Jose Cong
Chief People Officer
Humane
Episode 385
HR's Evolution: Beyond Service to Strategic Impact with Augmented Intelligence
Current chapter: Covering monthly expenses is the number one concern for employees in 2024
Built By PeopleNovember 14, 2024 · 17:32
Thesis
“HR's role must fundamentally shift from a reactive service function to a proactive, strategic business partner, leveraging data and augmented intelligence to optimize talent decisions, forecast workforce needs, and drive significant organizational impact.”
Show notes
Embracing AI in HR: Insights from Jose Cong In this episode of the Built by People podcast, host welcomes Jose Cong, Chief People Officer at Humane, to discuss his 25-year career in HR, the evolution of HR roles, and how technology, especially AI, is reshaping the function. Jose shares his experiences from working with industry giants like NVIDIA, Apple, and Nest Labs, highlighting pivotal moments in his career. He elaborates on the importance of strategic planning in HR, leveraging data, and the transformative impact of AI in automating tasks, thereby enhancing overall efficiency and allowing HR professionals to be more present and human-centric in their roles. Jose emphasizes that AI will not replace jobs but will optimize outputs, urging HR leaders to embrace AI for improved business impact. 00:00 Introduction to the Built by People Podcast 00:44 Welcoming Jose Cong 00:57 Jose Cong's Career Journey 04:11 The Role of HR Today and Its Evolution 05:12 Strategic HR Planning and Decision Making 09:46 Technological Advancements in HR 14:46 The Importance of Data in HR 15:43 Embracing AI in HR 17:25 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
What you'll take away
- 1HR leaders must transition from a reactive service mindset to becoming strategic business partners, proactively assessing skill gaps and planning talent acquisition several months in advance to avoid panic hires.
- 2Utilize HR technology (e.g., MetaView for interview transcription, custom GPTs) to automate repetitive administrative tasks, significantly shortening processes like job description creation and approval from weeks to hours.
- 3Embrace 'augmented intelligence' – not AI replacement – to leverage data for confident decision-making, understanding employee performance arcs, and structuring personalized development and growth plans.
- 4The future of HR roles will not be lost to AI but to individuals who master optimizing their outputs through AI, freeing up HR professionals for more human, strategic, and impactful interactions.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Jose pushes back on the fear of liability associated with recording interview sessions (e.g., using MetaView), arguing that the technology actually provides the ability to discover and address issues proactively, improving transparency and fairness.
In Jose's words
“Probably the most pivotal experience of my career was when I was hired into Apple to help to create the special project group, the one that was responsible for the iPod, a bunch of accessories, but ultimately the iPhone, where I was one of the earliest employees assigned to it. The reasons why I say that that was a pivotal point in my career was the fact that it was the exposure in terms of the ability to create impact. I had access to top executives, had the ability to earn a seat at the table and had a chance to prove that being strategic from a talent perspective, from a people perspective, can really, you know, supercharge a roadmap.”
Highlights the guest's early realization of HR's strategic value and the importance of a 'seat at the table' in driving business outcomes.
“I think today in heading into the future, I think that we have to look at ourselves, right, in HR leadership as strategic members of the business organization. Our impact is not necessarily limited to hiring and, you know, onboarding and keeping, you know, people happy. I think it goes beyond that. I think there is a— there has been a tremendous shift where we have the ability now to have a seat at the main table, right? And to help out with strategic decisions.”
This quote defines the guest's core philosophy for modern HR, emphasizing a proactive and strategic role beyond traditional administrative functions.
“I'm not talking about AI taking over. I'm not talking about AI making decisions for us. I'm talking about not artificial intelligence, but augmented intelligence of our people in HR.”
Clarifies the guest's optimistic and empowering vision for AI in HR as a tool to enhance human capabilities, not replace them.
“With this type of technology [MetaView], at least I have the ability to be able to discover that and get ahead of it. And if I put that fear behind, right, because of that benefit, and then I know that I can not only help, you know, individuals be able to be present during that candidate experience by making sure that they don't have to take notes, right, on everything, but that I can actually go back and look at the exact transcript of that conversation.”
Counters the common apprehension about recording interviews, highlighting the benefits of transparency, data, and improved candidate experience.
“We're not going to lose our jobs through AI. We're going to lose jobs to people who know how to optimize their outputs through AI.”
A concise and impactful statement that reframes the conversation around AI's impact on employment, emphasizing adaptation and skill development.
The problems this episode addresses
- •**Reactive Hiring & Talent Gaps**: Organizations often resort to panic hiring due to immediate needs, which can lead to suboptimal candidate selection and a diluted talent pool, rather than strategic, forward-looking workforce planning.
- •**Inefficient HR Administrative Processes**: Mundane, repetitive tasks consume significant HR time (e.g., job description creation taking weeks), preventing HR professionals from engaging in higher-value strategic and human-centric activities.
- •**Biased & Inconsistent Interviewing**: Interview processes are prone to recency bias and lack of consistent data capture, making objective candidate assessment and recall of specific feedback challenging.
- •**Lack of Data-Driven Decision Making**: HR decisions are frequently based on subjective 'feelings' or 'thoughts' rather than concrete data, resulting in assumptions rather than confident, impactful strategic calls.
- •**Suboptimal Employee Development & Onboarding**: A disconnect between hiring insights and post-hire development means opportunities are missed to structure effective onboarding, personalized growth plans, and proactive retention strategies.
In this episode
Covering monthly expenses is the number one concern for employees in 2024
Built by People
José Koch is the chief people officer at Humane Software
Built By People: José Koch
Curious to get your perspective on what the responsibilities are of HR today
WSJDLive: The HR Function in the Future
Humane uses technology to transcribe interviews to help with onboarding
HR Technology Use Cases
Jose: Had I been more appreciative of data early in my career
What's Been a Key Learning in Your Career? Data
Any parting advice that you'd like to share with the HR community about embracing AI
How to Build a Human Machine with AI
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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