A few days ago, I published the first instalment of my retrospective of the best articles of 2024, which was themed, Creating Value with People Analytics. Thanks to all of those who shared, commented on and reposted. It is much appreciated.
The second instalment, herein, has the theme: Orchestrating the Future of Work, and assembles my favourite resources on strategic workforce planning, hybrid work, the skills-based organisation, and AI from the last 12 months.
To recap, my 2024 retrospective will be published in five parts in the coming days and weeks, and organised into the following five themes:
- Part 1: Creating value through people analytics
- Part 2: Orchestrating the future of work
- Part 3: Enhancing employee experience and wellbeing
- Part 4: Developing leaders, culture and inclusion
- Part 5: Building the strategic HR function
I hope you enjoy reading the selections for 2024. If you do, please subscribe to my Data Driven HR newsletter, and tune in to the Digital HR Leaders podcast.
Join me for an Insight222 webinar on February 5 to discover they key themes shaping People Analytics in 2025.
If you want to learn how AI, close alignment with people strategy, and data democratisation, are enabling Leading Companies to drive business value with people analytics, register for the Insight222 People Analytics Trends Webinar. The webinar, which will take place on February 5, will be hosted by me and feature Naomi Verghese and Madhura Chakrabarti, PhD unpack the findings from the recently published 5th annual People Analytics Trend study. You can register for the webinar here – or by clicking the image below.
2. ORCHESTRATING THE FUTURE OF WORK
(i) AI, GEN AI, AGENTIC AI AND THE WORLD OF WORK
ANA KREACIC, AMY LASATER-WILLE, LUCIA URIBE, RAVIN JESUTHASAN, JOHN ROMEO, AND SIMON LUONG – How Generative AI Is Changing The Future Of Work
Generative AI could add up to $20 trillion to global GDP by 2030 and save 300 billion work hours a year.
An illuminating analysis of the impact of GenAI on the world of work by Ana Kreacic, Amy Lasater-Wille, Lucia Uribe, Ravin Jesuthasan, CFA, FRSA, John Romeo, and Simon Luong for the Oliver Wyman Forum. The study finds that GenAI could add up to $20 trillion to global GDP by 2030 and save 300 billion work hours a year. It also finds that while 96% of employees believe AI can help them in their current job, 60% are afraid it will eventually automate them out of work. There are numerous other insights and visualisations in the report including a projection of the likely productivity gains at work from GenAI in the next decade (see FIG 12).
FIG 12: Phases of generative AI’s impact on productivity at work (Source: Oliver Wyman Forum)
GAD LEVANON | SHRM & THE BURNING GLASS INSTITUTE – Generative Artificial Intelligence and the Workforce
In the coming years, GenAI will both drive massive boosts in productivity and necessitate layoffs. Begin planning ways to leverage GenAI’s productivity benefits and prepare for the disruptions to your workforce through a combination of upskilling investments to give workers the skills to remain relevant and reskilling programs to reposition workers in areas of more stable demand.
Matt Sigelman and the team at The Burning Glass Institute regularly publish data-rich and insightful reports about the world of work. In one of their 2024 reports, in collaboration with SHRM, Gad Levanon investigates how GenAI will impact industries, companies, and jobs, and reshape the economy. It reinforces that GenAI will have the greatest impact on high-skilled, professional work, provides indications of how GenAI will impact the economy and provides four actions for CHROs to: (1) Evaluate your organisation’s composition, (2) Evaluate the roles within your organisation, (3) Consider your current talent pipeline, and (4) Develop a game plan.
FIG 13: Implications of GenAI for HR functions (Source: SHRM and The Burning Glass Institute)
BCG HENDERSON INSTITUTE – GenAI Doesn’t Just Increase Productivity. It Expands Capabilities
The ability to rapidly take on new types of work with GenAI – particularly tasks that traditionally require niche skills that are harder to find, such as data science – can be a game-changer for individuals and companies alike.
The BCG Henderson Institute follow-up their first landmark 2023 study on GAI in the workplace (see: How People Can Create – and Destroy – Value with Generative AI). Their 2024 experiment tests how workers can use GenAI to complete tasks that are beyond their current capabilities. The findings from the study are illuminating: (1) Participants were able to instantly expand their aptitude for new data-science tasks, even when they had no prior experience in coding or statistics. (2) Those with moderate coding experience performed better on all three tasks, even when coding was not involved. This suggests that an engineering mindset – which coding helps develop – could be a key success factor for workers adapting to GenAI tools. The article also provides guidance on: When and how to pair humans with GenAI (see FIG 14), as well as visualising and detailing the workforce change-management implications. (Authors: Daniel Sack, Lisa Krayer, PhD, Emma Wiles, Mohamed Abbadi, Urvi A., Ryan Kennedy, Cristián Arnolds, François Candelon).
FIG 14: When and How to Pair Humans and GenAI (Source: BCG Henderson Institute)
MCKINSEY – Gen AI’s next inflection point: From employee experimentation to organizational transformation
HR plays an especially important role in gen AI, both by transforming the people domain and by acting as a gen AI copilot for all employees. One executive noted that for every $1 spent on technology, $5 should be spent on people.
A new study by McKinsey finds that to generate value from the momentum associated with GenAI, businesses must transform their processes, structures, and approach to talent. The article, penned by Charlotte Relyea, Dana Maor, Sandra Durth, and Jan Bouly, outlines the key findings from the research: (1) Employee use is at an inflection point, while their organisations lag behind. (2) The next inflection point will see organisations shift from individual experimentation to strategic value capture. (3) Reinvent domains by translating vision into value. (4) Reimagine talent and skilling by putting people at the centre. (5) Reinforce the changes to continue transforming encompassing role modelling, fostering understanding and conviction, building capabilities, and reinforcing new ways of working (see FIG 15)
To make gen AI changes stick, organizations need the right infrastructure to support continuous change and win over hearts and minds
FIG 15: Early adopters of GenAI and their focus on the tenets of the influence model
ETHAN MOLLICK – Reinventing the Organization for GenAI and LLMs
Consider this an early eulogy for the traditional organizational structure, which began in 1855 with the first modern organizational chart and thrived, more or less successfully, until the 2020s, when it succumbed to a new technology, the large language model (LLM).
That’s the bold claim by Ethan Mollick in his compulsive article in MIT Sloan Management Review. While he concedes that previous waves of technology have ushered in innovations that have strengthened traditional organisational structures, Mollick makes the case that GenAI and LLMs are different. He then outlines three principles for reorganising work around AI: (1) Identify and enlist your current AI users. (2) Let teams develop their own methods. (3) Build for the not-so-distant future. If you enjoy this article, I recommend subscribing to Mollick’s One Useful Thing blog.
JOANNE CHEN AND JAYA GUPTA – A System of Agents brings Service-as-Software to life | JASON AVERBOOK – How AI Agents are Revolutionizing HR—and How to Get Ready | LARS SCHMIDT – Agents of (Massive) Change: How AI Agents Are Poised to Alter Work | FELIPE JARA – HR – Let’s Prepare for a Big Wave of Multi-Agents AI Systems
For HR, Agentic AI means shifting away from repetitive administrative tasks to focusing on what truly matters: people.
With Gartner predicting that by 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI, up from 0% in 2024, this is a topic we all need to learn about. Here are four resources that provide some helpful context. (1) A VC view from Joanne Chen and Jaya Gupta, writing for Foundation Capital, which they present as a “$4.6 trillion opportunity as AI transforms software from tool to worker”, with all the inherent implications that has for the workforce (see FIG 16). (2) In an article from his Now of Work Substack, Jason Averbook provides five tips for HR to get ready for AI agents including : (i) Upskilling HR teams, (ii) Assessing current processes to identify and prioritise use cases, and (iii) Working on improving data quality. (3) Lars Schmidt’s primer includes a guide to three categories of AI and how they are impacting work: bots, AI agents, and digital workers. (4) Felipe Jara provides a synopsis of the emerging macro trends in enterprise AI for HR including a summary of the tools that major players like Workday, SAP, ServiceNow and One Model are introducing. He also lays out four focus areas of opportunity for HR including guidance on how to prepare your data foundation.
FIG 16: A System of Agents (Source: Foundation Capital)
ANSHUL SHEOPURI AND LUCRECIA BORGONOVO – At the inflection of AI and HR: How Mastercard is equipping employees for the AI era
We recognize the best way to build trust is to bring our employees along with us on our AI journey, ensuring they are made aware of and educated about our commitment to responsible and ethical AI — in addition to the benefits that AI can bring to their day-to-day experiences and overall career path.
Anshul Sheopuri and Lucrecia Borgonovo share five areas where Mastercard is using AI to improve the way their employees work, grow and manage their careers: (1) AI as career coach. (2) AI as wellbeing guide. (3) AI as workflow assistant. (4) AI as co-pilot. (5) AI as workforce planning partner. For more insights on how Mastercard is infusing AI across HR including through Unlocked, its internal talent marketplace, listen to Michael Fraccaro, Mastercard’s chief people officer, in discussion with me on the Digital HR Leaders podcast: How Mastercard is Using AI to Drive Employee Success and Leadership Growth
DAVE ULRICH – Pre-flections on GenAI and HR: Where to Go and How to Get There
GenAI will help shape HR’s future by offering both information symmetry to synthesize and optimize the past and present and information asymmetry to create and guide the future.
Dave Ulrich offers some reflections on what the journey could look like for applying GenAI to HR work, as well as some possible actions to drive progress (see example in FIG 17 for ‘Talent’). Dave also highlights four important considerations to manage the risk and realise the opportunity of GenAI in HR. (1) Who should champion, sponsor, participate in, and be accountable for this journey? (2) What individual skills and organisation capabilities will be required to make GenAI in HR happen? (3) What will be the regulatory and legal policies and risks associated with the effort? (4) What metrics of value-added GenAI for HR will be most useful and tracked?
FIG 17: Examples of GenAI/HR initiatives in the Talent domain (Source: Dave Ulrich)
(ii) HYBRID, RTO, AND WORKPLACE DESIGN
MARC EFFRON – Above the Fray: What We Know About How WFH and Hybrid Affect Work
We should approach solving this problem in the same intelligent way as we suggest all human problems be solved – start with the science.
Marc Effron provides a comprehensive analysis on what the science and evidence says are the trade-offs among WFO, WFH and hybrid work. Firstly, he dispels four myths propagated by proponents and opponents on CEOs, real estate, proximity bias and employees who prefer WFH. Then he examines the consequences of different work arrangements on (1) performance, (2) creativity, (3) innovation (4) work relationships, (5) collaboration, and (6) managing based on the emerging knowledge available via Google Scholar.
NICHOLAS BLOOM, JAMES LIANG, AND RUOBING HAN – One Company A/B Tested Hybrid Work. Here’s What They Found
Our results showed that under a hybrid-work policy, Trip was able to generate millions of dollars of profits by reducing expensive attrition without any impact on performance, innovation, or productivity.
The Harvard Business Review article by Nick Bloom, James Liang and Ruobing Han based on A/B testing at Trip.com into different work modes makes for very interesting reading. The experiment involved 1600 employees being split into two groups. The first group worked five days a week in the office, with the second working three days in the office and two days a week at home. Over a two-year period, the experiment found no differences between the two groups in productivity, performance, promotion, learning or innovation. However, the study found that the hybrid group experienced higher satisfaction and lower attrition rates compared with their colleagues who worked exclusively from the office (see FIG 18). This reduction in turnover saved millions of dollars in recruiting and training costs, thereby increasing profits for the company. As the article explains, organisations can learn several valuable lessons from this study to implement a successful hybrid work model: (1) Establishing rigorous performance management systems, (2) Coordinating team or company-level hybrid schedules, (3) Securing support from firm leadership, and (4) A/B test their own management practices to find what works best for them. For more on Nick Bloom’s research on WFH, hybrid and RTO, I highly recommend reading his monthly reports at WFH Research.
FIG 18: Source: Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance
BRIAN ELLIOTT – Return-to-Office Mandates: How to Lose Your Best Performers
There is mounting evidence that mandates don’t improve financial performance. Instead, they damage employee engagement and increase attrition, especially among high-performing employees and particularly those with caregiving responsibilities.
Like Nick Bloom, Brian Elliott provides regular and incisive analysis on the impact of hybrid work and return-to-office. In this edition of his column in MIT Sloan Management Review, he highlights that the workers most likely to be turned off by return-to-office mandates are the company’s highest performers. Elliott describes the link between factors such as pressure from investors and the CEO echo chamber with RTO pronouncements, as well as how only one in three executives believe that RTO has had even a slight impact on productivity. He recommends instead focusing on productivity rather than physical presence (see FIG 19) and how this can inspire a boom loop in engagement as opposed to a doom loop in trust. For more from Elliott, I recommend reading Five Hybrid Work Trends to Watch in 2025, and watching an interview with him: RTO Mandates: Hard Truths for Leaders.
FIG 19: Focus on Productivity, Not Physical Presence (Sources: Future Forum, Centre for Transformative Work Design, and Slack)
ALEX CAMP, PHIL KIRSCHNER, LAURA PINEAULT, AND PATRICK SIMON – Hybrid can be healthy for your organization—when done right
Fully remote organizations can demonstrate a level of health that rivals, if not exceeds, the performance of most traditional companies.
Research from McKinsey suggesting that a fully remote organisation can demonstrate a level of organisational health that rivals, if not exceeds, the performance of most traditional companies. In the article, Alexandra Camp, Phil Kirschner, Laura Pineault, and Dr. Patrick Simon highlight six priorities for companies aspiring to sustain a flexible or highly distributed workplace in parallel with top organisational health: (1) Remove ambiguity about working practices. (2) Reset performance expectations. (3) Be transparent. (4) Be purposeful about where people work. (5) Foster trust and a sense of support. (6) Test and learn.
FIG 20: Six priorities to sustain a flexible or highly distributed workplace (Source: McKinsey)
MARK MORTENSEN AND AMY EDMONDSON – Leaders Need to Reframe the Return-to-Office Conversation
Framing refers to how an issue is presented; it’s the meaning layered onto an issue or situation that shapes how people think about its objective facts. More precisely, it’s about re-framing: deliberately replacing taken-for-granted cognitive frames with more helpful ones.
Mark Mortensen and Amy Edmondson discuss the concept of ‘framing’ and its role for leaders in engaging in dialogue with employees about the balance between in-person and flexible working. They offer a three-step process to communicate flexible work policies: (1) Acknowledge the bind and be patient. (2) Focus on mutual value, not just organisational benefits. (3) Approach the process as data-driven, co-created, iterative learning. For more on this topic, listen to Mark in conversation with me on the Digital HR Leaders podcast: How to Foster Collaboration Within Hybrid Working Teams.
MICHAEL ARENA AND PHILIP ARKCOLL – The collaboration mandate: Does returning to the office improve innovation?
What we need isn’t an office mandate—it’s a “collaboration mandate.” Shifting our focus from where we work to how we work could unlock the innovation we’re seeking.
In all the hullabaloo of return to office mandates, there’s still too much focus on where employees work rather than how they collaborate. As Michael Arena and Philip Arkcoll write in their excellent article, dragging employees back into the office won’t magically spark innovation. Instead of an office mandate, they advocate for a “collaboration mandate”. The article explains how innovation is generated through three critical phases of collaboration: (1) Discovery (“the generation of new ideas and insights, often benefiting from the intentional bridging of connections and in-person interactions”), (2) Development (“transforming those ideas into viable solutions, where the focused team interactions of experimentation and rapid iteration are essential. It also requires an environment with minimal distraction for focused concentration.” – see FIG 21) and (3) Scaling (“the process of implementing solutions across the organization, which requires more deliberate interactions with key influencers to ensure widespread adoption and buy-in.”). The article examines the impact of remote and in-person on each stage, and provides guidance on practices to improve collaboration in each. For more, I recommend listening to Michael on a recent episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast with me: What the Impact of Distributed Work on Organisational Networks Tells Us About the Future of Talent Management.
FIG 21: High levels of focus, such as 4.4 hours daily versus a low focus level of 2.7 hours, significantly drive productivity in development (Source: Worklytics)
DAWN KLINGHOFFER, KAREN KOCHER, AND NATALIE LUNA – Onboarding New Employees in a Hybrid Workplace
New hires who are provided with clarity about their role responsibilities, feedback on how they are doing, and resources to help them answer questions are three to four times more likely to contribute to their team’s success during the first 90 days.
Now we are in the era of hybrid work, what’s the ideal way to onboard new employees? That was one question that the people analytics team at Microsoft sought to answer in a recent study, along with: How can we ensure that new hires thrive while also supporting flexibility? The findings confirmed that onboarding to a new role, team, or company is a key moment for building connections with the new manager and team and doing so a for a few days in person provides unique benefits. But just requiring newcomers to be onsite full time doesn’t guarantee success. In their article, Dawn Klinghoffer, Karen Kocher, and Natalie Luna explain and provide examples of how onboarding that truly helps new employees thrive in the modern workplace is less about face time and more about intention, structure, and resources. For example, the study found that the top factors that make the most difference in onboarding new employees are clarity about role responsibilities, feedback on how they are doing, and resources to help them answer questions. New hires who are successfully set up with these three elements are three to four times more likely to contribute to their team’s success during the first 90 days.
KELLY JONES – Unlocking the Power of Hybrid Work: 5 Guiding Principles from Cisco’s 3-Year Study Article | White Paper | Executive Summary | HEIDI GRANT, GINNIE CARLIER, AND FRANK GIAMPIETRO – Using Data to Design Your Hybrid Work Policies | ANNIE DEAN – Lessons Learned: 1,000 Days of Distributed at Atlassian
Make the office a magnet, not a mandate
Kelly Jones, Cisco‘s Chief People Officer, unveils the findings of a three year Future of Work study by Cisco’s People Intelligence Team, which was designed to explore the employee experience prior to the global pandemic, through the pandemic, to office re-opening and beyond. Kelly’s article summarises five guiding principles for hybrid work including reimagining the office to create meaningful moments and encouraging leaders to be intentional with their attention. The executive summary also outlines five key findings and recommendations (see FIG 22). Two other examples of company research on hybrid/remote working come from: (1) Heidi Grant, Ginnie Carlier, and Frank Giampietro outline how EY has taken a data-driven approach to questions around hybrid work. Their data comparing the performance and well-being of hybrid employees with their fully in-person and remote counterparts has yielded often surprising insights. For example, EY found that hybrid employees who spent 40% to 60% of their time in person experienced higher well-being, belonging, skills development, and engagement when compared to fully remote or in-person employees. (2) Annie Dean summarises the findings from the first 1,000 days of Atlassian’s Team Anywhere approach to distributed work.
FIG 22: Source – Choice is Critical in the Future of Work (Cisco, 2024)
(iii) STRATEGIC WORKFORCE PLANNING, ORG DESIGN, SKILLS-BASED ORGANISATIONS
MARC EFFRON – Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? Questions About Becoming a Skills-based Organization
At best, shifting to a skills-based environment can help some people in some situations at a large cost. It is likely best suited to industries where there is financial largess including pharmaceutical, banking, and larger consumer products firms. At worst, it reflects HR’s continued pursuit of novelty with the giddy support of technology and consulting firms that are all-too willing to promote and enable this questionable solution.
As Marc Effron of The Talent Strategy Group highlights in his must-read article, there have been many claims made by consulting firms and technology providers about the case for shifting to being a skills-based organisation. In the article, Marc examines these claims, asking and answering 17 questions about skills-based organisations. The questions include: (1) If a skills-based approach is needed, why is it needed? (2) What changes will my organisation have to make to become a skill-based organisation? (3) Is there any proof that a skills-based approach delivers results? (4) Will AI and technology solutions better enable companies to track, manage and match skills? (5) How predictively accurate are skills in determining performance? Whatever side of the skills-based organisation debate you are on I highly recommend reading Marc’s article.
JAEJIN LEE – Skill-based Transformation: “Don’t Start with Skills, Start with Work!”
Jaejin Lee takes a thoughtful deep-dive on the shift towards a skills-based organisation. He analyses some of the factors driving this shift including why the consensus is shifting towards skills, the technology changes driving the movement, and the need to start with the work while viewing the transformation through an employee-centric lens. Jaejin also shares two examples from his consulting work of skills-based network analysis (see FIG 23 for example that clusters the company’s employees’ skills based on their similar attributes).
FIG 23: Using network analysis to group skills with similar attributes into categories (Source: Jaejin Lee).
MIT SMR CONNECTIONS AND MERCER – Strategic Shift: Skills-Powered Organizations in the Age of AI
By making skills the backbone of their talent practices, organizations can better allocate people to projects, help employees explore different career paths, and gain the flexibility to allocate their capital more effectively as their needs change.
In their collaborative study, MIT and Mercer break down why skills should be a priority in rethinking work and people management in the age of AI. The report highlights the benefits for employees and employers of a skills-based approach (see FIG 24), provides practical guidance on how to overcome challenges, and provides powerful learnings from Standard Chartered’s skills journey. Features contributions from experts including: Peter Cappelli, Tanuj Kapilashrami, Ravin Jesuthasan, CFA, FRSA, Brad Bell, Joseph Fuller, Tom Kochan, and Audrey Mickahail. For more on Standard Chartered’s skills journey, and also insights from their book, I recommend listening to Ravin and Tanuj in discussion with me on the Digital HR Leaders podcast: How to Build the Skills-Powered Organisation.
FIG 24: Benefits of a skills-powered approach (Source: MIT and Mercer)
NICK VAN DER MEULEN, OLGERTA TONA, AND DOROTHY E. LEIDNER – Resolving Workforce Skills Gaps with AI-Powered Insights
As Christina Norris-Watts and Doug Shagam shared with me in an episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, Johnson & Johnson has used AI-driven skills inference as part of their skills transformation (see: How Johnson & Johnson are Scaling Their Skills-Based Approach to Talent). In their paper for MIT, Nick van der Meulen, Olgerta Tona, and Dorothy Leidner provide an in-depth case study on Johnson & Johnson to demonstrate how skills inference can provide detailed insight into workforce skills gaps and thereby guide employees’ career development and leaders’ strategic workforce planning. The paper includes a detailed description of the three steps of the skills inference process (see FIG 25). The sections in the paper on employee trust, privacy and use cases are particularly instructional for companies looking to emulate this work in their organisations.
FIG 25: The three steps of the skills inference process (Source: MIT Center for Information Systems Research)
ALLAN SCHWEYER, BARBARA LOMBARDO, MATT ROSENBAUM, AND PETER SHEPPARD – The Long but Rewarding Journey to Becoming a Skills-Driven Organization
The Conference Board provides a compelling case study of Ericsson’s journey to becoming a skills-based organisation, which has seen skills become the language of the employee experience at the company (see FIG 26) – authors: Allan Schweyer, Barbara Lombardo, Matt Rosenbaum, and Peter Sheppard.
FIG 26: Skills are the language of the employee experience at Ericsson (Source: Ericsson)
DIANE GHERSON AND LYNDA GRATTON – Highly Skilled Professionals Want Your Work But Not Your Job
Without question, there has been a huge shift. Many of the individuals we’re looking to attract—in technology, data sciences, machine learning, blockchain, and the internet of things—have a different mindset now. They want more-flexible working arrangements.
This quote from Peter Fasolo, Ph.D., former chief human resources officer at Johnson & Johnson, perfectly captures the challenge that Diane Gherson and Lynda Gratton highlight in their article for Harvard Business Review: more and more workers want to work as freelancers. As the article highlights, Gartner predict that independent workers will make up 35% to 40% of the global workforce by 2025. Moreover, one-third earn more than $150,000 per year, and just over half were providing knowledge services—such as computer programming, marketing, IT, and business consulting. Integrating and managing what this ‘blended workforce’ will be one of the main managerial challenges in the years ahead. Based on their interviews with executives at leading companies that are experimenting with how best to bring freelancers into their organisations, Diane and Lynda set out some guidance and highlight emerging management practices that forward-looking companies are embracing. These include: (1) Helping freelancers understand and embrace company culture. (2) Following rigorous practices to retain institutional knowledge. (3) Adopting a ‘sponsor’ mindset to guide freelancers’ performance. (4) Leveraging digital workflows and building trust to manage changes in project needs. For more on this topic, listen to Diane and Lynda in discussion with me on the Digital HR Leaders podcast: The Key Role of HR In Successfully Integrating a Blended Workforce.
FIG 27: The Emerging Blended Workforce (Source: Diane Gherson and Lynda Gratton)
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM AND PwC – Leveraging Generative AI for Job Augmentation and Workforce Productivity: Scenarios, Case Studies and a Framework for Action
The organizations quickest to adopt GenAI in their workforce are those that could be described as “data-driven”
In their new report, the World Economic Forum and PwC present the findings of their study into how early adopters are leveraging GenAI across the workplace, the impact it is having, and the lessons they have learned along the way. The big takeaway is that they found that success depends as much on people as it does on technology. Workers need to understand, trust and adopt GenAI. The report also presents four different scenarios for how the deployment of GenAI in organisations could play out (see FIG 12). With the recent Insight222 People Analytics Trends study finding that 62% of companies are in the first year of their journey with AI in HR, this report will be required reading. Credit to the authors: Adèle Jacquard, Isabelle Leliaert, Till Alexander Leopold, Shuvasish Sharma, Peter Brown MBE, Marlene De Koning, Kiera Thomas, and Astrid van der Werf.
FIG 28: Four scenarios for the near future of GenAI (Source: PwC and World Economic Forum)
READ THE OTHER INSTALMENTS OF THE BEST ARTICLES OF 2024
Don’t forget to check out the four other editions of Data Driven HR Monthly, where I reveal my best articles of 2024:
- Part 1: Creating value through people analytics
- Part 2: Orchestrating the future of work
- Part 3: Enhancing employee experience and wellbeing (available from Thursday, January 16)
- Part 4: Developing leaders, culture and inclusion (available from Sunday, January 19)
- Part 5: Building the strategic HR function (available from Thursday, January 23)
THANK YOU
Thanks to all the authors and contributors featured in the best articles of 2024 as well as across the monthly collections from 2024 – see January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December – your passion, knowledge and expertise continues to inspire. Thanks also to my colleagues at Insight222, the guests and sponsors of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast in 2024 and the great many of you that share and engage with the content I share. It’s much appreciated. I wish you all well for a happy, healthy, and successful 2025.
Thank you too to the many people who shared and commented on the first instalment of this series, Creating value through people analytics including: Adam Tombor (Wojciechowski), Adrian Pacheco, David Simmonds FCIPD, Lewis Garrad, Hanadi El Sayyed, David van Lochem, Irada Sadykhova, Malgorzata Langlois, Sachin Sangade, Alexis Fink, Richard Rosenow, Amit Mohindra, Sukaina Shabbir, M (HRM), Shonna Waters, PhD, Ian OKeefe, Lamiae El Fakiri, Emily Killham, Olivier Bougarel, Dirk Jonker, Anisha Moosaأنيشا موسى🇿🇦🇵🇸🍉, Danielle Farrell, MA, Corine Boon, Rachel Lappin Scheinman, Greg Pryor, Dave Millner, Jose Luis Chavez Vasquez, Jaap Veldkamp, Patrick Coolen, Jacob Nielsen, Søren Kold, Fabricio Pavarin, Sergio Garcia Mora, Scott Rogers, Timo Tischer, Brian Hoogheem, Martha Curioni, James Root, Mohamed Atef Elmelegey, GPHR®, SHRM-SCP®, Cole Napper, Barry Swales, Rekha Gurnani Chowdhury, Nicole Lettich, Vincent Mathis, Dan Riley, Sanja Licina, Ph.D., Craig Starbuck, PhD, Katie (O’Brien) Murray, PhD, Laura Thurston C.Psychol, Meghna Gupta, Shehzad Bashir, Sophia Huang, Ed.D., Claire Masson, Isabel Naidoo, Perry Timms, Sonia Mooney, David Balls (FCIPD), Anis Baig, Elizabeth McMillan, Greg Newman, Adam McKinnon, PhD., Sally Smith, Tanya Pastor, Sebastian Kolberg, Sebastian Knepper, Kristina Kersiene, PhD, Gareth Flynn, Anne-Marie Jentsch, Federico Bechini, Stephen Hickey, Tatu Westling, William P. A. Morrissey, James Hoffmann, John Golden, Ph.D., Willis Jensen, Nabil Dewsi, Laura Newman-Milone, Ifraan Karim, Nick Lynn, Gal Mozes, PhD, Sergio Cordido, Kyle Forrest, Evan Franz, MBA, Peter Ryan, Brandon Mistry, Giovanna Constant, Marcela Mury, Alan Susi, Geetanjali Gamel, Tatiana Brown, David Meza, Preetha Ghatak Mukharjee, Ohad Geron, Ruben Groen, Ludek Stehlik, Ph.D., Justin Shemeley, Vitor Squécola 🏳🌈, Camille Wheatley, Shilpa Yakalaspur, Brett Ensor, Anja Liliendahl Stapelfeld, RONNIE TEXEIRA CARMO Ruturaj Kadam, Abhilash Bodanapu, Mukesh Jain, Olimpiusz Papiez, Colby Kennedy Nesbitt, Ph.D., Paola Alfaro Alpízar, Simone Cagnoni
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Green 🇺🇦 is a globally respected author, speaker, conference chair, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. As Managing Partner and Executive Director at Insight222, he has overall responsibility for the delivery of the Insight222 People Analytics Program, which supports the advancement of people analytics in over 100 global organisations. Prior to co-founding Insight222, David accumulated over 20 years experience in the human resources and people analytics fields, including as Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations increase value, impact and focus from the wise and ethical use of people analytics. David also hosts the Digital HR Leaders Podcast and is an instructor for Insight222’s myHRfuture Academy. His book, co-authored with Jonathan Ferrar, Excellence in People Analytics: How to use Workforce Data to Create Business Value was published in the summer of 2021.
