"Work Different" – Unlocking Talent Agility with AI and Skills

Generative AI has rapidly evolved over the past year, pushing the boundaries of creativity, efficiency, and capability. Industries have seen AI tools seamlessly integrate into their workflows, revolutionising processes, improving productivity, and driving innovation. This ‘tech-celeration’ has also posed new challenges to organisations and leaders as it drives a new work landscape. How we redesign work and inspire our workforce to “work different” will shape futures. With this in mind, the ChapmanCG teams gathered with HR leaders and Talent Acquisition leaders across Shanghai, China, and Singapore and discussed how AI will impact the world of work. In Singapore, we had the privilege of inviting Kate Bravery, Senior Partner and Global Head of Talent Advisory at Mercer, who shared great insights on how today’s trends are changing the nature of work based on her new book ‘Work Different’ and Mercer’s 2024 Global Talent Trends. Here are some of the key takeaways:

AI vs. Digitalisation:

The rise of AI in the workplace is beyond the development of digitalisation that has been in place for years. Digitalisation focuses on transforming analogue processes into digital formats, automating repetitive tasks, and streamlining operations. AI, on the other hand, goes beyond mere automation. It introduces intelligent systems capable of learning, reasoning, and making decisions. While digitalisation sets the foundation for a more connected workplace, AI elevates it by bringing in predictive analytics, generative capabilities, and adaptive learning that transform not just tasks, but also strategic decision-making and innovation.

AI is not just a fashion or trend; it is a transformative technology with lasting implications across industries. The number of organisations using AI has been rapidly increasing in recent years. According to a 2023 report by McKinsey, around 50% of companies have adopted AI in at least one business function, up from 20% in 2017. To remain competitive as an organisation, the question to executive leaders is no longer whether they should invest in AI, but how can they get up to speed and harness the power of AI.

Ethical AI

As AI becomes more integrated into various aspects of industries and society, leaders have to make a decision on their stances towards it to prioritise fairness, accountability, transparency, and respect for human rights, and ensuring that these systems operate ethically is critical to preventing unintended harm, bias, and inequality. By addressing these ethical considerations, organisations can ensure that AI technologies are used in ways that align with societal values, minimise harm, and promote inclusivity and trust. Ethical AI is crucial for sustainable, equitable, and just technological progress.

Drive Human-Centric Productivity

AI will help improve work, create more value, and help us work smarter. But will it impact productivity? Improving productivity is the #1 driver of Transformation plans globally and is at the top of executives’ minds, according to Mercer’s 2024 Global Talent Trends. As part of this study, Mercer’s Asia survey showed 41% of executives believe the biggest productivity boost to their business is by investing in AI, and 63% of HR Leaders believe AI could decrease current workloads. However, 62% of organisations adopt new technologies without transforming the way that employees work, and many factors still exist that deplete productivity, such as too much busy work with no value, unsustainable workload, and ineffective organisational structures. And this impacts companies’ abilities to effectively retrain and redeploy people into new roles.

Skills-Powered Organisations

To better leverage the AI productivity gain and unlock human potential within human-machine teaming, reconfiguring work to accelerate reskilling and improve the work experience for employees is the key. Skills are the true currency of work; hence, building a skills-powered organisation has become an imperative. Keeping our people skilled and employable is the way to win. Companies on the journey to becoming skills powered have seen the positive impact of an internal talent marketplace on productivity and cost.

As Kai-Fu Lee, a renowned AI expert and venture capitalist, once said, "AI won't replace humans, but humans who use AI will replace those who don’t." As much as we are in the age of AI, as Kate Bravery put it, “HR must be stewards of humanity – prioritising ethical AI, designing for well-being and keeping our people skilled and employable – to win in the People Age”.

We want to thank the following HR leaders for hosting us in these events across Shanghai and Singapore – Helena Hao, SVP HR, Greater China Area, at Adidas; Liam Zhang, Head of Talent APAC at Diageo; and Aparna Kumar, Head of People, Asia Region, at Marsh McLennan. Thank you to all the HR/talent leaders who joined us for the exchange and discussion. And a big thank you to Kate Bravery for the insights and sharing.