According to numerous reports, much if not most of the conversation at that illustrious gathering of heavy-breathers in Davos had to do with making the modern enterprise a more fitting space for AI. In varying degrees, it was understood (and apparently often stated) that this preparation would involve changes to company procedures, practices and policies as well as to workers themselves.

Unfortunately, however, that last change significantly undercuts the impact of the first three. While recognizing the need for organizational change is the right idea for effectively implementing AI, the list itself reveals a fundamental blind spot. In order to “change” a company’s workforce, you first have to be able to hire workers who are able and willing to implement and leverage the technology itself and then to adapt to the myriad changes it will impose on the organization. Given all the wailing HR execs are doing about not being able to find the AI-ready talent their company needs, it’s clear that changing the company to accommodate the technology is a pipe dream with the current approach to talent acquisition.

That reality is driven by a stark truism: there isn’t an adequate supply of AI-ready workers in today’s workforce. According to SecondTalent, “AI talent demand exceeds supply by 3.2:1 globally, with over 1.6M open positions and only 518K qualified candidates available.” In effect, McKinsey’s 20th century-era War for Talent has morphed into a 21st century War for AI Talent Hegemony. A company can develop the most sophisticated and detailed plan for the changes necessary to capture the benefits of AI and still fail to achieve the expected ROI if it lacks the necessary talent to implement the plan.

So, what’s to be done?

Begin corporate redesign with a fundamental redesign of corporate recruiting. In other words, nothing happens in a company’s shift to AI implementation until it has talent acquisition perfected. So, how do you do that? How does a company perfect its talent acquisition?

Here are the first 5 steps:
• Pull the Talent Acquisition Team out of the HR Department and make it a full-fledged corporate department led by a c-suite TA executive with credentials in recruiting AI-ready talent.
• Have this leader of the new TA Department report directly to the CEO, not the COO, CFO or any other c-suite executive.
• Give the executive a seat at the table – not just the c-suite table that HR has been pining for, but the Board of Directors table as well. Why? Because talent is a strategic corporate asset that determines enterprise success and therefore needs and deserves Board oversight.
• Ensure the TA Department has the staffing and budget to limit recruiter workload to no more than five requisitions at any one time, not the 15-20+ that has been the historical average. That ridiculous ratio didn’t make sense in the 20th century War for Talent, and it is even more ludicrous in the 21st century War for AI Talent Hegemony.
• Also ensure the TA Department has the budget to acquire and fully utilize state-of-the-art recruitment technology as well as the talent and resources for a recruitment marketing team and a data collection and analysis team.

I realize all of that may sound more than a little naive. It’s not. In fact, what’s truly and profoundly naive is a company thinking it can implement corporate change without first modernizing its talent acquisition. That approach is the functional equivalent of putting the cart before the horse, and it’s a sure-fire strategy for failure.

Food for Thought,
Peter