88: Using AI at Work to Rethink People Strategy and Leadership with Kate Bravery

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Episode 88 – Using AI at Work to Rethink People Strategy and Leadership with Kate Bravery

Podcast: Using AI at Work: AI in the Workplace & Generative AI for Business Leaders
Host: Chris Daigle
Guest: Kate Bravery (Global Leader in Talent Strategy, Mercer)
Date: January 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves deep into how generative AI is reshaping people strategy, leadership, and the very fabric of work in organizations. Guest Kate Bravery shares global insights from Mercer’s extensive research into evolving workforce sentiment, the real productivity impacts of AI, and practical frameworks for business leaders to inspire, retain, and upskill their teams rather than sowing fear around automation. The discussion centers on moving from tech hype and headline anxieties to intentional redesign of work, leadership, and talent management for an AI-enabled future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Workforce Sentiment: The Proximity Paradox and AI Anxiety

• [00:00-04:43],[06:01-08:23]

• Rising Exposure, Rising Fear: As more employees use AI, fear of job loss increases—a reversal from previous patterns with new technology.

  • "We’re calling that the proximity paradox, because that's completely different to what we've seen with other tech in the past. The more you get more familiar with using Excel...you go, okay, it's not going to take my job. We're seeing the opposite with AI." – Kate Bravery, 04:43

• Divergence Across the Hierarchy: Executives are both adopting AI more and feeling more anxious about disruption—whereas hourly employees often know less but worry less for now.

• Global Research Stats:

  • 40% of people fear AI will take their job—doubling from 20% just two years ago.
  • Fear is highest among those most exposed to AI tools.

2. Reframing the Conversation: From Job Loss to Work Redesign

• [04:43-11:25]

• Stop the Headcount Narrative: Talking points from leadership must shift from "AI will remove jobs" to "AI will make jobs more inspiring, allow more learning, and reduce exhaustion."

• Direct Conversations are Lacking: Last year, only 1 in 5 managers globally discussed AI's impact with their employees.

  • "Almost doesn't matter what you say. We just need to be more prepared to have the conversation." – Kate Bravery, 08:23

• Human+AI Playbook: Organizations need to communicate:

  • What AI is being introduced and why.
  • Specific opportunities for employees (upskilling, learning, work redesign).
  • Guardrails for ethical AI use and transparency about decisions made by algorithms.

3. Human-AI Collaboration: Beyond Digital Adoption

• [11:25-16:54]

• Human Adoption Is the Key Friction Point: Organizational productivity gains are stalling not because the tech underperforms, but because people are fearful, not engaged, or resistant to change.

  • "We're getting very good at actually having a digital roadmap...But why is those pilots...not translating into performance uplift? Because it's humans that aren't ready to adopt." – Kate Bravery, 11:51

• Need for New Leadership Metrics: Rather than mere training hours, focus on how fast upskilling translates into value, and whether managers enable talent to grow and move.

4. Work Redesign: Start with Tomorrow’s Needs

• [17:02-20:28]

• Don’t Just Apply AI to Today’s Jobs—Rethink Entire Processes: Engage the workforce in defining what high-value work should look like tomorrow, then "work backward".
  • "We need to stop looking at the jobs of today and start looking at the work of tomorrow." – Kate Bravery, 17:02
• Real Example (Nursing): Deconstruct roles to see what high-value, human tasks remain, and automate or reallocate others; then focus on skills and career paths needed in the redesigned job.

5. Talent Management for the AI Age: Don’t Lose A Players

• [21:57-26:30]

• Retention Risk is Highest for Top Performers: A-players with AI skills can deliver "100x" productivity—and will leave if not engaged or developed.

  • "The biggest concern...is that as the workforce becomes more buoyant, [A players] are going to be the ones off.” – Kate Bravery, 21:57

• Leadership Readiness is Lacking: 65% of HR say their high-potential and succession strategies aren’t working; most employees doubt their company recognizes their leadership potential, especially for managing AI-enabled teams.

6. Entry-Level Shakeup and Skill Portability

• [27:35-32:12]

• Entry-Level Roles Will Be Hit Hard: Predictions (e.g., from Dario Amadei and Peter Diamandis) that 50% of entry-level jobs will go—or require agents/AI fluency—by 2030.
• Only Two Types of Companies/Employees by Decade’s End: "AI-enabled or obsolete."

7. Responsibility for Upskilling: Individual, Enterprise, and Society

• [32:36-35:59]

• It’s a Shared Task: Employees, managers, executives, and governments all have roles in upskilling and career planning.
  • "I've asked all managers...at year-end: Given the skills you have today, what are two other jobs you could do within 18 months?" – Kate Bravery, 34:59

8. Unrealized Productivity: The Real Risk of Non-Redesign

• [35:59-39:01]

• Introducing AI Without Rethinking Jobs = Wasted Opportunity: Productivity gains stall if jobs aren’t redesigned, people aren’t upskilled, and engagement isn’t won.

  • "If your employees aren't bought in, you're going to get resistance. Those productivity gains aren’t coming out because the intentional work redesign wasn’t done." – Kate Bravery, 35:59

• Classic Analogy: “The reason that engines are in the front of a car is because horses were at the front of the cart”—don’t just fit new tech onto old processes.

9. Practical Resources and Next Steps

• [43:30-47:54]

• Mercer’s Global Talent Trends report (to be released soon) will offer practical guidance.
• Join Networks: Mercer’s AI/GenAI practitioner networks, executive programs, and AI community forums are available for peer learning and up-to-date case studies.
  • "Getting yourself into a community where you can talk to other executives...never been more important." – Kate Bravery, 43:30

10. Positive Future, If Leaders Take Action

• [48:32-51:08]

• Bright Future Possible: If AI is reframed as amplifying people, enabling faster innovation, and approached with honest engagement and upskilling, companies—and their people—stand to thrive.
  • "When we start talking about the work, not the tech...and encouraging our people to think about their portfolio of skills, not the jobs they're in, they see different possibilities." – Kate Bravery, 50:47

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "40% of people fear that AI will take their job." – Kate Bravery, 00:00, repeated at 07:08
• "The proximity paradox... the more you use AI, the more concerned you become for your future job." – Kate Bravery, 04:43
• "We need to move from talking about reducing headcount because of AI, to talking about redesigning work because of AI." – Kate Bravery, 06:32
• "If your employees aren't bought in that this is good for them and good for the business, you’re going to get resistance." – Kate Bravery, 35:59
• "The people who have the most options are the top talent...and if you give them AI tools, the impact of difference is exponential. We used to talk about the 10x employee, now we’re talking about the 100x employee." – Kate Bravery, 21:57
• "Don’t put the engine in the front just because the horse was there." – Chris Daigle, 38:10, reflecting on organizational redesign

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Suggested Timestamps for Essential Segments

• The "Proximity Paradox" and workforce fear: 04:43–07:08
• How to talk about AI with employees: 08:23–11:25
• Human-AI collaboration, what’s missing: 11:51–16:54
• Redesigning work—healthcare/nursing example: 17:02–20:28
• Retention and A-players in the AI era: 21:57–26:30
• Entry-level jobs and the future of work: 27:35–32:12
• Responsibility for upskilling: 32:36–35:59
• Pitfalls of failing to redesign roles: 35:59–39:01
• Car/horse analogy and rethinking processes: 37:39–41:30
• Peer learning and resources: 43:30–47:54

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Action Items and Resources

• Mercer Global Talent Trends 2026: Watch for release; critical for executives.
• Join peer networks: Mercer’s communities and GenAI forums recommended ([47:21]).
• Focus on work redesign, not just tool adoption or training: Involve all levels of staff in future-of-work planning.

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Tone Summary

The conversation is research-grounded, practical, candid, and at times urgent—underscoring the speed of AI-driven change and the necessity for business leaders to simultaneously reassure, engage, and upskill their workforce while rethinking talent strategies from the ground up. Chris brings openness and reflection; Kate’s insights are both strategic and empathetic, constantly urging a human-centric lens on organizational AI adoption.

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In short:
This episode is a must-listen for any executive or HR leader guiding their business through AI transformation. Far beyond technical implementation, it’s about evolving leadership mindsets, proactively redesigning work, and putting people—and the future of your top talent—at the heart of your AI strategy.

Transcript

[Kate Bravery]

40% of people fear that AI will take their job.

[Chris Daigle]

What is Mercer hearing from staff of these organizations globally? What is their temperature on AI?

[Kate Bravery]

More people have had exposure, which is great.

[Chris Daigle]

Yes.

[Kate Bravery]

But I also see that as they have more exposure, their fear that AI might impact their future job prospects has gone up.

[Chris Daigle]

How would you suggest they introduce the topic so. So that they don't have a mutiny? And there's not an introduction of fear because of AI.

[Kate Bravery]

We need to redesign work and when we redesign it, make jobs more inspiring, make jobs have more space for learning, make them less exhausting. Because if we don't get that right, I think we're going to have a real challenge in getting the workforce behind us.

[Chris Daigle]

What does human plus AI collaboration look like in your definition?

[Kate Bravery]

We need to look at human adoption, not just digital adoption.

[Chris Daigle]

Kate Bravery is a global leader in talent strategy at Mercer, shaping the future of work through AI human collaboration. A corporate psychologist and workforce visionary, she helps organizations redesign work to unlock human potential in an AI powered world. Welcome to Using AI at Work. I'm your host, Chris Staigle. Each week we'll be learning how today's business owners, entrepreneurs and ambitious professionals are getting more done with smart use of tomorrow's tech. Let's get started. Right now, every business leader is asking the same question. What are we going to do about AI? If this is you, chiefaiofficer.com has the answer. We give you a simple path forward where we provide executive and team training so your people know exactly how to safely use generative AI in their day to day. We also manage the deployment and implementation to make sure tools actually get adopted and deliver results. And we'll also guide company wide transformation so AI becomes part of your operating system, not just another shiny object. The companies that act now will increase productivity, cut costs and grow faster than their competitors. Those that wait will get left behind. So if you want to make AI work in your business, visit chiefaiofficer.com and see how we're helping companies of all sizes finally get results from AI. All right everybody. Welcome to the latest episode of Using AI Work. My name is Chris Daigle and I'm your host. And today our guest is Kate Bravery. She's the head of global talent at Mercer. And if you're not familiar with Mercer, they are one of the largest professional services organizations in the world focusing on HR, talent, people strategy, and they've got over 20,000 employees globally. Which means that Kate has a lot of data points coming into her from really a global perspective about all Things related to how are people reacting to trends in business, trends and culture and trends in the marketplace. Right now, they are best known for providing research that informs executives on how they should be preparing for future trends and existing situations in like, what are your employees thinking about the things that are happening in the marketplace? So, Kate, with that, I want to just say a quick hello and welcome to the podcast.

[Kate Bravery]

Oh, Chris, it's great to be here. I'm glad we finally get together for this.

[Chris Daigle]

Yes, I know how busy you are and I really appreciate you taking the time. Okay, I want to just jump in. You know, we talk to a lot of executives. There's global enthusiasm about the impact that generative AI in particular is going to have on their workforce. The productivity, getting some of the, the less desirable tasks, the more mundane things off of their team's plates. But as an executive myself, I'm curious, what is Mercer hearing from staff of these organizations globally? Like, what is their temperature on AI?

[Kate Bravery]

You know what, that is an absolute moving beast. Ask me six months ago and ask me in three months time, it's probably going to change. But I'll give you a bit of a pulse of what we're hearing. Firstly, you're absolutely right on executives. Executives last year I think had some pretty lofty ambitions about as we bring in more AI into the business, we're going to have that big productivity uplift in our global talent trends research which we're just about to release. It's clear that that hasn't translated into value. And there's a real, there's an inherent challenge there because the cost of bringing AI is accrued at the organizational level. That's where the burden is. And yet the benefits at the moment at least are for employees to do their work more efficiently, to move up the value chain, all that good stuff. And there's a bit of tension with that. What I would say is last year ago, many people just didn't have an opinion on AI. That has really sharpened up in the data this year. And we see two things. I see many more individuals saying, actually I've had a go at ChatGPT or I've used AI in my workplace and actually it has improved my work and that's quite positive. So I actually hear a lot more people have had exposure, which is great.

[Chris Daigle]

Yes.

[Kate Bravery]

But I also see that as they have more, more exposure, their fear that AI might impact their future job prospects has gone up. And in fact, we did a study, it was in mid last year, looking at AI adoption around the world. It was over eight and a half thousand individuals, 10 countries, 10 industries. And we asked two questions. One, have you used AI in your job in the last couple of weeks? And then we asked kind of how much you worried about it impacting your jobs. And what was fascinating is, of course, adoption rates vary. You know, the Middle east compared to Italy, quite different. What tracked is the more exposure you've had, the more you fear that it's going to impact job prospects. And so we're calling that the proximity paradox, because that's completely different to what we've seen with other tech in the past. The more you get more familiar with using Excel or human capital management system, you kind of go, okay, it's not going to take my job. It's just going to make my job easier or help. We're seeing the opposite. And you know, the other thing that's really interesting, Chris, is the people at the top of the organization are having more exposure than the hourly workers at the bottom of the organization. So it's the executives and the people who are on the highest, in the highest income bracket that are most concerned. And they're the ones setting strategy. And yet the ones down the bottom are maybe a little ignorant of what is going to be the impact on their future jobs. And so there is a real concern around preparedness. And if you want me to put a very sharp point on it, and this is a bit of exclusive because we haven't released the report yet, 40% of people fear that AI will take their job. They're really worried about that. Two years ago, that was 20%. So there's no doubt that we've got to stop talking about we're making restructures or reducing headcount because of AI. And we need to pivot to a much more positive dialogue about because of AI. We need to redesign work. And when we redesign it, make jobs more inspiring, make jobs have more space for learning, make them less exhausting. Because if we don't get that right, I think we're going to have a real challenge in getting the workforce behind us.

[Chris Daigle]

You know, I appreciate that narrative because it's a question that we get. I just don't believe that a company can remain viable unless they keep up with what's happening in the space. And what's happening in the space is that early adopters again. You know, there's the MIT report that 95% of pilots failed, and Wharton came out two weeks later showing 74% of pilots were successful. So there's a lot of miscommunication. Or uncertainty in the marketplace about what's real when this comes. But like you said, the executives who are using the tools like they're having those aha moments and going, oh, wait a minute, like this is doing in 15 minutes what it would have taken a board meeting to do in a day. So the introduction of this, this enthusiastic narrative as compared to, hey, guys, we don't know what's going to happen with your job is obviously an approach that I would like to bring to the folks that we're working with when they're asking these questions. So maybe to expand a little bit more on that, what would be some of the talking points that you would recommend that maybe behind closed doors the executives are having a different perspective, but as they're talking to the frontline employees or the, the staff that's underneath them, how would you suggest they introduce the topic so that they don't have a mutiny and there's not an introduction of fear?

[Kate Bravery]

Honestly, I love your question because I think it's spot on. So in our global talent trend study, 72% of investors agree that organizations are embracing the integration of human and AI capabilities, are going to win out against the competition, and they're the companies they want to invest in. So we all have to recognize that this is very real and they are dividing fortunes if we don't get on the journey. The second one is, and this is from that other study I was talking about on AI adoption. We found that last year only one in five direct managers had a single conversation about the impact of AI on the business or on jobs. So firstly, almost doesn't matter what you say. We just need to be more prepared to have the conversation. Because your comment about conversations behind closed doors is very true. And that's in part why executives are further forward on the change journey and can maybe feel a little bit more cavalier about. Well, of course our organization is going to change shape and size because of AI. The rest, they need to take the rest of the workforce with, with, with them. With regard to speaking points, look, I do think, firstly, actually coming out with some speaking points, you know, what is our appetite for AI? What type of AI we're bringing into the organization? What are our hopes and dreams for that? I think, you know, take the time to develop that. Absolutely. Secondly, I would say maybe think about what is our human centric AI playbook As AI comes into a particular department or team, how are we going to get our workforce engaged in the process? How are we going to expose them to the different types of AI that are relevant for their industry? What tools are we going to put in their hands to do active work redesign? You know, there's lots of tools in the market that can disaggregate jobs down into tasks and reallocate them. That's great for inspiration. And then what are we doing to create the time for them to upskill reskill? If we are bringing in an agentic workforce, how are we thinking through different layers of adjacency, of agency and autonomy? And then what are the guardrails for some of that? Because there is a real concern in some of this data. Although. Although many young people say, I think I might be managed fairer by AI than I will be by my manager. They're also saying, I don't want my fortune left to an algorithm. I don't want you to scrape my skills and then make decisions about my future. So we've got to be very clear about how are we using AI ethically, what decisions it's making, not just because of the EU AI act, which is fast coming out of date anyway, but because we care about the employability of our people, we care about our people remaining enthusiastic about the future, because that's where the future inspiration is going to come from.

[Chris Daigle]

I've got a couple of things I want to pull out of that. You mentioned this human AI collaboration. You know, I guess I kind of live in a vacuum. This is. I'm immersed in the subject all the time, so I don't think much about the human AI collaboration. I think exclusively almost about the technology and how it can accelerate performance and that sort of thing. What does human AI, human plus AI collaboration look like in your definition?

[Kate Bravery]

Firstly, I don't think mine's a million miles away from yours. I do think it's about accelerating performance. But for me, I absolutely believe that that performance comes from unlocking human potential. Because we're actually very. We're getting very good at actually having a digital roadmap and bringing in some of these tools to organizations. But why is those pilots that you mentioned earlier not translating into performance uplift? Because it's humans that aren't ready to adopt them. And we've already touched on one of the issues, which is if they're fearful that if they embrace new ways of doing things, they'll be removed from their own job. That's not going to help anyone. It's fear that the reason AI is coming in is purely a headcount cost cutting exercise. It's going to be very hard to get them to be kind of inspired by the future. So, you know, I would be saying that we need to spend a lot more time thinking about not just digital adoption. So how are we rolling out new tools in the workforce? We need to look at human adoption so you know, how many tokens are they using, how you know, how much are people logging on. But we even need to get beyond that. We need to get to the diffusion of AI across more value adding areas. Because at the moment most of the tools I see coming into the workforce are marginally improving. How we write emails, how we do processes a little bit differently, how we do, you know, very quick kind of training modules and I mean all wonderful stuff. But if executives don't start to see the commercial return from some of that, that's not going to be tenable over the longer term. And so you mentioned earlier, we're hearing a lot of those pilots not being successful. Actually, I think many of those pilots have been successful. What they're not doing is showing a commercial return because we didn't direct them into the areas of commercial opportunity up front. And two, we are seeing that they're not being able to scale because even when we have a good pilot, let's take introducing an AI driven skills intelligence platform or talent marketplace. If we haven't done enough time demonstrating what's the value of validating your skills that are on there? Or what's the value of matching skills to jobs? Or getting leaders across the organization to say, hey, I'm happy to lose my top talent for 10% of their time, 30% of their time, so they can learn a new skill. Executives all agree that in principle this is a win win. We get, we bring AI into the organization, we can maybe save money because we've got projects being done internally via gigs rather than externally. People start to learn more future skills because most of our projects are in AI and stuff. It sounds like it solves all our problems in one go. Then the world of work today where we get really busy comes in. Managers go, no, I need you on my strategic projects. You can't spend time over there. And people very quickly figure out actually moonlighting doesn't get me promoted and I'm worried about my job in this climate. So there's the cultural pieces we've really got to be committed to and we've got to bring our people along the journey with the right skill set, tool set, mindset and then reinforcing systems. You know, managers need to be metric on developing skills and exporting their talent. Managers need to have responsibility for actively redesigning Work processes, that's not what they're measured on today. And when you've got those things out of kilter, you know, it's really just a wish list when you get time on a Saturday morning.

[Chris Daigle]

I like this concept of introducing because the obvious metric would be the arithmetic of things. Are we making more from less resources? Right. But this idea of new metrics for leadership mid, mid level and even, you know, below that, team leaders having some sort of metric tied to how are the people that you're managing, adopting, how are they, how much time are they spending on training and upskilling. I think that's a very interesting metric. You know, go ahead.

[Kate Bravery]

Oh, I was just going to say I absolutely agree with you, we don't do a good enough a job on that. But I would love us to move from measuring how many hours we're doing on training and skilling to how quickly once we've done that, we can convert it into more value adding areas. Because I think ultimately the whole, all the research we've just done recently has said everyone's driving towards exponential productivity. Very few or exponential performance, I should say very few workers feel that they work for a high performing organization today. And that's a real concern. In fact, I feel like we've gone backwards over the last few years. And so if it's not in service of delivering added value and being very honest about where value is created in the organization, I think we're going to be in trouble this year.

[Chris Daigle]

How does an executive identify and target those areas where value is going to be created? Any frameworks or suggestions?

[Kate Bravery]

Yeah, I think the most important thing is we need to stop looking at the jobs of today and start looking at the work of tomorrow. If we start sort of work back as opposed to AI tools and tech forward, I think we land in a much better spot. And the best people to do that is your workforce. And if you do it with your workforce, they're going to be more engaged and inspired. And also I think their anxiety levels about you're only doing this to get rid of my job reduces because when you start with the work that needs to be done in the future, you end up having some of those conversations about does the things we do today really add value and how could they be done in quite different ways and then you can start to solve some of the other talent issues that we see. So the number one kind of concern for executives is talent scarcity. We don't have enough talent. And so what you might want to say, if in a particular Area, let's take one that we come up to all around the world is not enough nurses in our healthcare system. So what you can do is say, if we're trying to solve to have more nurses to service our aging population, what you can do is have that as an outcome. And then you sort of say, okay, now let's work back from the work that needs to be done in light of this business challenge we have to solve for. So then you might say, okay, of the tasks that the nurse does today, how much of them are real nursing taskers where they add the most value, and how many of them could be done by a bot or digital assistant or an auxiliary staff? Is there ways to redesign the job so there's less dependency? So maybe a contingent worker could help on something even offline? Then you can start to have the true nursing capabilities. And then you can start to say, now we've got more capacity in the job because we got rid of those low value areas. How do we speed up the pipeline? Because many people are wanting to leave this year. They're not leaving because they feel that the labor market is not buoyant. But I, you know, we do global talent trends. For the last 10 years. I've never seen so many people say, I am not thriving in my job and I want to leave in the next year. I'm also seeing high numbers say, I want to leave, but I can't leave. So what you can then do is. And when we said, why do you want to leave? A big one is, I can't advance fast enough. I'm not learning the skills of tomorrow. So you can then take that nurse job and say, well, look, how can we give maybe some responsibilities of the level above earlier so we get them moving up quicker? So suddenly you've redesigned this work using AI, but also solving other work challenges around the way. And that concept, you can, I mean, there are AI tools that can help you do that, but you can actually just have the conversation to say, let's step back and really look at where we've got not enough of the skills that we need today because we don't have enough talent coming in. Or those skills are getting really expensive over the next few years, so we won't be able to buy them in. Or they take a really long time to develop. Could we rethink how work is done to solve some of those problems? And that engages the workforce and enables you to have a bit of a blueprint to then work for. It also allows you to be very clear. These skills are going to have a premium in the future. So get yourself into a job where you can build those skills, get yourself onto a gig where you can build those skills and then I think gives employees a bit of comfort about, okay, at least I know I can now have agency in managing my career.

[Chris Daigle]

So a couple of things that I like about what you were saying earlier. This idea of, you know, don't make the definition of what does the future of our company look like? An exclusive conversation for the leadership loop in the team. I see two things happening there. One, oh, I'm, as an employee, I'm involved, I matter, my opinion matters. But also what you're going to get is you're not going to have the bias from the executive perspective, right? You're going to be introducing the perspectives, the idea of, as they say, from the mouth of babes, right? The ideas that you might get from frontline staff about, oh, we've been doing this the wrong way for a long time. It'd be really great if AI brilliant. And additionally, you know, this idea of people wanting to do a career change or wanting to leave the current career track that they're in, how many of those people that are answering that would be categorized as maybe A players? Because my position on this is that A players have options and they're not complacent, they're growth minded and they're looking for organizations where like they see the future and they know that if I'm in an organization that is resistant to this or too restrictive with the policies of usage or training or they're not upskilling us, I'm going to look for someplace else where I can go. So this portability, like is it exclusive, that 70 something percent, is it exclusive to people who aren't the A players? Is it all encompassing of all levels of talent and capability in the business?

[Kate Bravery]

I don't have information on whether people are a high performer or low performer obviously in the survey, but what I can tell you is you're absolutely right if the people who have the most options are the top talent. And so the biggest concern at the moment with the figures that I'm seeing in global talent trends is that as the workforce becomes more buoyant, they are going to be the ones off. And the reason why I worry about that now more than ever before is because you get an A player in your organization and you give them AI tools, the impact of difference is exponential. I mean we, you know, we used to talk about the 10x employee, we're now talking about the 100x employee. And so knowing who those high potential talent are and really focusing on what do we need to do to meet their needs in the organization so they stay with us has never been more critical. You know, at the end of last year, many organizations said we've done a restructure, we've made some cuts, we maybe didn't manage it as well as we'd like to manage it. It's not the time for us to do our engagement survey. Okay, fair enough. But what I would say to those organizations, you better be prepared for when you do do your next engagement survey. And there's very more, there's more modern ways to get need. You can use AI now to scrape everything that's been said about your company in the last year, put it through a lens of a traditional engagement survey and compare it to your top two or three competitors or the two or three companies. Your talent, your top talent are most likely to leave you for in the location you're most worried about. So if it's on the west coast or if it's your New York office, you can actually do that comparison. You know, couple of days, you've got it. That's going to tell you, boy, where is my reputation? Because you're right, employees care about your reputation. Is this company interested in me and helping me stay employable? Is this company treating me fairly and do I think that they're on the right track with regard to the future of work in AI? Those weren't reasons why people were leaving a few years ago, but they are now. You know, people are smart and they're making smart choices for their future. Now they might not be able to leave today because of the labor market, but as soon as they will, you're right, it's those A players are going to jump and if you haven't looked after them, you're going to be far behind.

[Chris Daigle]

Let me ask you this. So if I am an A player already and I've either invested on my own or my team has done some upskilling with me, is the labor market as dicey for me as it would be for everybody? I mean it seems like every company right now wants that common certainly want an A player at any point, regardless of where the economy is. But if I'm an A player that steps in and say, oh, I got certified or I've been, you know, building things or whatever, it seems like those individuals, like they're almost immune to whatever the the general consensus is saying possibly.

[Kate Bravery]

What I but I would say is and this is from Global Talent Trends. I was just having a look at it here. 65 of HR say that their high potential identification and succession planning is just not working. A large proportion of employees said, I am pretty sure my company doesn't know my potential, my potential to take a more senior role, a leadership role or a more complex role. So I do feel that the leadership blueprint has changed significantly in the last couple of years. If you're still acting on an old model of what good leadership looks like, I think this is the time to update it. Because if you don't know not just who's the A player today, because that's easy, it's who's the A player tomorrow, I think that's where you're going to be in trouble. And so I do think spending a bit of time on, you know, how are we going to identify those leaders who can manage human and machine teaming configurations that are going to be on the front foot of making sure that we bring AI in ethically that have the capacity to take our people along with us that are going to be listening to workforce signals and interrupting if they feel they've got a depleted, distracted, disengaged workforce. Those are the leaders that we need to be cultivating today. And I think it does look a bit different.

[Chris Daigle]

This is. You've introduced a challenge for executives. One, okay, now you have to read the future. Two, which, which it makes perfect sense, this perspective of not necessarily plugging AI into the paradigm today, but what does the paradigm of tomorrow look like and how do we build towards that fantastic perspective. I hadn't really, I hadn't really thought that much about, you know, one of the things like go ahead.

[Kate Bravery]

I was going to say and with AI, let's be honest, eroding a lot of those entry level roles and flattening that the pathway traditional careers have gone. And so if you don't have people science informing that and you've got a restless workforce, particularly your A players who are like I'm out of here if I'm not getting the skills and exposure and the projects I need, I think that is, it is a new problem. Sounds like an old problem, but I think talent pipeline management is a new problem because no one's got the talent they need today. So let's just accept that and think about how are we going to beat our competition in retaining the talent tomorrow.

[Chris Daigle]

You know, you brought up the changing landscape for entry level positions. I just did AI executive immersion for a group the other day and one of the articles I found was From Dario Amade, he's the CEO at Anthropic. Right. Claude is a big popular tool and this was from July of this year. But he suggested that by the end of this decade, 50% of entry level jobs will be replaced by an agent, a series of automations or one person who knows how to use these tools that can do the work of X number of others. So you know, you hear that and you're like oh, click, clickbait, sensational headline. But it's this conversation is certainly like helping me understand that that's not the case. And another thing, I think that it's very easy on the macro. Like I what got me interested in or nervous about AI was in 2023 Peter Diamandis did an interview and this was early in 2023 when ChatGPT was still kind of a novelty. And he said by the end of this decade there'll be two types of companies and by default two types of employees. Those that are AI enabled and those that are obsolete. That's it. And when I heard that again, is that sensational or anything? And in 2023 it might have been like, oh, okay, maybe. But now, I mean just with the release of 5.2 from Chat GPT yesterday, like the acceleration of the technologies is, I mean, do we have till the end of the decade before we see that somebody who is not AI enabled becomes a subcategory of employable?

[Kate Bravery]

I think you're bringing up something we should all be concerned about because at the end of the day our ability to keep our people employable for psychological reasons as well as wealth we reasons is absolutely critical to a stable society. So we absolutely do need to be addressing this. Depending on who your commenter is, we're also going to have AGI by the end of the decade as well. And I'm not sure I quite sign on to that and some even say it's as close as 2027. But I think yes, I think we're going to see greater large language and large reasoning models. But as you and I both know, general intelligence is much more than that. So I do saw that's a bit off, but I agree and I think it is going to come into our workforces faster than we expect. Most of the team at Mercer that do lots of deep work around work redesign or digital reimagination of the HR function and other functions have said they've been surprised by how quickly this year has progressed. We pride ourselves on being able to talk about trends and forecast and I think we've all been quite surprised at that. And so the most important thing is making sure that our people are kept abreast. And that's the things that we've talked about in this podcast. One, let's have honest conversation about how we're bringing in AI, where we're bringing it in, what the timeline is and what does that mean for their own jobs or skills in the future. We need to be having that. I think everybody now does agree that it's not just the skill sets that are going to change the size and shape. Where will we want to locate our talent? How many talent we'll want at the bottom of the audience? It is going to change. So let's start to better plan. How can we move Those people are in those roles most likely to be displaced into roles that have a brighter future. And if we can plan for that more intentionally, then I think we all win. Because the most worrying situation is if our people don't move up that value chain fast enough. And then we take a blunt instrument to our organizations to right size in order to stay profitable. And we are taking a blunt instrument because most HR leaders say we don't have the talent insights we need in order to separate the person from the job. So what happens is organizations right size and they inadvertently lose valued skill or as we were saying, talent with the potential to be an A player. Because so many of the talent is curious about AI, they want to learn about it, get involved in it. But maybe they haven't been in a role that's been able to do that or they haven't been with a progressive company that has, you know, an AI stewardish program or something. And those are, I think some of the things we've got to look at because we still need humans. And it's humans that are going to fuel the future of our business using these tools.

[Chris Daigle]

Yeah, we could take this conversation in a dark place because, you know, like, wow. But this question came up, whose responsibility is it? Is it the enterprise's responsibility to make sure that their people are certainly the honest communication or just in your perspective, just communication in general. Right. That was surprising that so few had even had a conversation. They were kind of like not addressing the elephant.

[Kate Bravery]

Yeah, one in five.

[Chris Daigle]

But with the availability of as basic as it is being able to go to YouTube or we know they're all scrolling through TikTok or Instagram on their lunch break or coffee break for them to be able to just watch those two minute clips about let me go try that when I get back where does the responsibility lie for this upskilling at the individual level, the enterprise level, some place in between that collaboration, like you mentioned, where let's bring the staff in and have them help us?

[Kate Bravery]

I think it's multifactored, absolutely. It's an individual's responsibility to make sure that their skill set is ready for the future. It is a responsibility of managers to have those honest conversations about where will the organization want to place the skills premium in the future and what jobs could they they open up and being more willing to allow people to move around the organization. It is the role of executives to change the narrative from AI is going to cut jobs to let's talk about work redesign and how we can step into the future together. But I also think there's a role for government as well. I mean, at the moment, as you know, I'm sitting here in the Middle east, similar to Singapore, where I was before, that has a very clear plan about how do we keep AI skills onshore by incentivizing people to have AI roles or center for excellence in their teams. And you know, some of them are sort of saying, we will sponsor that for a period of time. My kids, which are young, go to a school that even from nursery, has an AI curriculum because the government has mandated it. So I think we've all got a responsibility here on this one. But there's no doubt that we have never witnessed a shift of this magnitude in our lives. And therefore, I think the end the urgency of encouraging people to think about their plan B or how they fortify their career options has never been more important. I've got one client at the moment that has said, well, I've asked all managers to say, at the end of year performance review, ask your workforce, given the skills that they have Today, what are two other jobs they could do within 18 months?

[Chris Daigle]

Interesting.

[Kate Bravery]

Just gets employees thinking about, I've got a portfolio of skills rather than my worth is in the job I am. And I think that starts moving us forward.

[Chris Daigle]

Yeah, it sounds like the best approach would be as an individual upskill on your own, if that's what's necessary as a company. Focus on work, redefinition of what the jobs look like. And that might be a good mix of, okay, great, we've redefined what the role looks like, but we don't have the talent who has as even basic literacy when it comes to AI. There'll be a disconnect there. And you know, I was thinking about this with that, that Dario Amade quote. The only way that 50% of entry level roles get replaced is if there is adoption internally, if people are resistant and they don't adopt, then all of those stats are simply potential rather than like what's going to happen. So, yeah, I agree with you.

[Kate Bravery]

I also have some concern. I mean, last year when we did a lot of work redesign, obviously improving productivity and reducing headcount was an outcome goal for a number of organizations. I think we've done a good job of sort of pivoting it to actually what are some of the other human benefits you want with this work redesign? But the challenge is, and we've seen this a lot, if your employees aren't bought in that this is good for them and good for the business, you're going to get resistance. And so what we see is that those productivity gains that were planned to come out are not coming out because you've got both the digital tools plus the employees and nothing's really moved. And why did it not move? Because the intentional work redesign wasn't done because there wasn't enough focus on what skills does this person have and what is their potential. Because if you haven't got metrics about your people and you haven't got a view of where the work, where value is going to be created in the work tomorrow, you're sort of flying blind. And I hate to say, but I've seen a lot of new tech coming in with some big promises around productivity gains. And because that work hasn't been done, the jobs weren't changed, people weren't correctly placed in some of that with a plan to move up the thing, it just didn't happen. And as you and I both know, that results in the blunt instrument we were talking to before. So I think there's a greater responsibility to focus on strategic workforce planning, work redesign than there has in the last few years.

[Chris Daigle]

I'm realizing that it's been a big, it's an obvious oversight, but it's been a big oversight in my perspective. And that is this kind of goes back to the horse versus the car, not just introducing it to the individual's role as it exists. But let's start with the maybe not start there, but have workforce redesign job redesign as part of that consideration about the AI plan for a company. This perspective was shared with me by our chief AI officer, a Londoner. He said the reason that engines are in the front of a car is because horses were at the front of the cart and that there wasn't necessarily like they were just adopting this new technology to the way they didn't do a redesign. They didn't do a consideration like you're talking about here. And as, as a listener of this podcast, if you're trying to put the engine in the front of a car because that's where the horse was, rather than say where does it best fit? Which turns out in a car, it's actually in the center of the vehicle, which nobody's got that right. There's going to be a big miss or a missed opportunity for true efficiency, true productivity gains, because you didn't think about where's the best place to put this, what does that job look like moving forward if it's enhanced, rather than let's plug it in to what we've got now. I think that's a key takeaway for me for sure.

[Kate Bravery]

Yeah, I agree with you. And those fixed mindsets persist. My brother recently got a Tesla and he was driving me to the airport and he put my luggage in the front of the car and it just, just blew my mind as to that was even a possibility. It was a phrase I heard at a conference the other day. And I, I fortunately can't remember the gentleman who mentioned it, but he said, if you're trying to redesign with AI, with the people who've been doing those processes forever, you're breathing stale air. So as much as I think we need to involve our people, we also need to bring in some inspiration. You know, one of the things I think has been quite successful at Mercer has been bringing those outside perspectives. Here's how other companies are thinking about this because I think also you don't know what you can't see. And so we need to do a better effort of bringing the outside in so that people can start to envisage, oh, okay. That completely blows my mind how we would do this, because one of the things I think that's slowing us down is AI Fying the way we've done it in the past, as opposed recognizing we could do this completely different. And with those work redesign exercises, at least we're starting with the work and where values created and working back. But of course, a couple of years in to having an agentic workforce where you've had to train, monitor, see how they do things, how they speed up, how they work together, put the guardrails in to make sure that they're not crossing boundaries or that you've, you know, you can, can pull back if they do something misaligned. We're going to learn so much by that experience that if you did that exercise again, it would be different because you now will have learned, you know what, we wouldn't do it that way. So I think work redesign that used to be the purview of HR and maybe a task they did every two or three years needs to be an ongoing activity. So at the rather than thinking I need new headcount, it's thinking, how am I going to redesign work to take advantage of greater AI digital colleagues? And if I am going to add new headcount, it's probably in a wildly different area. And that I think is going to be quite exciting. But back to your question on who's responsible. This is such a monumental change. It can't be hr because that's going to be just too tough for them to champion on their own. It requires everyone at ground roots to be part of it.

[Chris Daigle]

So I think, you know, I'm running this through the lens of when I'm talking to executives, a we're no longer going to say, okay, what is that workflow and process? Let's break it down and plug AI or agents into certain nodes of that process. It's going to be maybe we run it through the models and say, here's how they're currently doing things. Considering the pace of technology and leveraging generative AI and agents, what could it look like? So that's going to be a new approach that we're taking with our clients. And I think that the like, that's a very sound approach because that's not what we're hearing when we talk to people. They're like, oh, I do this job. Show me where AI can help me do this particular definition of that job. Right. And you mentioned it earlier. We kind of see. And I got this from Paul Reutezer from the. He's another thought leader in the space. A job is a series of projects. Projects are a series of tasks. And I got introduced to this concept of human level AI versus economy or economic level AI. Right. Human level AI would be AI is replacing my job. Not there yet. I mean for some basic things for sure, but not necessarily for like advanced knowledge work. However, economic level AI is replacing. There's an economic impact from the introduction of AI into tasks or collections of tasks in my job. So this is. I'm getting my mind blown because I'm realizing that I was putting the. I was putting the engine in the car in the front because I'm being becoming aware of my own biases on how we're introducing AI. I wasn't thinking forward or future enough. And I know that executives who are out there that are like, oh yeah, I use it for emails and document summation, summarization. They are not thinking about workforce redesign. What are some resources maybe? Or do you guys put out content or thought leadership about what that looks like for a company?

[Kate Bravery]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think everyone's facing that challenge. We might advise our clients on it, but we're a consulting business. It's one of the industries that are absolutely being impacted by AI. So you know, we feel it up close and personal every day. In terms of resources, I think we've mentioned on this podcast a number of times global talent trends that's going to be out I think end of February, early March. Take a look at that. It's all going to be talking about how do we unlock that exponential performance, how do we reinvent for human advantage, give it AI. No surprise on the theme there. So take a look there. There'll be some recommendations there and we'll have a series of articles throughout the year. But we also find really good value in some of our AI courses. We have online AI course courses and we've also got some future ready tie ups for executives with some of the big business colleges. I think, you know, you only, I think the main thing you've been talking about with the car analogy is we only know what we know and the world is changing so fast. Getting yourself into a community where you can talk to other executives facing the same kind of challenges, it's never been more important. Making sure you're putting at least half a day a week to read, keep up to date, listen to podcasts, never been more critical. And I think if you can bring in, whether it's Mercer or other firms that say, hey, let me show you what another company's doing. Let me show you the different AI that they're using, you can have that where does the engine go moment in a matter of three or four minutes. I've never seen such quick prototyping. Never has my mind been stretched by a very short podcast that I go, I've never thought of it that way. And so we have to keep abreast of that because there's probably projects in your business today that made a lot of sense six months ago, but you might now want to kill because actually a better way is coming to do them or you know that you can't compete in that area anymore. And that's why we need leaders, not just listening to people signals which of our workforce is thinking of leaving, who's burnt out, who's got potential to step Up. You also need leaders who, market sense who are out there going, which AI is impacting our industry? What will change our industry. And that again, I think changes the role of leader compared to a few years ago where we could essentially manage within our own ecosystems.

[Chris Daigle]

You know, one of the things that I'm thinking about as we're talking is, yeah, plug into the, to the community of other peers who are also on this journey. But if you can't find those, be that person. If you are the executive who says, hey guys, I'm thinking about putting together a lunch and learn, you know, for other HR professionals, other sales professionals, whatever, I think you'd be blown away by the response that you're going to get from your, your peer network for sure. So as a listener, please don't wait for somebody to invite you. If that's not happening, start it. And the teacher only needs to be one step ahead of the student. So you don't have to be the expert. Just get the conversation going. And one of the things that you mentioned, Kate, is we see this when we're working with companies, if they're, if the different departments are collaborating on their wins, that collective knowledge gets shared and somebody in HR is able to say, oh, what they're doing over in marketing, it's not a apples to apples match, but that means we can do this. So bringing in somebody like a Mercer or somebody who's paying attention and working with a broader spectrum than just your business is able to say, oh, these folks over here tried this and it worked. I like, oh, never thought about that. So the collaboration, a very lively AI.

[Kate Bravery]

Network refocus when generative AI burst onto the scene. So if people are interested in joining that gen AI network, I think it's free to join and join in the conversation. Go to the Mercer website. There's also other networks that we have that are a bit more industry specific for, for example, for the HR practitioner. And I know we've got some tie ups on the executive side, executive programs on the future of work and human AI collaboration that we contribute to. I know my colleague Ravindra Suthason is a prolific speaker on that front. Another person to follow.

[Chris Daigle]

Yeah, it sounds like the way you guys are thinking about things, you know, and here's the situation. I'm running a business. These listeners, they're running a business and that's their consuming activity outside of family or health or whatever. Right. They don't have the ability to pull back and say what's happening on a broader landscape. As far as my industry or something like that, you know, so you guys have this unique perspective to where you sit above all of us are busy, heads down, and you guys are looking at what we're all doing. So that that perspective is certainly. I would encourage anybody listening to plug into those networks that she's suggesting.

[Kate Bravery]

And I can tell you what, that perspective thrills me like, I'd never been thrilled before because for me, I'm fascinated by the future of work. And it terrifies me because I also know that it's going to ask more of our people than ever before. As much as when we asked executives, why are you bringing AI into your business today? It's very much that productivity and efficiency gain. But what heartens me, as they said, but from two years from now, we want AI to amplify the performance of our people and transform how we innovate and do business. And that's really where I think we want to get to, you know, having it as AI, as a strategic partner, helping us scenario, plan, see options, do more, all of that more exciting stuff that I think is about to happen. Of course, today we need to kind of balance the two in order to capacity for that future investment. I do think the future is bright, but I feel we need to be having those conversations and bringing our people along with us today.

[Chris Daigle]

You know, like, this is certainly expanded because I thought, oh, these executives, that's cute. They're using it to write emails. Well, after this conversation today, even the stuff that I thought we were doing that was so sophisticated and advanced, I'm realizing that's no better than me simply using it to write emails that I'm missing. Like, I need to be looking a little bit further out than we're doing right now. And I think the number one takeaway for me is this idea of, okay, before we introduce. Because I saw this, there was a meme going around, and it was kind of like a cartoon panel, and it was a guy on one side and a group on the other. And the guy says, what do we want? And it says, no, who are we? And the group says, CEOs, what do we want? AI. What for? We don't know. When do we want it? Now. Right.

[Kate Bravery]

So I think I saw that one.

[Chris Daigle]

Yeah. And, you know, I saw that, and that's been my experience. But I'm realizing that, like, I'm not that much farther ahead than the people who are just getting started. After this conversation especially, I missed the opportunity to reevaluate the role through the lens of the future as compared to trying to Plug in AI to what they're doing now. So you exposed a huge gap in my perspective that I'm excited to start telling my team about that.

[Kate Bravery]

When we start talking about the work, not the tech. When we start talking about the work, not the tech, I think we land in a slightly different spot. And when we start encouraging our people to think about their portfolio of skills, not the jobs they're in, they also start to see different possibilities. The challenge is bringing those two together.

[Chris Daigle]

Awesome. Kate, this has been fantastic. I knew we would have a great conversation, and I always hope to walk away with one or two nuggets, but this has been a bit transformational as far as my perspective when it comes to the value that we at, like, chief AI officer that we can bring to a company. After this conversation, I think that we'll be able to bring a lot more value than we were, you know, just an hour ago. So thank you for that.

[Kate Bravery]

Oh, well, thank you for having me on, Chris. It's been fabulous to chat to you. I think we could have done that all day. Thank you.

[Chris Daigle]

And I'm looking forward. I'm going to personally plug into what you guys are doing over at Mercer. I think that, again, you. You exposed a blind spot for me, and I think that the. The things that you guys are doing over there and the. The things that you're paying attention to are things that I need to be really spending more time focused on. So expect to see me in those. Those chat groups and forums that you guys are hosting.

[Kate Bravery]

Well, you and a number of others. There was a really interesting stat in the study that said, in the future, digital resources and human resources will sit in the same function. And my gosh, isn't that going to bring in a different way of thinking about how we drive performance? So I can't wait for that. But, yes, I think our futures are definitely entwined. Thanks for having me on, Chris. It's been great to chat.

[Chris Daigle]

And as Kate mentioned, their global talent trends is going to be released imminently. So pay attention to that. And I think that we'll be putting out messaging our community to the release of that because I think it's something that's extremely important for you as an executive to be. You need to have this information so that you can use it in the considerations of how you approach AI in your workforce moving forward. Kate, thank you again. I look forward to staying in touch and supporting you guys in any way that we can. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you on the next episode.

[Kate Bravery]

Thanks, Chris.

[Chris Daigle]

Thanks for tuning in. To Using AI at Work. Don't forget to subscribe. Subscribe for more conversations about how to use AI at work and a special thank you to our sponsor, Chief AI Officer for Empowering Businesses with AI Education and Training. Visit their website for a free AI Readiness Assessment and AI Strategy Guide to help you get started using AI at Work. That's www.chiefai officer.com. follow us on Twitter at the handle Using AI at Work and visit www.usingaiatwork.com for free resources to help you harness AI in your.