In today’s podcast I discuss the organizational, institutional, and societal impacts of AI. And I’m not predicting what “could happen” but rather sharing “what is happening now.” As you’ll hear, AI plays a role in our political issues but an even greater role in our careers, pay, rewards, organization structure, and culture.

A recent AI adoption study by McKinsey found that 74% of companies have at least one AI application in place, and 20% have 3 or more. So we’re already seeing the impact. As you’ll hear, this is a technology that people are worried about at the moment, so we need to consider many levels of change management throughout our organizations.

Chapters

00:00 The Rapid Rise of AI and Automation 05:13 Job Transformation and AI Impact 08:56 Privacy Concerns in the Age of AI 12:47 Organizational Design and Talent Density 20:48 Leadership in the AI Era 29:54 Embracing AI: The Path Forward

Additional Information

Hyper-Growth Through Efficiency: Theme For The New Era

How To Create Talent Density

Were These Layoffs Inevitable? Perhaps, But Here’s How It Happened.

People as Competitive Advantage: Certificate Course In The Josh Bersin Academy

After decades of effort and growth, only around 10% of People Analytics teams deliver strategic business value. Many are still focused on traditional analysis of engagement, retention, leadership pipelines, and other HR measures.

In this WhatWorks podcast I talk openly with Paul Rubenstein, the Chief Customer Officer at Visier, about how this market has evolved. And in the conversation you can learn about Visier and the role of integrated, AI-platforms for the important topic of managing corporate HR and work data.

Our newest research on People Analytics is coming out this month, stay tuned for much more detail on this topic.

Additional Information

People Analytics, Evolved: A Systemic Approach

Certificate Course in People Analytics from The Josh Bersin Company

This week I discuss the issue of DEI (must it DIE?), inclusion, and corporate culture in the Trump Era. We just completed a 1.5 hour discussion with 30+ companies on the impact of the 2024 election and regardless of your political position, some people are worried. It’s clear to me that DEI (or whatever you call it) is not going away, but in this podcast I reframe the topic and give you perspectives from some of the largest companies in the world.

Additional Information

Are Diversity And Inclusion Programs Going Away?

Elevating Equity: A Certificate Program From The Josh Bersin Academy

Chief Diversity Officer: The Toughest Job in Business

In this episode of the WhatWorks podcast, Paul Walker, CEO of FranklinCovey, talks with Kathi Enderes about FranklinCovey’s history, his own journey of 25 years with the company from frontline employee to CEO, and how the company now helps large organizations like Marriott enable transformational change through individual behavior change, execution excellence, creating a culture of trust and performance, and developing new leadership capabilities.

FranklinCovey (FC) is one of the only publicly traded learning and leadership companies in the world.

Learn about how FC helps Marriott deliver one of the most highly esteemed customer experiences in the hospitality market.

Interviewee: Paul Walker, CEO FranklinCovey

Additional Information

The Surprising Facts About Leadership Development,

Human-Centered Leadership,

Why Are Some Companies More Dynamic Than Others?

This week I discuss how major new AI use-cases have emerged. Imagine if every employee had a personal AI assistant? It’s going to happen. I also discuss LinkedIn Hiring Assistant, Galileo, SuccessFactors Joule, AI for performance management, and a big question: what are you going to do with the 35% productivity you gain?

Coming back from multiple weeks on the road with clients and vendors, this podcast will expand your thinking and help you build your own business case for AI tools and agents in your own HR organization.

While many of us believe AI is a productivity tool, I explain how AI use-cases in HR are for expansive than you realized.

Watch this YouTube to learn about the two ways to think about AI applications.

Keywords:

AI in HR, recruitment, productivity, coaching, job descriptions, LinkedIn, generative AI, HR technology, innovation, use cases

Additional Information

LinkedIn Enters AI Agent Race With LinkedIn Hiring Assistant

Digital Twins, Digital Employees, And Agents Everywhere

SuccessFactors Leapfrogs HCM Capabilities: AI, Skills, Talent Intelligence, And More

Introducing Galileo Pro, Your Personal AI Assistant for HR

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In this week’s podcast I discuss the trend (and need) for job task re-engineering: breaking down our jobs into tasks, so we can effectively use AI and Agents to speed things up. As more and more vendors announce AI Agents to assist with work, our best opportunity for massive improvement is to “re-engineer” how we do things, not just “add agents” to our current jobs.

As I describe, most companies build job titles in a “mashed potato” approach where we squash a bunch of things into one job description. Thanks to AI we can now think about work differently, and this will impact sales, marketing, HR, engineering, and just about every other function in our companies. In some ways this is a return to the old ERP model of “designing work around the software” but this time the Agents are smart, programmable, and learning! So if we do this well we’re going to see massive improvements in productivity.

I talk about Rolls Royce, EPAM, and the PR battle between Salesforce and Microsoft for “Agent-Tech.” Plus I talk about why Chief Learning Officers have a new role in 2025!

Lots of new ideas to think about here.

Please watch this video for more on this topic.

Additional Information

Get your hands on Galileo Professional: your personal AI assistant for HR

Digital Twins, Digital Employees, And Agents Everywhere

Redesigning Work with AI

Vendors Mentioned

Agentforce by Salesforce

Copilot Agents by Microsoft

Sana Labs (the platform under Galileo)

In this episode of the WhatWorks podcast series, Nick Benaquista, SVP, People and Capability Partner, Chief Administration Office and Strategic Growth at Mastercard, shares how Mastercard has transformed HR from a static, siloed, overlapping model towards the product and consulting-oriented model of Systemic HR. Now in year 2 of the ongoing transformation, the company is continuing to change HR roles, jobs, operating models, and skills, and is using technology and AI to elevate the employee experience and its continuous business transformation.

Interviewee Nick Benaquista, SVP, People and Capability Partner, Chief Administration Office and Strategic Growth at Mastercard

Company Mastercard, a leading US-based global payment solutions provider with 33,000 employees

Additional Information

The Systemic HR Operating Model

Why The World Needs A New Operating Model for Human Resources

The Mastercard HR Transformation Story

Keywords: Employee Experience, HR Technology, Systemic HR, AI in HR, HR capabilities, HR roles

White collar robots have arrived: digital twins, digital assistants, and AI-powered agents.

In this podcast I discuss what I learned about at Unleash, Sana, and Spotify this week.

My big message is this: AI in HR is even more powerful than we expected. And AI platforms and tools are transforming HR right this minute – across every domain in HR.

Digital Twins in the insurance industry. AI-powered L&D and change management solutions. AI-powered candidates battling it out with AI-powered selection and recruiting platforms. Scheduling bots unleashing energy in healthcare. End-to-end employee knowledge and learning systems at Spotify.

For two years we’ve watched AI evolve from predictive analytics to AI assistants to AI agents to Digital Twins. And these tools are now here for you to use, as long as you just get your hands dirty trying these tools out.

Bottom line: this is no longer a market of waiting for just the right solution – many of the new AI tools in HR can already do much more than you expected. Get your hands on Galileo and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Additional Information

Introducing The AI Trailblazers! HR Technology Outlook 2025.

Introducing Galileo Professional, Your Personal AI Assistant for HR

Can AI Do Performance Reviews? Rippling Says Yes.