More than 450 HR professionals will gather to share thoughts, challenges and opportunities at the Ibec HR Leadership Summit at the Dublin Royal Convention Centre on October 22nd.
Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the summit is firmly established as Ireland’s premier event for HR and people leaders.
This year’s summit will explore the powerful intersection of rapidly evolving skills needs, accelerating advances in artificial intelligence (AI), and the multigenerational workforce, not as separate challenges but as interconnected forces shaping the future of work.
An impressive line-up of international experts will address a range of topics, including the future of work in the age of AI, rethinking value across generations, and the power of purpose in today’s organisations.
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“We have seen enormous changes over the past 25 years,” says Maeve McElwee, executive director, employer relations with Ibec.
“In the early 2000s, we went through large economic and employment growth and the emergence of strategic HR. That was followed by a period of painful retrenchment during the financial crisis. The recovery saw renewed competition for talent, a much greater focus on workplace culture, and the widespread adoption of HR technology. Most recently, we have come through a pandemic, seen an unprecedented shift to remote and hybrid working, the development of highly progressive DEI policies, and now the adoption of AI in HR.”
The pace of change is only likely to increase in the coming years. “For the first time in history, we have five generations in the workplace at the same time,” says McElwee.
“The rapidly evolving competitive and technological landscape is placing new skills requirements on organisations at the same time as AI is reshaping the nature of work itself.”
Despite these challenges, McElwee believes this is a very exciting time for HR professionals. “We have been talking about AI for a long time, but we are now seeing the very real difference it can make for organisations,” she says.
“When we look at the new generation entering the workforce, they are straining at the leash to use the technology. They have grown up with technology and are very confident with it. But organisations are more cautious about the risks it presents.”
That comfort with technology will only go so far, however. “Older generations in the workplace have learned the transversal softer skills essential for engaging with and managing people and change,” she notes.
“Younger people have different communication preferences, and we need to stand in the shoes of both groups to support learning and develop the best of both skill sets.”
There is also the question about how AI is used and deployed.
“Artificial intelligence can drive efficiency and create competitive advantage, but the critical importance of a human in the loop cannot be overstated to ensure accuracy and governance,” says McElwee.
“There is a role for HR in supporting training for colleagues across all disciplines in the organisation.”
Keynote speaker Rebecca Robins will address the opportunities presented by the multigenerational workplace. She is the author of Five Generations at Work: How We Win Together, For Good, which explores how to maximise the dynamics of generational diversity to create more collaborative and competitive organisations.
The book is based on research spanning five years and four continents, which looked at a variety of global leading businesses and how they have dealt with the challenges and availed of the opportunities presented by the multigenerational workforce.
“There is a lot of discussion about multigenerational workplaces in the media and on social media, and much of it is incredibly negative,” Robins points out. “It is almost pitting the generations against each other.”
Far from seeing the intergenerational workforce as an HR headache, she views it as a business opportunity, and her research bears this out.
“Organisations that lean into it welcome the diversity it brings and put it to work. They say it gives them cultural, collaborative and competitive advantage. Family businesses provide great examples of businesses investing proactively in generational diversity. They are multigenerational by construct. Their lifeblood is managing the transition to new generations.”
One company featured in her book is Pentland Brands, which includes global names such as Speedo, Berghaus, Canterbury, Ellesse and Mitre in its portfolio.
“I talked to a grandson of the founder, and he told me that the organisation realises how its brands connect across generations, not just internally but to customers and consumers. They use the five-generation workforce to better connect with consumers and customers.”
Different generations bring different insights into customer cohorts, and the company utilises this. “They rotate employees across different brands with different target audiences to work together in highly collaborative and co-creative ways.”
From an internal perspective, the company is also co-creating employee rewards strategies and other policies with the workforce to ensure they are suited to the differing generations.
Another example is LVMH. “That company has 75 verticals covering very valuable brands. They worked out a way for people to work across those verticals to collaborate more effectively together.”
The LVMH Disrupt, Act, Risk to be an Entrepreneur (DARE) intrapreneurship programme fosters innovation and encourages employees to develop bold ideas and provides them with the opportunity to be brought to market and become reality.
“It has engaged thousands of employees over the years. It is an open platform for collaboration and innovation. It allows employees who have never worked together before to collaborate on real-world problems.”
The advent of the five-generation workplace for the first time represents an inflection point for HR professionals, she believes.
“This is a defining moment for HR leaders. It is not going to come again. A first time only comes once. It is a very exciting time. Rather than a challenge, this is a moment of maximum opportunity to embed an effective intergenerational strategy. If we build and exercise the collaborative muscle between the generations, the extraordinary happens easily, and it unlocks growth and innovation.”
Returning to the impact of AI and the role of HR, McElwee says it is critically important for organisations to ensure they don’t lose vital skills as older generations leave the workforce.
“There is a need to invest in learning and education for the coming generations. Organisations need to understand the skills they have so that they know what they need to replace. For a lot of organisations, their capital is their people, and AI can only do so much.”
She gives the example of a HR professional appearing before the Labour Court. “How do you know when to say something? How do you read the room? How do you reach a settlement? These are things that AI cannot replace, at least for the time being. We still need to train and educate and upskill people to know how to do those things.”
That’s not all. “How do we move on from using AI as a souped-up Google to really add value?” she asks. “How do we train people to make the best use of it? How do we ensure that it’s done ethically, that we can stand over its use, that it doesn’t hallucinate? We will always need a human in the loop.”
HR brings a vital perspective to that. “HR has a lens on the world outside. It’s really important for HR leaders to ensure that the people in their organisations are prepared for what’s coming down the track. Ways of delivering work will change, the nature of competition will change, and the shape of organisations may change. HR is right in the centre of those changes. This is a really exciting and interesting time for HR, and the Summit will address the challenges and explore the opportunities that it will bring.”
For more information visit hrleadership.ie.
