AI Redefines the Future of Talent at LHH

Nakeya Bennett:

Hi, I'm Nakeya Bennett with Infosys Aster. We're here at the ANA Masters of Marketing Conference. Super excited to be here, and I'm joined here by Melanie. Melanie, you want to introduce yourself?

Melanie Siewart:

Sure. My name is Melanie Siewart, and I am the chief marketing officer at LHH. LHH is a talent solutions provider, we do everything from recruitment through development and outplacement. And I've been in marketing for about 30 years, so I'm pretty excited to be here.

Nakeya Bennett:

Thank you for being here with us and talking to me. So because you are in the talent space, I want to start with a question around talent. How are you seeing AI evolve your talent strategy?

Melanie Siewart:

So one of the things that we have found in our research among people who have been impacted by job loss is that 58% of them have to pivot into something they never thought of before. So it's not just a few people and it's not all AI-related, it's a lot of reasons. But they are pivoting into new roles, and part of it is building resiliency within people to be able to do that. In our research, it shows that people don't believe that their roles are impacted by AI yet, but they think they will be in the future, so there's definitely a lot of uncertainty about that. We do a lot of really good research around candidates and people who've been both looking for jobs and have been impacted by layoffs and what's happening to their careers, so I thought it was a pretty interesting statistic.

I think people want to learn the skills, and they're coming so quick and the technology is evolving so quickly, it's really hard to keep up with it. So making sure that we have a combination of people who can keep the lights on the way we've been doing it and starting to introduce new ideas, and then training, lots and lots and lots of training. We actually, within LHH, we have a business that does AI-related training. And so, we've had them come in and do some training sessions, and we'll have them do some more, to help upskill our existing team. It's really hard to find anybody that has the skills, and so I think upskilling, reskilling people is probably the key to success in that talent space.

Nakeya Bennett:

And when you think about just in terms of the future or new hires and bringing in new talent and sourcing new talent, do you have a framework or thoughts around what AI skills you want them to have, or are you guys just starting to think about that?

Melanie Siewart:

We are just starting to think about it. But I think what's interesting is I think you have to have a combination of AI skills and critical thinking skills.

Nakeya Bennett:

1000%.

Melanie Siewart:

Because if you can't see what might be wrong with AI... I did something just the other day and I put something in ChatGPT and it spit something out, and I'm like, "Huh, okay." And then, I started writing, and I'm like, "This just kind of doesn't make sense." It's that critical thinking that I think really is important, along with technological savvy and the ability to adapt and change, those are really important skills.

Nakeya Bennett:

Would you say you guys are early adopters of AI? How have you started to implement it across the business?

Melanie Siewart:

Oh no, we are definitely not early adopters of AI. Actually, within the parent company that we operate in, the Adecco Group, we have Copilot in a lot of places and we're using Copilot in a lot of places. But beyond that, we haven't really adopted very much, a little bit here and there, but really not a lot. So we're really looking at, right now, it's so complex and things are coming at you so quickly, it's really hard to think about what is the process that we need to look at first. So we're not early adopters, but we're not going to be late adopters either. We're going to get on the bandwagon right now and really start to think about how we bring this in.

There's a few places where it's very obvious that AI will help, around content creation, the velocity of content creation, probably around website optimization, certainly around search optimization, whether that's answer engine or search engine or whatever we end up using in another six months, whatever that might be. So there's some things where it seems very obvious to me, and then there's other places where I'm like, "I'm not sure how that would work."

Nakeya Bennett:

So in terms of that, as you guys look at rolling it out, how would you say you guys are evolving your governance strategy around AI? Who owns the decision-making for readiness to adopt AI, what AI tools you guys use, how it's rolled out, how things are approved?

Melanie Siewart:

So within the Adecco Group, they have an ethical AI governance board, and that board is responsible for ensuring that. Because we're in a people business and we hire people, we have to be very, very careful about bias, and so there's governance that's happening at that global level within the organization. So there is a board, that if you want to bring in a new AI tool, it has to go through an approval process with that board. They're open to tools, they're very open to it, but they want to make sure... We don't ever want to be introducing hallucinations or bias or something like that into the ecosystem of hiring and managing people and developing people, so we're pretty deliberate about it.

Within our marketing team, I think we're able to maybe do some tests and some pilots with certain things. We've done a couple of tests and pilots with a few things on a low, small scale without having to go through that, because then we can prove out the tool. So that's part of it is proving it out, is it going to work? And I think this has been actually fantastic for me personally to hear about other use cases and ways people are using AI to help me build my business case.

Nakeya Bennett:

Absolutely. Yeah. I think just the business cases has been huge, we've been hearing a lot of that, and proving ROI have been huge. How are you guys thinking about that, in terms of just, okay, how we're using AI, how are you proving return on investment or how are you capturing metrics around it, are you doing any of that yet?

Melanie Siewart:

We're really not doing it yet. But I do think you have to think of ROI in two buckets, it's how much more demand, how much more growth can you get because you can move faster and you can maybe be more efficient in your targeting. And then, there's also the cost savings that you can potentially have from automating things that were not previously automated. So I'm trying to think of it from both of those angles, because I don't think you can just look at it one way or the other.

Nakeya Bennett:

Right, I agree.

Melanie Siewart:

They're very complementary. But we haven't started measuring it yet, mostly because we don't have enough in place to really measure. Right now, we'd be measuring Copilot.

Nakeya Bennett:

So how are you guys making sure that you're thinking about it collectively across your enterprise, so with marketing, plus technology, plus finance, how are you guys all coming together so that you have like a shared vision for it?

Melanie Siewart:

I think we do well certainly with our technology partners. And across the organization, we're thinking about AI from both how do we better serve our customers, and then also how do we automate the things that we're doing in the background? And there's probably other ways we're thinking about it too, but those are the two that really are primary. And how do we make our recruiters and our employees more efficient in their job, and let them focus on the higher value things so they're not doing things like parsing resumes? Again, that's definitely something that AI can do.

So there is some thought about how do all those technologies go across, but it's not as coordinated as it could be. I think it will be more coordinated in the future. But our technology partners are really helpful in bringing tools to us, we have a MarTech stack, and within that MarTech stack, what could we be using? And then, we are a big partner with Salesforce, Adecco Group is and LHH is, and they've been bringing ideas to us as well, and so using that vendor.

Nakeya Bennett:

Nice. So they're providing thought leadership and helping you guys with your roadmap and where you should go?

Melanie Siewart:

Exactly, exactly. We just do have a larger relationship with Salesforce because the Adecco Group has created a AI business with Salesforce called r.Potential. Get it, our potential? It's designed to help expedite a lot of large-scale recruitment. So if you think about places where you need to hire a bunch of people really fast, and how can AI help you just do that? And so, they've been working specifically with Salesforce on that. It's a cool tool.

Nakeya Bennett:

How are you guys leveraging AI and marketing to drive business growth, not just efficiency?

Melanie Siewart:

I would say we're not doing it as yet, but we are definitely talking about from targeting media efficiency. We don't have a big media budget, so what can we do to reach more people at a lower cost per acquisition, on marketing analytics, doing optimization, more AI-generated optimization and working with our partners in... We're primarily B2B, so working with our partners in sales to... It's all about how do you get the velocity of content into the sales leaders that can then turn it into revenue, so we're looking out what are those steps and where does AI fit in there.

One thing we've been with sales enablement in particular is we do a lot of content generation for sales enablement, and so are there ways that AI could help us accelerate the sales enablement tools so that then sales is able to reach more customers? And then, we also are using it for outbound calls with our sales development team.

Nakeya Bennett:

Okay. So business growth, so we just talked about that. What about workflow improvement, are you guys doing anything or thinking about doing anything in terms of workflow operations?

Melanie Siewart:

We are one million percent thinking about it, I actually had a meeting on it this morning, because we don't really have good workflow. We were a bunch of small marketing teams that all came together as a global marketing team, and so everybody did everything a different way, and to some extent, still does. And so, we see this as a really great moment to try to put those processes in place. But you also can't put technology on top of a broken process and expect it to work, so we want to make sure that we're fixing those underlying processes before we put the technology on top of it.

Nakeya Bennett:

Very smart.

Melanie Siewart:

We'll see how well that works, but we're trying, we're thinking about it. So we actually are talking with a couple of different providers to help us with that workflow, and we haven't decided on exactly which one we're going to go with. But what's important to me is that they have some of those AI knowledge and skills that we don't have to help augment, so that we... There's things that we're not thinking about, they're going to bring that to the table for us to help us automate.

Nakeya Bennett:

Right. And when you think about prioritization over the next year or so, how are you prioritizing your AI investment?

Melanie Siewart:

I think workflow and efficiency is probably our most important, but I also think workflow and efficiency is going to have an outcome for growth as well, because if we're more efficient, we're going to reach more people. But we have a lot of opportunity to be a more efficient organization, so that's really my first priority. And then, content, content, content, content, content, and then more content, and for B2B-

Nakeya Bennett:

And most people are spending on content, right? That's a huge one. If you look at the data, content and creative are right at the top of the list for most marketers, for sure.

Melanie Siewart:

I was blown away by some of the creative stuff that I saw here, because I know we've been playing with it, but we haven't done any real AI-generated content. We did a couple of little things, but I was like, "Wow, in three or four months, it's come so far." And then, what's going to happen in three or four more months? It's pretty incredible.

Nakeya Bennett:

It is. It shocked me just to see the translations and how AI can make content across geographies, across languages, that's been super cool.

Melanie Siewart:

That's super huge for us, because we operate in 60 countries, and so we translate... We typically don't translate into 60 languages, we translate into about 27 languages, and we use this translation service today that helps us with that, and then we also end up having to rewrite them all because you don't necessarily always get the cultural context. And that's what I love about some of the tools that I'm seeing out there now, is it's almost like they transcreate instead of translate, and so you get the right cultural context in addition to the right words. And so, that will be a huge gain for us as a company. And it's not just within marketing that we do that, it's also within our operations and fulfillment business, so there's a lot of places, I think, where we can get efficiency. You asked before across the organization, that's one of the places where we feel like there's some organizational efficiency, some organizational effectiveness that could come out of that.

Nakeya Bennett:

Since it's a talent organization, driven by talent, are you guys using AI now to go through resume submissions and-

Melanie Siewart:

We have a product called Career Studio. Career Studio is offered to people who have been laid off and are looking for a new job. So we work with large companies, or actually all different sized companies, to help their employees to find a new job. One of the things we've introduced is something called the Interview Center, and it's really, really cool, it's really cool. So it lets you, as a candidate, practice your interview. So you upload your resume, you upload the job description that you're practicing, and it gives you real-time feedback. It asks you questions, it's all voice, it asks you questions, you answer the questions, and it gives you real-time feedback on how you answered the questions, so that when you go to your interview, you feel more prepared.

It's not replacing your voice, it's just helping you refine your voice, just like if you practice with a human, but it's giving you more specific feedback. Maybe it's a little harsher than a human would be, it'll say, "You sounded nasally." Maybe a human wouldn't tell you that, I don't know. But that's one of our really cool tools. And then, we're helping people write resumes, we're using AI for that. We're also using AI to help people optimize and maximize their LinkedIn profiles. And then, within our Career Studio tool, we also have something that's like a career finder tool that helps you to think about jobs that you might not have thought about. It looks at your core skills and your core capabilities, and takes that out of your resume and your profile, and then suggests things that you may never have considered.

Nakeya Bennett:

That's awesome.

Melanie Siewart:

So I don't know, "I don't think you're a television host, but that might be something you want to consider in the future because you're good at it," and it would tell you that. And so, it helps people see opportunities that they might not have otherwise seen.

Nakeya Bennett:

I love that.

Melanie Siewart:

And then, we have a platform for coaching that is AI coaching. So we're using it in a lot of different places to support our customers.

Nakeya Bennett:

Those are awesome examples. I hadn't heard some of those, but those seem really key for a talent organization.

Melanie Siewart:

There's two points. One is to create an efficient operation for us. But the other point is you can give somebody an insight that a human might not have seen, and then it's augmented with human input. So if we're doing this career path idea, it takes it back to your career coach and your career coach says, "Hey, what do you think about that?" And so, you have a different kind of conversation than you would've if you hadn't gotten that direction.

Nakeya Bennett:

No, that's amazing, because I feel like there are people in the job market right now who would really benefit from something like that. Even just, "I only know to think about these two job titles," so just presenting a different opportunity or a different area where they can look. So it sounds like you're really excited about AI.

Melanie Siewart:

I am, I am. A little scared. How can you not be just a little scared?

Nakeya Bennett:

Just a little tiny bit. But we're doing it scared, I feel like, most of us, and I think just the growth over the next several years will be crazy. I'm interested to see where it goes and where it takes us and where it takes our clients. But it sounds like you guys are at a really good place of just making sure you're doing the right thing and making sure you're leveraging AI in the right way.

Melanie Siewart:

I think it's a balance between making sure you're going fast enough and still making a good decision. I think one of the speakers said, "If you're waiting until you know all the information, you're never going to know all the information, because it's going to change every other day." And I think that is a new attitude that we have to have.

Nakeya Bennett:

Absolutely.

Melanie Siewart:

And we can't vet everything 100%, we may have to only vet it 70% and feel like we're comfortable with it and give it a try and see what happens and then move on.

Melanie Siewart:

Exactly. And the technology's evolving so fast that you move on to the next thing, and it's going to be better, it's going to be...

Nakeya Bennett:

Absolutely.

Melanie Siewart:

But doing it with the right foundation.

Nakeya Bennett:

Well, it sounds like you guys are being very smart in your approach to AI. I look forward to seeing articles about what you guys are doing and how you're rolling out AI. Thank you so much for being here and speaking with me, Melanie.

Melanie Siewart:

It's my pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you.