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#FutureWorks Download. Part 3 One question followed me home from Phoenix: ❓️Are we using AI to do the same work faster... or are we actually rethinking the work?❓️ At FutureWorks, we heard examples of humans already working alongside AI agents in engineering, sales and customer service. (Salesforce team) The technology can screen, schedule, research, build lists, answer repetitive questions and increasingly complete multi-step work. But one message kept coming through: The goal isn’t less human. It’s more time for the work that needs a human.💡 Connection. Judgment. Curiosity. Trust. Problem solving. Relationships. For Talent Acquisition, that means we shouldn’t just ask: “How can we automate recruiting?” We should ask: ▪️What work is repetitive? ▪️What requires human judgment? ▪️What should technology own? ▪️And what could recruiters accomplish if we gave them that time back? Because hiring isn’t a transaction. It’s a strategy. ~Workforce planning. Talent pipelines. Internal mobility. Employer brand. Candidate experience. Developing talent when the market can’t give us what we need.~ That’s where I want our humans spending their time. Maybe the “Human Advantage” isn’t about proving we can do something better than AI. Maybe it’s about letting technology do what technology does well so people have more capacity to do what only people can do well. That’s the FutureWorks takeaway I’m bringing home. What part of your work would you happily hand over to AI tomorrow if it gave you more time for the human stuff?👇

For the packaging women in my network attending PACK EXPO - make sure you register for this! Rebecca Casey, MBA is fantastic. Don't miss this 👇

The "Unplugged Stage" is where you need to be! Really excited to see what RecFest USA has in store for me this year. Always a great experience - the knowledge, networking, take-aways - Don't miss it!

#FutureWorks Download. Part 2 One of the sessions I’m still thinking about wasn’t about AI. It was about TRUST. Rachel Botsman shared a definition of trust that stuck with me: "Trust is a confident relationship with the unknown." That feels incredibly relevant right now. ▪️AI. ▪️Automation. ▪️Changing roles. ▪️New operating models. ▪️Who owns what. ▪️How fast we move. ▪️What needs guardrails. ▪️What doesn’t. So much of work right now lives in the unknown. Rachel's comparison was simple and brilliant. 👏 Traditional organizations often operate like Tetris (do you remember? ) - Controlled, linear, centralized, with pieces expected to fit into predetermined spaces. The world we’re moving into looks much more like Minecraft. - Open, adaptive, distributed, and constantly changing. "You can’t play Tetris in a Minecraft world." That line stayed with me. And it connected to so many other FutureWorks conversations. Salesforce leaders shared examples of humans already working alongside AI agents in engineering, customer service and sales. Another session focused on the shift from simply using AI to actually assigning work to AI. And one theme kept coming up: The goal isn’t to remove humans. It’s to rethink where humans add the most value. 💡 That raises bigger questions for leaders: ✅️Where should AI have autonomy? ✅️Where must a human remain accountable? ✅️What work should we automate? ✅️What work should become even more human? And maybe the hardest one: Do we trust the people closest to the work enough to help shape the answer? 🤔 For me, that may be one of the biggest leadership challenges ahead. Not eliminating risk. Not pretending we know exactly what comes next. But creating enough clarity, trust and guardrails for capable people to move. That feels like a very different kind of AI strategy. ❓️What do you think organizations will struggle with more over the next few years: the technology itself, or the trust required to use it well❓️👇

🌮 TACO Tuesday ~ #FutureWorks Field Notes, Part 1 Last Taco Tuesday, I was on my way to Indeed FutureWorks and said the quiet part out loud: Everybody loves to hate Indeed. 😂 So I went to #Phoenix ready to listen, challenge some thinking, learn a few things and probably disagree with a few things too. ✅️ Mission accomplished. There is WAY too much to unpack in one post, so I'm breaking my FutureWorks takeaways into a series of posts / conversations. And the first one actually isn't about Indeed. It isn't even really about recruiting. It's about whether there will be enough people to do the work.❓️ One of the themes that kept showing up across the conference was a shift in the way we talk about the labor market. We've spent years talking about people needing jobs. Increasingly, the bigger issue may be: ⭐️JOBS NEED PEOPLE!⭐️ The workforce is getting smaller. Labor force participation has changed. Retirements are going to hit hands-on occupations especially hard. Manufacturing is right in the middle of that challenge. At the same time, the work itself is becoming more complex. One FutureWorks data point that stuck with me: The typical job requires about two more skills today than it did before the pandemic.❗️ And more than a third of traditionally non-tech jobs now ask for at least one technology skill. So we potentially have: ➡️ fewer workers ➡️ more retirements ➡️ more complex jobs ➡️ more skills required Which makes me wonder if the traditional TA playbook is solving the wrong problem. We can't simply get better at filling requisitions. We have to get better at asking: ☑️What work actually needs to be done? ☑️What skills are truly required to do it? ☑️Which skills can we teach? ☑️Where are our own requirements unnecessarily shrinking the talent pool? ☑️And if we can't attract the talent we need, how do we create it? That last question followed me home. Especially in manufacturing. It connects directly to conversations around maintenance talent, technical apprenticeships, internal mobility, skills-based hiring and workforce planning. Another message I loved: Look for what people can do. Judge them in practice, not just on paper. Open up the talent pool.🎯 That sounds simple. It isn't. It requires TA, HR, Operations and business leaders to think differently about credentials, job descriptions, career paths and what "qualified" actually means. Maybe the future of Talent Acquisition isn't just about finding more people. Maybe it's about seeing more possibility in the people already around us.🤔 🌮 TACO Tuesday question: If the talent your organization needs simply isn't available in the market, are you prepared to "build it?"❓️ #FutureWorks Field Notes. Part 1. More to come....

✨️Friday Inspiration✨️ 🌵 I came to Phoenix for #FutureWorks. And yes, I’m learning a lot in the sessions. (Look for my recaps) But some of the most valuable parts of this trip haven’t been on the agenda. They’ve been in the conversations between sessions. Catching up with people in the programmatic space. Alistair Neal. Talking with TA leaders from the Recruiting Leaders US community. Cortney Grant, CSMR, CDR Brandon Davis Bill Boorman Meeting new people. Comparing notes. Sharing what’s working and what isn’t. Even the random UKG brain dumps have been valuable. 😂 Courtney Russell Thompson, PHR, CP-RM™ There’s something pretty special about being able to sit down with another TA person and say, “Here’s what we’re dealing with. What are you doing?” and immediately start trading ideas. And then there’s the personal side. Dinner with a friend I met through the TA community. Stephanie Deer An adventure with my TA Ops Manager that included tacos in a converted church and a Waymo ride we may never need to repeat.Michelle Shortess, PHR, SHRM-CP 😂 A fantastic FutureWorks welcome party. And time with one of my lifelong friends while I’m here.❤️ And somewhere in the middle of all of that was a band member who was *VERY committed to the cowbell.* Which, actually, may be the lesson. Sometimes we all need a little more cowbell in our lives. 😆 More fun. More energy. More unexpected moments. It reminded me that some of the best parts of any journey happen between the things on the itinerary. The side conversation. The unexpected connection. The shared idea. The friendship that grows out of a professional community. Make room for the people. Make room for the fun. And yes, maybe make room for a little more cowbell. 🐄🔔 Happy Friday. ❤️