HR is Dead - or is it?

The concept of Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) is one I fell in love with when I first heard it. I love it because it captures exactly what everyone fears with AI. That we will lose the human part as we go through this messy transformation into AI enabled businesses with no soul left. But when we design process and AI driven workflows, we will undoubtedly lead with where the human should still be present: Where do we keep humans in the loop?

This will look different for all organizations. HILT will be thrown in to check compliance boxes in some cases, but truly great organisations will see the benefits and really design the human experience into the digital operating model. Despite AI drastically changing how organisations operate, humans are still going to be needed, and our new jobs in HR will be all about working out where.

I believe in this concept so much that I even started the FIRST EVER community focused on HR tech and AI transformation: Humans in the Loop.

It’s for HR professionals to exchange on how we rebuild HR with AI. To share our stories, tips, challenges and leverage the collective to navigate the change we are all going through.

Last year in December I posted that HR is dead and over 300 of you sign up interested in being part of how we build HR of the future.

This is that group. A little delayed but it’s here.

It’s a COMMUNITY and over 50 people have already signed up for the launch this week. If you are interested to join I’d love to see you all there! You can request to join here. And yes there is an intake form as we need people who will take this seriously and contribute, not sit on the sidelines.

AND if you join by 13th of May you will be considered a “founding member” ...which will mean cool stuff in the future.

And sorry no, vendors you can’t join, and services providers are capped at 10% of the community and need specialization in relevant areas to be considered (HR tech, AI and transformation).

Is the EU AI Act REALLY that much stricter than the US?

I just co-hosted Brainfood live with Hung Lee live on Friday diving into AI compliance. It’s the topic that comes up in every HR conversation I have these days. So what’s tea? Experts said global AI regulations are getting closer together, rather than further apart - think of it like a sliding scale and the side are getting closer together, which if you ask me is helpful for the industry and everyone involved - what I think is missing is making these regulations more clear. We also touched of the EU's "human-in-the-loop" requirements concerning AI practices, but what I really liked to hear was the ISO 42001 is emerging as the standardisation we've been waiting for - think of it as the "compliance stamp" for AI tools.

I want to know more about how we, the buyers, can have a way to trust vendors or at least hold them to a standard, so I’ll be talking to Guru, CEO of Farinow.ai, who was on the live to get more insights for all of you soon. Check out my blog write up for a deep dive on everything discussed, or check out the live recording on Youtube.

Are you ready for the digital transformation?

I don’t think so. We have access to so much technology, but we forget humans need to implement, manage, orchestrate and in the end, TRANSFORM organisations for it all to work. It’s going to be messy. And in my experience, HR is pretty good at doing multiple change projects at once. And it’s going to keep happening with AI being the new shiny thing HR has to implement into the business, along with everything else.

Gartner’s transformation report outlines this silliness but also the reality of continuous stacking of change initiatives. It just doesn’t work, but everyone still does it.

This is why I am a big fan of making sure your operating model, at least in HR, is built in a way that there are no solios and the work is clear, and can be prioritised. You need a portfolio (big list of everything you COULD do) and a consistent way to prioritise it in alignment with the business. I the visual Gartner used, it can at least be used for expectations setting.

Are we entering an era of AI and human convergence?

Remember last year when lattice announced digital workers being part of the team and sitting in the org chart? You probably do, because it backfired badly. I do wonder though if they were just a little too soon. Do you think it would cause the same feather ruffling if they announced it today? I don’t think so. Not because people aren’t still saying WTF (me included), but because the AI and Agents landscape has moved so fast, I feel like we are a little desensitised to it by now. I really don’t know how much we should “humanise” digital workers, how about you? One part of me is like yeah this makes sense... the other side is like wait a minute…..

Anyway, Deloitte highlighted where they think we are with regards to the “convergence” and highlight some good questions (page 35)- which to me just validates the idea that a core job “new HR” is to design processes with right amount of “human-in-the-loop”. There’s also more to read in this 106 page report. So slice it up, throw it into Claude and ask it for the key takeaways…cos let’s be honest no one is gonna read the whole thing.

Stakkd updates:

• We have a new database design: based on your feedback we made it more intuitive and user-friendly, let me know what you think

• You can now contribute to the Stakkd roadmap if you are part of the Humans in the Loop Community and see what’s coming next - would love if you do!

• Plus we are rolling out a mobile version, a trending section and updating our categories in Q2.

Events you might want to join

1. Join Andreea Lungulescu and I for the first of three Talent Crunch Berlin (TC) sessions all about HR tech - sign up here

2. Join me as I co-host Brainfood live again next week Friday, talking all about Transitioning to CV Free Hiring - sign up here

3. Don’t forget to sign up to the HR Leaders Summit in July where I will be speaking - would love to meet you all! Sign up here. I have some free tickets so if you really want to go just let me know.

4. London readers: I have an event lining up for the evening of 19 June - more to come!

Endnotes

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I want this newsletter to be inspiring but also practical and help you in your HR Tech and AI transformations so let me know what you think of the new format. Also if you are ever in Berlin don’t forget to message me for a meet up!

Jessie