Exploring how HR leaders must balance Human capability with emerging Resources like AI and automation.
“Want to explore this in your board or leadership team? Let’s talk.”
In boardrooms and exec meetings across sectors, one trend is consistent: HR is changing fast. Technology is streamlining everything from recruitment to performance management. AI tools are everywhere. Cost pressures are rising. And many leaders are asking a version of the same question:
How do we do more with less?
But that’s not the real question. Not for sustainable, high-performing organisations. The real question – the one that separates strategic leadership from short-termism, is this:
Are we building capability or cutting corners?
HR itself is evolving. What we mean by “Resources” has expanded – from people, skills, and structures to include data, AI, platforms, and systems. That shift brings power. But it also brings risk. Because while the “R” is transforming rapidly, the “H” – human capability, judgment, and culture – is in danger of being overshadowed or underinvested in.
Because in the race to optimise, there’s a growing risk that we strip out not just inefficiencies, but essential human leadership capacity. And that’s a cost we can’t afford.
When “Resources” Stop Meaning People Alone
Yes, AI and automation have brought real gains. According to McKinsey’s 2024 State of AI report, 65% of companies are now regularly using generative AI in at least one function, with HR among the fastest adopters.
But adoption isn’t the same as effectiveness.
What starts as a productivity win can quickly become a leadership blind spot. When candidate conversations are automated, when performance feedback is templated, when cultural signals are driven by dashboards, something important gets lost: human judgment, ethical reflection, and the relational glue that binds leadership teams and workforces together.
This isn’t an anti-tech position. I’ve led both People and Tech functions at executive level. I know the value of smart systems. But I also know that systems can’t substitute for clarity, courage, or character.
Capability Is Not Just a System Upgrade
Organisational capability isn’t built by software alone. It’s shaped by how leaders think, what they tolerate, and what they prioritise when no one’s watching.
Deloitte’s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends survey says it plainly:
“Capabilities like empathy, curiosity and systems thinking are now core to performance.”
Yet, many HR functions are under-resourced or over-automated and struggle to champion those traits meaningfully.
EY’s Work Reimagined report adds another layer: 75% of employees now use generative AI in their roles, but trust in fairness, inclusion, and leadership intent is falling. The technology is evolving faster than the culture around it.
We’re seeing a wave of AI-driven terminology in HR: from digital twins of the workforce to capability clouds and skills taxonomy engines. These tools claim to optimise how we understand, deploy, and develop talent. But the language alone reveals something deeper: we’re starting to speak about people like code.
Not all of this is wrong but much of it is reductive. When we let our frameworks become abstracted from real humans, we risk designing elegant systems that no one actually wants to lead in.
Four Warning Signs We’re Cutting Corners
1. Candidate experience becomes transactional
We tell ourselves it’s high volume or system constraints, but ghosting candidates, especially experienced ones, is a choice. It signals culture. And it damages brand and credibility, often quietly and permanently.
Lately, I’ve read too many real-life accounts, not just at the application stage, but also after interviews, panels, and even finals, where experienced, capable people are met with silence. These aren’t speculative candidates. They’re leaders. And they remember how they were treated.
That kind of silence isn’t neutral. It’s corrosive.
2. Performance is rated, not developed
Templates and ratings create the illusion of rigour. But without investment in coaching, mentoring, and nuanced feedback, we risk managing data, not potential.
3. Inclusion becomes a compliance exercise
Tick-box training, static policies, and ‘awareness weeks’ are not the same as equity, psychological safety, and real accountability.
4. Culture is spoken about, but not stewarded
Pulse surveys are not culture. Culture is how behaviour is addressed, how decisions are made under pressure, and what leaders are willing to challenge, especially in silence.
These are not “HR issues.” They are business-critical leadership decisions. And they shape whether your organisation builds trust, resilience, and long-term value or just noise.
So, What Does Better Look Like?
In my work today, coaching CEOs, founders, and senior leaders, I see a quiet shift happening. These aren’t theoretical debates. They’re live, complex choices being made behind closed doors: how to embrace technology and reduce costs, yes, but also how to weigh the human impact, and whether those changes will truly deliver in the long term.
These aren’t easy decisions. But they are strategic ones. And experience counts.
What concerns me is how much leadership experience is being left on the shelf and how little we’re investing in the time, space, and development senior leaders need to think clearly and lead holistically. Because that’s the only way to ensure short-term efficiency doesn’t undermine long-term capability.
Final Thought: What We Don’t Measure Can Still Cost Us
PwC’s 2024 Hopes and Fears report highlights that AI-exposed roles are seeing nearly 5x productivity gains. Impressive, but what happens when we can’t see the cost to engagement, inclusion, or leadership quality until it’s too late?
Capability loss doesn’t show up on a balance sheet. But it shows up in decisions. In exits. In trust. In risk.
We can’t afford to pretend that tools will save us from hard choices. As HR and leadership functions stand at this crossroads, the opportunity isn’t just to move faster, it’s to move better. To build capability with intention. And to protect what still matters most.
The future of HR isn’t about rejecting tech. It’s about rebalancing Human and Resource.
The organisations that win will be those that upgrade the “R” while fiercely protecting the “H.” thought leadership
