Building thriving HR & L&D careers in the age of AI with Dr. Dieter Veldsman, Chief Scientist at the Academy to Innovate HR

Julia: Welcome to L&D in 20, your go-to resource for all things workplace learning, brought to you by Go1. I am your host, Julia Nieradka, Manager of Customer Success at Go1.

Today on the show, I'm very excited to be joined by Dieter Veldsman, a globally respected organizational psychology expert and strategic HR leader. Dieter has led large scale global HR teams and worked with iconic brands like Ikea, Swarovski, and the United Nations.

Dieter is a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg and the host of the HR Dialogues.

Dieter, welcome to the show.

Dieter: Thank you so much, Julia, and lovely to be here.

Julia: In today's deep dive, we're going to be exploring how careers in HR and L&D are evolving in the age of AI. What shifts are you seeing for people, professionals, and what should we be doing to prepare?

Dieter: I think it's Julia, good to think from it in terms of three different angles. Um, 'cause I think AI is all the hype and I think it's definitely entering us into a new chapter of work. But I think for HR and L&D professionals, the first thing we need to understand and realize is that AI is opening up new opportunities for us to shift our mandate. So in very practical terms, what we will be responsible for in future organizations is going to be vastly different than what it is today.  And I really think that if we utilize AI responsibly and in the right way, it unlocks so much potential for us. All HR and L&D professionals I speak to, they make the comment to say, there's so much more I want to get to. But these types of things stand in the way and I really think that AI can start to unlock that.

Second, I think it definitely then talks about how do we re-skill the workforce, you know, the same way that we've been speaking about the second industrial revolution a hundred years from now we are going to look back at this point in time and say that is when it changed, when skills became the currency and people had to start very thinking very differently about how they built their career. And I think that's such an exciting time to be in our profession, to be able to really start to shift that as well. And then I think the last piece then, what it calls for is that we have to think very differently about our own careers. You know what our research tells us is that 92% of HR and L&D professionals stumble into the profession. They land here. And then they say, but hang on, what does that mean? How do I navigate? And very often the career progression is very unintentional. And I think in this day and age, there's so much opportunity out there, but we need to expose people to it, and with intentionality, help people prepare for a meaningful and an impactful career.

Julia: I love how you break that down. And I also think that comment about stumbling into HR really hits home and will resonate with a lot of listeners, and it feels a little bit like we're at a tipping point now to professionalize and elevate that field.

Dieter: Most definitely. Yeah.

Julia: What do you think are the top two to three skill shifts you believe L&D leaders must prioritize now to future proof their self as professionals, both at an individual contributor level and a leadership level.

Dieter: The first one is almost the one that I think most people are leaning into at the moment, and that is to build AI fluency. And I think it's important to think about AI related skillset as fluency. So it's like learning to speak a new language. There's grammar you need to learn. So for example, prompting how I work and engage with these technologies. But there's also more complex skills around what is the context within which I utilize these technologies and how can they add value to me? I do really want to stress the fact though, that I think AI is much less about the technical skill sets and much more about the behavioral skill and the human related skill sets.

Things like critical thinking, learning how to evaluate these outputs, knowing how to utilize them ethically. This whole idea also around, just because we can, does not mean we should. So where do we use it intentionally. I love the fact the study came out a week or so ago that spoke about the fact that if we utilize AI to replace our thinking right at the beginning of a process, we actually disassociate with the work.

It's no longer ours. We are not proud of it. We don't necessarily see our hand and our contribution in it. If you use it through the course of the process, then it elevates and augments your current skill. And I think that's really something that people need to need to really learn. And for me, if there's two things I, or skillset that I would put money on for the future, problem solving, and I think HR and L&D professionals, that's something we are already really good at.

But I think we do need to elevate that. And the other piece is to keep our sense of curiosity going because the world is changing so quickly. How do we make sure that we remain curious and stay up to date with how these technologies are evolving and what they can mean for us in terms of our contribution?

Julia: Yeah. That need for both AI fluency and a deeper human connection is such an interesting paradox and is so true when it comes to AI fluency, where do you recommend L&D teams start if they feel a little bit under prepared at this moment?

Dieter: Yeah, that's a very good question because what we see from how people get exposed to AI, a lot of it is, is self-study, right? So people are curious or you hear somebody is doing something with one of these tools and you kind of enter into and start checking it out, and I think that's perfectly fine, as a starting point, but there is a couple of things that we should really be be looking at.

The one is teach yourself AI fluency at a basic level by gaining access to some of these tool sets. But always know what tool set am I utilizing, know where the data comes from, and also know what it can and can't do and what it is good for. So some of these tools are great for things like enabling writing, improving productivity. Others are much better for when you want to do more complex data analysis, et cetera.

So, I think a starting point is to understand what is out there and I would start with more of the general well-known open source tools, but just that to give yourself a little bit of exposure to it. And then if you're in an organizational setting, find out what are, what is your approved tool sets that operate just in your environment ‘cause those typically you can play with a little bit more, um, and a little bit deeper.

And the third one is be very open about the fact that you are experimenting with these tools in the organization and learn from others 'cause that's a massive thing that has to happen in the AI movement. As peers and as communities, we have to learn from each other. Otherwise this is not something you can only get to a particular point on your own. And then from there it, there has to be this cross pollination and experimentation that happens. And I think that's kind of the, the way that you need to think about it.

Julia: How do you think L&D can rethink learning experiences to support adaptive AI, augmented HR work without falling into the trap of tech first training?

Dieter: So I think actually AI, and you know, especially on the, on the HR side, and I think it's, it's similar on the L&D side. For a number of years we've been saying, you know, we want to utilize technology for X, Y, and Z. Whether that's to scale our impact, whether that's to reach more people, whether that's to enable the employee experience or a different type of learning experience.

I think for the first time, technology has kind of caught up with the vision of what we want it to be, and I think there's three things already that we starting to see. The one is hyper-personalization through AI. So learning is going to change around the fact that we will no longer have generic curricular going forward. We will have a content library of ingredients that gets matched by utilizing data and the needs of a learner in real time. And I think that is extremely, extremely exciting for what we can do with things like content libraries in the future and matching learning to immediate need.

I think the second one that we're already seeing, and maybe this is more a barrier to entry thing, is accessibility gains. I'll give you an example. We operate in about 200 countries. As you can hear, I have a very strong accent as well, so I come from South Africa originally, but for the very first time, you can listen to a lot of our content that is video driven content in a variety of languages that makes it a lot more accessible to people around the world.

And I think for the first time, we can produce content once. And then cut it up in different places utilizing AI to make it a lot more accessible for people to learn regardless of where they are and what they've got access to.

And the last one is, I think immersive formats. We are in an era where people, and I don't necessarily agree with it, but it is the reality, people want entertainment, not just education. We are competing with all the social media platforms out there for people's attention. So learning has to be an engaging, interactive learning experience. If you look at what are some of the first initial movements in AI. You know, engage role plays. I advise an organization at the moment for sales professionals where you can actually tap into an AI coach and I practice before I go to the client.It gives me real time feedback, it analyzes my responses, helps me understand, and without judgment. I get that feedback to build my confidence as well as my competence before I go into that particular session. And I think there's so much opportunity in that domain because who doesn't like an immersive experience that's kind of tailored to specifically what you want in the moment and in the need.

Having said that though, I don't think we should throw out all the science that we've built over a number of years around how adults learn what works, what doesn't work. AI should always be utilized in a particular context, and I can't stress that enough because it's not AI for the sake of AI. It's still AI to achieve a particular outcome that we want to, and you know, there's great things that we know about, whether it's digital learning, classroom or learning, the blend of learning, et cetera, and how people consume information. Utilize AI to enhance that as opposed to just replace. And I think that's a key thing. So not fall into the trap, that it's not a tool, it's an additional modality of learning that we can incorporate into the experience.

Julia: I love that distinction you make between, uh, AI being more than just a tool and it's about sort of rethinking how learning and work happen together. And also your comments on accessibility are such an important reminder for everybody that AI isn't just about efficiency all the time. It's a huge opportunity for equity as well, so I, I really appreciate that point.

What does a thriving AI ready career in HR and L&D look like five years from now in your opinion?

Dieter: It's a great question and I mean, the world is moving so quickly that, you know, my answer will probably be outdated in a couple of months time, but let's for a moment gaze into, into the crystal ball.

For me, there's a couple of things, right? I made the comment earlier around the fact that a lot of people stumble into the profession. I think what I would love to see in five years time is that AI has enabled HR and L&D to elevate our contribution so that it becomes a really sexy profession that people want to get into and actually choose for the value that it provides and for what it's known for and the reputation that it has in the market. And I think to make it a little bit more tangible, that HR and L&D professionals understand and know what their transferable skill sets are that they can go and apply in a variety of different contexts.

I mentioned earlier that skills is the currency of the future, and that also applies to us as HR and L&D professionals, not just the skills that we train other people to be able to have. And I mentioned that because I think five years from now, we need to be a lot more versatile in what we offer. A lot more adaptable in terms of the ways that we meet people where they are at, and businesses that will be operating in a very, very different context. Whether that's from a, you know, go to market perspective, how quickly we need to upskill people, how quickly we need to readjust, really, as part of that.

So if I can almost try to summarize that a little bit. You know, for me it's people choosing this profession outright, wanting to stay here because they see the impact that they're making and getting the recognition and appreciation that they deserve, and utilizing AI as a way to elevate what we do today into the next chapter.

For me, that would be an ideal state in five years if we can get there.

Julia: That's really exciting. And what advice would you give to somebody who is sort of mid-career, um, but maybe at risk of exiting the HR or L&D field?

Dieter: Yeah, that's a good question. Because we see from our data, and I think there's a variety of reasons for it, but almost what we call the the mid-career exit. So a lot of people, as I mentioned, stumble into the career. They remain in it, they progress a little while, and then they leave and they say, you know. When I look upwards around what progression looks like, I don't see the impact that I wanted to make. That has made me stay within the career, and I'll make it super practical, right?

L&D people get in there because they want to develop this human development at the heart of what they want to do, but they get caught up in a variety of different things, and the element of your time that you actually spend on human development is very little.You don't necessarily get the appreciation for it. So I think there definitely has to be that realization, if you are a mid-level career, that there has to be reinvention in terms of what your contribution looks like, and we have to be brave enough and courageous enough to transform ourselves to be prepared for what this era is going to bring.

I do wanna just outright make the statement That a lot of people think that your digital proficiency or data proficiency is very much linked to age. It's actually not. It's much more linked towards your openness to experience, your openness to learn, and are you exposed and intentionally trying to incorporate these new ways of work into your daily life. So it doesn't matter what age or what career stage you are, you can incorporate this if you are open enough to it to admit, okay, how is this going to change what I do and how am I going to be able to get there? So almost, I want to say there is that I think there's never ever been a better time to be in our profession, but it is about how do you unlock and reposition yourself. For the opportunities that's going to be there. Is AI going to take your job? It's going to take some of your work and some of your activities? Most definitely, and that's a good thing if we embrace it in the right way, because there is also another side to it in terms, you know, we very often talk about, and you also mentioned productivity earlier, you know, what can we do faster? If we turn that around and we ask the question, what are you going to do with the time you get back? What do you do with that time that AI actually gains us as human beings? What is the contribution that we want to make? And we need to go write that story in your mid-career, I think you already have a lot of experience to be able to phrase what that next narrative is going to be, and I think that's super, super exciting.

Julia: It's a really good point, and there's that concept of digital natives versus digital immigrants, if you've heard of that yet. And I know a few digital immigrants who are doing some amazing things with AI, and it's all about your willingness to be open and learn and all of those things that you mentioned.

 Julia: Now let's get into our next segment, AI at Work, where we dive into how you're using AI at work to work smarter and how you're helping your teams do the same.

So Dieter as a Chief Scientist and professional in HR and OD, what are your current personal AI priorities and advice to others?

Dieter: I think there's four E's that I would almost try to follow at the moment.

 The first one is, is educate. So educate yourself on what AI is. And there's a lot of things that's masquerading as AI, that's not really AI. And we throw terms around like gen AI. Understand what those terms mean and how they fit together. And I think, you know, there's a whole bunch of good information out there, but make sure you know where it is coming from. So I think that's really the first component there.

The next one is equip yourself. So teach yourself the basics. As we mentioned earlier, you can find a lot of free stuff out there that teaches you the basic skill sets to start engaging with these tool sets in that, in, in the realm of equip. I think there's also that component to build. Competence and confidence. Understand what is ethically the right way to work with these tool sets, what is safe. There's a lot of myths out there as well. So I think really a good skill to learn at the moment is how do you kind of see through the noise to what is really starting to happen.

The third inform is expose. Expose yourself to these things. Try go out there and experiment. You know, you're not going to break these models, and if you know how to use them responsibly, there's so much leeway and freedom for you to actually utilize these things in a good manner, in a good way. We see organizations make a lot of mistakes here around the fact that I train all my people on AI and then they say, fantastic. What tools can I use? And then they say, mm, no tools yet. We are still kind of doing our due diligence. So make sure that you do get exposure. If you are in an environment where a lot of these tools aren't sanctioned yet, make sure that in your personal life you utilize some of these tools to at least start gaining some experience and exposure to them.

And then lastly, elevate. Take it slow. I know there's so much hype out there, but we are at the beginning of the AI race. There's still a lot of things that's going to happen. It's better to move slightly slower and in a more responsible manner and build that confidence that you have over time as opposed to just going you know, let's throw AI out there in the organization and kind of see what sticks and see what happens. You don't get value out of that.

So I think those four E's for me is really important. So educate, equip, expose, and elevate yourself and do it in a bit of a systemic, structured manner, because I think that over time will really ingrain that competence that you want with regards to AI fluency.

Julia: I absolutely love this one. So to recap, that's educate, equip, expose, and elevate. That framework is wonderful, I think, and so actionable for our listeners. It just makes the journey feel less overwhelming when you put it that way, Dieter. So thank you for that. I love that you also emphasize, uh, kind of learning with others. And I really feel like that reminds us that we're really not in this transformation alone. Everybody's sort of going through the same thing right now, and we're all trying different things to see what works and sticks, but that framework I think is a great one to help people feel like they've got something actionable to work towards.

Dieter: And I think it's interesting also that you mention, and I think it's such an important point to stress, that we are all going through this together. 'cause there's two things also happening. On the one side there's a little bit of AI shame that's starting to creep in. And what I mean by that is people say, everybody else has been using this, I should already be further.

And then instead of asking for help reaching out, they can kind of withdraw even further. The, the challenge here that we find is AI is moving so fast that if you don't kind of string along and move along with the base, you are going to be left too far behind. And I think that's an important thing to almost normalize the conversation, that it's okay not to be, you know, building agents in your workflow every single day.

Most people are not there yet. It's fantastic that a lot of people are there. And let's be honest, those are the people that sharing all their wonderful new creations on social media. But for the majority of people, it's still the, how do I get started? How do I use this safely? Why is this useful and not just interesting for me?

And that we have to normalize in our conversation if we really want people to get to a basic level of AI proficiency as a society, we need to be open about where people really are and what is the starting point for people to get there.

Julia: Moving into our Future Ready segment where we talk about the future of work and how L&D leaders can prepare themselves and their teams. Dieter, can you tell us about your take on the future of work and what L&D leaders should be doing to prepare themselves, and what is a trend that you're maybe noticing?

Dieter: If we put AI aside just for the moment, because I think it is drowning out some of the other things that's also happening in the world, right? And I know it's extremely important and I definitely support it. However, there's other things that's also starting to take place. And for me, there's three big things that I think should be on the radar for L&D and HR professionals for the future.

Uh, the first, first one is who the worker is, will change the workforce demographics will change in future, so we have on the one side an aging population, so people wanting to work longer, having to work longer because they're going to get older, uh, due to medical advances. So the composition of the workforce is going to look vastly different, and that helps us then understand if people's careers are going to be longer. But the shelf life of a skill is going to be shorter, and organizations typically also don't exist the same duration that they used to in the past. What does that look like in terms of how we think about sustainable and meaningful careers for people over time? Because we know the Golden Watch era is gone of, you know, 20, 25 years at one company and you know, then I leave. But what happens when every three to five years, you have to replenish the skillset to keep it relevant in terms of what you're busy doing. And I think L&D and HR professionals should be thinking very differently about how do we keep on developing and keep a work the workforce of the future relevant.

The second piece I've already started to mention, skills is the currency of the future. A lot of our practices in HR and L&D is very much geared towards very traditional ways of thinking about work as a job and not work as a collection of skills and experiences that people need over time. So there has to be a lot more work in that domain.

I think L&D is a little bit ahead of the curve there, and when you start thinking about skills-based development, et cetera. But on the HR side, you know, how do you do skills-based hiring, skills-based remuneration? That's still things we need to figure out because it's going to change the mental model of work.

And then my last point there is we have to acknowledge and realize that people want something different from work today than what they did. And they expect something very, very different from organizations. So this whole idea of career, life fit, making decisions about work also in the context of what you deem to be important for your life.

And it's going to be different for you, Julia, than what it is going to be for me. I think that's super important because it means we have to gear people very differently for how they plan careers, how they think about careers. The tempo and pace at which they try to, to drive their careers in future. So putting tech aside, I think those three things are important to understand that the worker of the future is different. What are we going to do to gear them for long-term success in terms of both life and their careers?

How do we deal with skills and replenish, replenishing the supply of skill to match the demand that be in the future? And how do we just build organizations differently that has a different relationship with employees and with individuals to help people make different decisions about where work fits into life.

Julia: Yeah, I, I agree. It is, first of all, so important to, to adjust your first point and look beyond the AI noise. It's everywhere. And I also really think that focusing on the skill piece is so important because there's so many of us that are going to have multiple careers. We're going to probably do multiple different professions in our, in our lifetime.

So just having the frameworks to be able to build on those skill sets is so important for the future.

Julia: Alright, now moving into our final segment, which is the Learning List. This is my favorite question. I love hearing from our different guests about what they're actually doing and what they're learning. So my question for you is, what is in your L&D favorites list at the moment, and what are your go-to resources?

Dieter: So I'm obviously biased because I work at Academy to Innovate HR. That's where a lot of like my own thought leadership stuff also gets published and there's a lot of other really great contributing people that also share a lot of their thoughts and ideas there.

I must also call out a resource that I do look at and they publish like a weekly digest as well, is Revilo Labs great organization to follow.

Um, they do a lot of really good things around how the labor market is starting to change what is happening with skills. Um, how opportunities are rising. So definitely, uh, encourage people to reach out and to follow them.

Julia: That's fantastic. Thank you, Dieter. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dieter: Thank you very much for having me. It was lovely to be with you.

Julia: Thanks for tuning into the show. I'm your host, Julia Nieradka, and that wraps up another episode of L&D in 20. To continue the conversation, send me a message on LinkedIn through the show notes. Your comments will help inform future episodes, and who knows, maybe we'll even answer some of your questions on the show.

We'll catch you on the next episode, and until then, keep learning.