CEOs have turned or will turn to HR to help remedy this skills gap: IDC believes we will see extensive reskilling and upskilling efforts to create an AI-ready workforce. HR will also be tasked with recruiting, retaining, and developing scarce AI-related tech skills in security, AI governance, data management, development, and other areas.
Change management and communications skills will be much needed as organizations undergo difficult, tech-driven changes. Employees have a lot at stake: Some skills will lose value as AI agents take over certain tasks, and some job roles will change and result in new tasks. In Frankfurt, PwC expert Armin von Rohrscheidt talked about how – at least in a German context – involving workers’ councils early, fully, and transparently is the recommended approach.
Interesting HR Perspectives that Came to Light
- How does an organization train its workforce to become “AI-ready”?
- How can an organization prepare regular business users to work with conversational user interfaces, prompts, and agentic workflows?
- Are new training methods needed?
IDC believes that traditional linear elearning approaches will not suffice to bring about such skills. Instead, collaborative, social, experimental, and hybrid approaches are called for (a mix of real-time interactions and individual learning). Furthermore, learner progress and proficiency levels must be monitored as opposed to simple pass/no-pass quizzes.
Another discussion concerned how AI will impact the career progression of junior employees. Organizations are in the process of implementing agentic workflows so that basic administrative processes, or even longer-running processes, can be automated, with humans supervising the process as opposed to just being in the loop.
These basic processes have typically been performed by junior employees to help them “get their hands dirty” and “learn the ropes” of the organization. But if these entry-level processes will be performed by AI agents, how will junior employees gain an understanding of the basic workings of an organization?
This has been a theme for IDC’s Future of Work team. One hypothesis is that AI will not only automate basic tasks but will also assume a mentor’s role, enabling junior employees to explore simulated, experimental workflows and use this as a path to insights into core business processes.
Reflecting on Workday’s Expanded Partnership with PwC
Workday’s partnership with a major partner like PwC goes far beyond the traditional applications vendor + global systems integrator setup. As a key partner, PwC has a large number of certified consultants in the various Workday solutions and cloud tools, co-sells the solutions with Workday, and markets services capabilities at Workday events.
Today, however, PwC sells its own branded solutions, certified by Workday and built natively on the Workday Extend platform. Furthermore, these PwC solutions are sold on the Workday Marketplace. PwC co-markets and co-brands events with Workday, and Workday involves PwC in its multiyear product road maps.
This implies that PwC’s customer relationships in the Workday ecosystem have become truly multifaceted, spanning strategic consulting, project services, managed services, as well as subscriptions to a range of software-based products.
Selling software products requires relatively long-term and in-depth collaboration between Workday and a partner like PwC. If PwC creates a new product — for example, Sickness and Recovery Management — it is important that Workday is not planning to add such capabilities to its own HCM solution (within the next 24 months at least). There is no perpetual guarantee of free play, of course, but a certain time window must be guaranteed.
Final Thoughts
AI is not just another wave of technology to manage and roll out. It has massive transformational potential. It will permeate the business world whether we like it or not.
Any AI initiative will receive serious scrutiny from employees, senior stakeholders, unions, and regulators. However, if HR and IT concentrate on the best practices outlined at the Frankfurt conference — especially related to internal communications and change management — now is the time to get started.
Think outside of the box. AI is not a traditional tool rollout. Knowledge must be shared internally and among peers in other organizations. Network and iterate often. The future of the HR function is — without a doubt — linked to AI and automation.
