fear of God in everyone to use AI, what potential benefits can AI bring to HR processes? I know we talked a little bit about recruitment and talent management, but also when you think employee engagement and stuff like that, how can organizations leverage these technologies effectively? And safely, I'll add.
Ben Madden:
Talent acquisition is going to continue to be on that forefront. That's just going to be there. That's where a lot of the money is. That's what you're seeing. But you're seeing a lot more individualized learning plans.
You're seeing it in learning and development, because a lot of times, companies have to make that decision. Is it just going to be one size fits all for everybody, or is it individualized? And that's a lot of work. But AI can sit there and synthesize down that you, Aly, need X, and somebody else needs Y, and help build those plans, whereas you're not spending that time doing all of that research and knowledge.
You're also going to see the employee experience being better off because their needs are being met, and that's the critical piece. The more that employees can feel, which is going to sound strange because it's being done by a machine, valued as employee, as a human, the better off they're going to be able to be to be a part of that company.
The more rote tasks that are better suited for AI are going to be the things that are going to help alleviate some of those concerns. You're not going to have to sit there and fill out 8,000 forms anymore. You'll type in your information once, and ChatGPT or any of these generative AI tools will be smart enough to know what's there.
On the flip side, I was just talking about the interview, I've seen that you can set up prompts to have ChatGPT act as interview practice. Another good tip for students is if you build the prompt correctly saying, "I'm so-and-so, the CEO of X, Y, and Z company. Help me prepare for this interview," it can actually try and take that persona on.
Now, it's not going to be 100% perfect, but it can at least give you practice answering questions that you may be facing based on the job description that's presented and give you all of that, that side and knowledge there of what it's going to feel like to be in that interview.
I've also really liked the idea of doing version one documents, being able to have AI draft that first job description, that first policy draft. Yeah, it's not going to be 100% perfect. We know that. But that's going to save you a whole lot of time.
I've written job descriptions that would normally take me a couple hours in five to 10 minutes because I have a first draft. I'm able to make tweaks. I'm able to play with the prompts to get what I need.
I've seen reports that AI is being used for email communication, presentation creation, case study compilation, scenario planning, sentiment analysis, employee surveys and trend monitoring. It's doing the hard work. It's doing the analysis to give you the information to be better prepared.
If you're willing to invest in the technology, that's what you're going to see and be able to see organizations really be much more effective and be more strategic in the same way, because you're moving those tasks that take time to a machine that will do it in milliseconds and then give you that data.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. In our emails, I was always saying, "Use AI as a recommendation, at least in the case of reviewing your resume or something like that." It doesn't know you and everything you've done.
Yes, use it for specific formatting or something of that nature, but don't take exactly word for word what it is, especially because being in marketing, I've noticed if I ask it to give me three subject lines, the same adjective is used in every single one. If it's a paragraph, the same adjective is used at least seven times. And I'm just like, "That's not how a normal person would write." You at least have to make sure you're switching up the adjectives, and you can ask ChatGPT for synonyms. They make it so easy.
Ben Madden:
Or then run it through Grammarly and have a second tool helping you out there, so-
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. Our next question, to me, kind of plays on the different generations in the workforce. I was just telling my mom yesterday, "I had ChatGPT help me write an email for a thing I'd never written an email about before." And she was like, "Oh, I never would've thought of that." Granted, we are both in marketing, so we both have the same amount of knowledge when it comes to new technology and copywriting.
But how do you foresee AI reshaping the future of work? And what strategies should individuals and organizations adopt to manage these changes effectively?
Ben Madden:
Technology, whether it's AI or something that we haven't even seen yet, will continue to support companies in that search for success. Every technology is really driven to help make things more efficient, more effective for everybody.
We need employees who can be agile and adapt to the next big shift, and you think about that shift when the assembly lines moved and how that sped up automotive production. And you're able to see that now with AI in not blue collar work, but in white collar work and thinking types of roles.
But it's really training that is really going to be that critical piece. You've got to reskill employees to acquire the skills that are going to be needed to adapt to technologies. Data analytics, critical thinking, these skills are really going to be the ones that are the most critical skills, and they need to be taught to everyone from the front office person all the way up to the CEO to be able to take this data and do something with it effectively.
Organizations truly need to start identifying the what and why's of using AI, and that's where you're seeing that fear, is because a lack of information about what AI can and can't do is causing people to feel like, "I'm going to be replaced." But again, the more of the acknowledgement that it is a booster and not a replacement is going to be that continued drive to ensure that organizations are effective, bringing in these tools correctly, and truly building their teams for that next step.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah, because everyone is going to be using it. This isn't like a flash in the pan. When email started, everyone was like, "Oh, you think email's, this is going to take over writing a letter and going to the Post Office and putting a stamp on it and mailing it to someone to get there in three days? No. Email's never going to do it." It's just funny how, at the time, we're like, "This is going to be a fad, flash in the pan," whatever you want to call it.
But this feels different. This feels like people have now recognized the power behind it, whether good or bad, but just understanding that this is going to change the world as we see it now, from the good in helping people do copywriting and helping people understand the law better, and the negatives of deep fakes and just creating stuff that is not there.
But I want to pause briefly just for a second to take care a couple of housekeeping items. First, for those of you listening to this podcast who are seeking professional development credit, this program is valid for 0.5 PDCs for the SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP. The code to redeem your PDC is 25-K4VYP. Please note that this code will expire March 26, 2025. Again, that code is 25-K4VYP.
Aly Sharp:
I also want to jump in and do my biweekly spiel of SHRM24, our annual conference, in Chicago this year. If you want even more PDCs or maybe just to learn more about AI, network with your peers and other professionals in the community, visit annual.shrm.org. And student members can actually attend for as little as $295 virtually or $495 in person, so I hope to see you there.
We're going to jump back into the conversation now. I love to get on my little SHRM24 soapbox. As AI automates certain HR tasks, what implications do you foresee for the future of HR professionals? And what new skillsets might become essential?
Ben Madden:
As hopefully I've said several times, HR is still going to be a job that needs humans. That's never going to change. Machines can't do empathy, creativity, critical thinking, effectively. We have to continue teaching these skills. A lot of this stuff has fallen by the wayside. With everyone being virtual and all of that, it's harder to read emotions. It's harder to do all of that.
But the other side, and we've talk about this a little bit, is that there's biases in everything that AI produces. It still makes mistakes. It has these hallucinations where it makes up all sorts of crazy things that never exist and claim that they're 100% accurate.
AI is going to continue to have biases. We're going to have to continue making sure that DE&I [inaudible 00:21:03] are truly there and truly embraced to continue to ensure that we reduce some of those biases.
I also think that a lot of that shift is going to lead to a more strategic place for HR, less routine tasks, ideally can do the things that matter most. AI can produce data, but it can't produce a strategy that is cohesive and intertwined with an organization. We should be able to have HR professionals really do the people work first now, as opposed to the busywork.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. That makes sense, and that's where I think AI comes into play, is it takes away the mundane so that employees are able to focus on the critical. And I think that's going to be the biggest change that we see.
Final question before we let you out of here. What challenges do you anticipate in the adoption of AI technology, specifically in HR, concerning data privacy, security, employee trust, and how can we address those challenges?
Ben Madden:
That first step is absolutely have a policy in place. I saw actually on SHRM that 75% of organizations don't have a policy around AI, and yet 34% or 35% of HR professionals are using ChatGPT and other tools at work. That's really scary, because these types of tools are fed from data.
If you're feeding in data about your entire staff's paying information, that data's out there. AI is now learning and using that data with the next prompt that comes in that asks about, "Tell me about how people in government contracting are paid." And it's going to use that data. You've now just shared your personal secrets as a company to your competitors. You've done all of those things.
And so the opensource now really just does nothing but further reveal information that's going to make people scary. That's how you saw with organization or painters who were suing ChatGPT for using their artwork as the basis for faked images.
There's a whole host of privacy issues that need to be addressed, and that's where a policy comes into play that'll also address how, what, and where AI is going to be used for. And those are going to need to be followed. HR really needs to put in the guide rails to ensure that these are in place and ensuring that data and privacy, just like that came in with HIPAA and all those other things, that people's personal information is held private.
As I said earlier, companies with other technology have to have a rationale as to why and when they'll use to employ it. That is no different now. It's never going to be that HR, it's going to be either/or with regards to people or AI, but we need to figure out with policies, with procedures and all of that, how to blend everything all together.
Aly Sharp:
I guess sometimes when you already have these technologies employed, so for me, I use Adobe Marketo, it's our email service, every single day, if Marketo decides that they're going to have an AI functionality, how does the company then moderate how that's being used?
Ben Madden:
It's really, again, just having a policy in place in terms of how much information is going to be put in there. If you're doing a marketing campaign around something that is harmless, that's fine, but if you're doing something specific to something that SHRM does that HRCI doesn't do, for example, and you're putting in that secret sauce, that's going to be a problem, because that data is now going to be fed into their open AI servers that are going to use that data as that next bit of training.
It really is not just how and when do you use it, but what types of data, and what types of company-specific information can be employed? Do you have a secure version of AI that only uses your internal data? Do you have-
Aly Sharp:
That was another question.
Ben Madden:
... opensource? It's all of those. That really all just depends on the type of generative AI that you're using to do whatever work it is.
Aly Sharp:
Yeah. I'm not going to lie. I almost asked what open AI means, but I get it now. It's the opensource. Everybody's information goes to the same place. I'm blonde, okay? But, anyway.
Kevin Abbed:
Oh, my goodness.
Aly Sharp:
Now that I've dug myself a little hole and shown the whole world that I am indeed getting my master's and don't know what an opensource AI is, thank you so much for joining us, Ben. Hopefully we were a little bit entertaining and we didn't lead you to an existential crisis like you may have led us.
Ben Madden:
No, no, hopefully not. I appreciate it. I'm happy to talk all things AI. I am not an expert, but I do enough reading to really dig in and hopefully help shape how we're handling it in HR.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah. Great. And with that, we're going to bring this episode of Career Compass to a close. Thank you all for joining us, and we hope you stay with us throughout the season as we discuss more topics like this episode.
Aly Sharp:
For more exclusive content, resources, and tools to help you succeed in your career, consider joining SHRM as a student member. You can visit us at shrm.org/students to learn more.
Kevin Abbed:
Lastly, are you looking for more work and career related podcasts? Check out All Things Work and Honest HR at shrm.org/podcasts. Thank you again for listening, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Career Compass.