CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese called on HR professionals to find their role in building a “responsible” business amid geopolitical and economic uncertainty.

Speaking at the annual Human Resources (ACE) conference and exhibition in Manchester, he asked: “How do we create organizations that are able to respond in an uncertain world?”

Cheese highlighted the challenges facing HR teams, such as rapidly changing job roles and the skills required for them, the impact and ethical use of artificial intelligence and how the profession is engaging with government and unions in new developments, such as The labor rights bill.

“It will focus more on foundational and core skills such as critical thinking, emotional intelligence and the ability to collaborate,” he said. “AI will influence the work we do at an accelerating rate, so we need to make sure that the jobs we create from it are good for people, that we get them from the principles of good work.

“We need to think about how we engage with technology to shape good jobs for the future, that work is human-centred, that we get the best out of our people as well as technology.”

He pointed out that the CIPD had been involved in discussions with the new Labor government on aspects of the employment rights bill, acknowledging that while there were many “issues close to our hearts”, some aspects of its implementation would be complex, such as the day. – a right.

Delivering the keynote address at this year’s ACE, Professor Michael Wooldridge, Professor of Computer Science at Oxford University and Director of Fundamental AI Research at the Alan Turing Institute, echoed Cheese’s thoughts on the need for employers to take an objective view of the role of AI at work.

“For most of us, we will find that generative AI is just another tool in our work lives, like we use browsers or computers. But productivity is a sweet spot for AI, and we have a productivity problem,” he said.

For example, HR could effectively use AI to extract insights from unstructured data such as policies and meeting minutes.

But because there are risks to the reliability of AI, such as giving the most plausible rather than the correct answer to a question, he urged the audience to use “AI’s version of critical thinking” by learning how to question the answers it produces by AI. tools.

This, he explained, involves learning how to question the answers produced by AI tools. “If you ask her a question and she says yes, you know why? That’s the most important skill, not treating AI like it’s a superbrain that knows all the answers.”

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