Dive Brief:
- At the C-suite level, 28% of overall executives strongly agree that their companies’ job designs are ready for artificial intelligence, but only 13% of CHROs echo that sentiment, according to the latest Protiviti AI Pulse Survey.
- “As AI continues to compress work into fewer, higher-impact roles, CHROs have a broad view of the complexity involved in redesigning positions, compensation and career paths compared to other C-suite leaders,” the report said. As a result, CHROs are more cautious than other executives as to the readiness of their organizations and their workforce.
- The disparity is especially stark in IT, where 96% of IT leaders report being positive about the AI learning readiness of their organizations. By comparison, only 14% of CHROs and 36% C-suite leaders strongly agree.
Dive Insight:
Companies are rapidly scaling up their AI implementation and HR executives are at the forefront of that change. However, the same CHROs responsible for ensuring the corporate workforce is AI-ready are the ones least confident about the speed with which companies will be able to adapt to these changes, per Protiviti’s report.
The study found that over the next three years, almost 80% of overall executives expect AI to improve bottom-line performance and drive top-line revenue growth. Yet only 5% of HR leaders said they expected at least half of HR work to be AI-enabled within that time period, “due to their perceived complexities of scaling AI in HR functions.” In addition, CHROs are “the most cautious about whether their enterprises are ready” for the changes that will be necessary in order to see a measurable ROI.
“The survey reveals an important disconnect in the C-suite,” Fran Maxwell, global leader of people and change at Protiviti, said in a statement. “Most leaders are focused on the value AI can deliver for the business. HR leaders are focused on whether their organizations and people are actually ready to deliver it.”
That said, the findings are less a sign of AI skepticism and more likely an indication that HR leaders are taking a pragmatic view regarding what’s needed to scale AI effectively, according to the report.
“AI can create tremendous business value, but only if organizations invest appropriately in the non-technical aspects of AI transformation, including people enablement, operating model redesign, and process redesign,” Maxwell said.
In a recent survey from ManpowerGroup Talent Solutions, only 3% of C-suite, CHRO and senior talent acquisition executives said their leaders were “highly prepared” to direct AI adoption at their companies, and only 17% of companies said their workforce readiness was “advanced” or “transformational.”
Managers are also feeling the pressure, with 43% reporting that they considered themselves either poorly equipped or not equipped at all to lead a workforce with AI expertise, according to a new report from Indeed and market research company YouGov.