How to Modernize Workplaces With AI

AI isn’t the future, it’s happening now. Here’s how HR teams can harness AI to drive efficiency and elevate employee satisfaction. 1. Let AI Handle Candidate Screening How: AI scans resumes to match candidates with job requirements, automating the initial selection process. Why It Matters: Saves time and reduces unconscious bias, allowing HR to focus on high-value tasks. 2. Get a Heads-Up on Employee Turnover How: AI analyzes engagement metrics and behaviors to flag employees at risk of leaving. Why It Matters: Enables proactive interventions, helping HR retain top talent and maintain team stability. 3. Personalize Learning Paths for Employees How: AI customizes training resources based on roles, career goals, and skills gaps. Why It Matters: Boosts employee engagement by aligning development with individual growth paths. 4. Offer 24/7 Support with HR Chatbots How: AI-powered chatbots provide instant answers to questions about PTO, benefits, and policies. Why It Matters: Enhances the employee experience while freeing up HR for complex issues. 5. Eliminate Bias in Job Descriptions How: AI scans job postings to ensure language is inclusive and unbiased. Why It Matters: Attracts diverse talent and supports your company’s diversity and inclusion goals. 6. Analyze Employee Engagement in Real-Time How: AI runs sentiment analysis on surveys, emails, or internal chat channels to gauge morale. Why It Matters: Offers actionable insights to improve workplace culture and boost retention. 7. Streamline Onboarding Processes How: AI automates paperwork, tracks tasks, and guides new hires through company resources. Why It Matters: Reduces time to productivity and creates a seamless, engaging onboarding experience. 8. Provide Real-Time Performance Feedback How: AI monitors performance metrics and delivers insights for managers and employees. Why It Matters: Encourages continuous growth and keeps goals aligned across teams. 9. Optimize Employee Benefits Offerings How: AI evaluates benefit usage patterns to suggest adjustments that align with employee needs. Why It Matters: Improves satisfaction while ensuring cost-effectiveness for the organization. 10. Simplify Succession Planning How: AI identifies high-potential employees and matches them with future leadership roles. Why It Matters: Maintains a strong talent pipeline and reduces gaps in critical roles. Bottom Line: AI isn’t here to replace HR, it’s here to empower it. From hiring to retention, these tools allow HR professionals to focus on strategy, culture, and the human side of their work. Which AI application would transform your HR function the most? Let’s discuss below! ⬇️ ♻️ Repost to help your network. ➕Follow Ricardo Cuellar for more actionable content like this.

Microsoft's latest Work Trend Index (based on data from millions of Microsoft 365 users) proves the modern workday is a fragmented, chaotic mess. But here's the critical insight: dropping AI into these dysfunctional workflows will only accelerate the chaos. We need to use AI to fundamentally redesign how work gets done. The data reveals what many of us feel daily, right?? Work has become an infinite loop of reacting to others' priorities while struggling to find time for meaningful progress. ++++++++++ THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM Every 2 minutes: That's how often employees are interrupted during core work hours by meetings, emails, or notifications. 60% of meetings are completely unscheduled or ad hoc calls, preventing any semblance of planned deep work. 122% spike in PowerPoint edits occurs in the final 10 minutes before meetings. 117 emails hit the average inbox daily - most skimmed in under 60 seconds. 50+ messages arrive outside business hours. Evening meetings are up 16%. 29% of workers are back in their email by 10 PM, and nearly 20% are checking messages before noon on weekends. ++++++++++ WHY THIS MATTERS NOW 1 in 3 employees report the pace of work has become impossible to sustain, what with flat budgets and rising performance pressure. Working harder and longer is at its breaking point. This is where AI becomes critical, but not in the way most organizations think - automating existing chaos won't solve anything. ++++++++++ THE FRONTIER FIRM APPROACH "Frontier Firms" are avoiding the trap of just rolling out tools to everyone. They’re looking to redesign work itself around three core principles: 1. Apply the 80/20 rule ruthlessly. Focus AI and human effort on the 20% of work that delivers 80% of outcomes. Everything else gets automated, eliminated, or dramatically simplified. 2. Build work charts, not org charts. Instead of rigid departmental structures, create agile, outcome-driven teams that form around specific goals and use AI to fill skill gaps. 3. Become agent bosses. When ready, deploy AI agents to handle prep work, research, routine analysis, and administrative tasks, freeing humans for judgment, creativity, and strategic decisions. Start small with agents - but get started. +++++++++ WHAT TO DO TODAY: > Audit your interruption patterns. Track how often your team gets pulled away from focused work. > Identify your 20%. What work moves your business forward? What could be automated or eliminated without impacting outcomes? > Pilot outcome-focused teams. Take one project and organize a cross-functional group around the end goal, not dept boundaries. Use AI to accelerate the work. +++++++++++++++++ UPSKILL YOUR ORGANIZATION: When your organization is ready to create an AI-powered culture—not just add tools—AI Mindset can help. We drive behavioral transformation at scale through a powerful new digital course and enterprise partnership. DM me, or check out our website.

AI field note: Modernization is one of the most underappreciated forces for innovation (Southwest Airlines shows us why). When legacy systems finally get updated, two big things happen: 1️⃣ You can start improving services that were effectively frozen in time. 2️⃣ The cost and complexity of running those services drops—freeing up time, money, and focus for what’s next. But for a long time, modernization just wasn’t worth it. The juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. Projects kicked off with long planning cycles, manual analysis, and a lot of upfront investment—often without a clear path to value. That’s starting to change. AI is shifting what’s possible. It can help teams understand legacy code faster, accelerate planning, and reduce the rework that usually slows things down. With that, modernization becomes more viable, more targeted, and more focused on outcomes. It’s not just about updating systems—it’s about unlocking capacity, reducing friction, and making space for the next wave of innovation. Take Southwest Airlines. They needed to modernize their crew leave management system—a critical platform for scheduling, time off, and operations. Over time, the system had become harder to update. Technical debt made it difficult to plan changes, and documentation was limited. Each update required hours of manual analysis just to understand what the system was doing—slowing delivery and tying up valuable resources. But the pressure to modernize was growing. As operations evolved and employee needs changed, the system needed to be more flexible, more reliable, and easier to maintain. PwC partnered with Southwest to take a different approach. Using GenAI, we analyzed the legacy code and generated user stories—effectively mapping the system’s behavior and identifying what needed to change. That work: ⚡️ Cut backlog creation time by 50% 🌟 Produced user stories accepted 90% of the time without major rework 💫 Freed up 200+ hours across teams More importantly, it gave the team clarity and momentum—turning a slow, manual planning process into a faster, more focused path forward. Less time untangling the past. More time building what’s next—for their teams and their travelers. There’s never been a better time to modernize.

As AI continues to gain traction, modernizing legacy tech has become a critical focus for organizations looking to overcome existing limitations and take advantage of new capabilities. Here are three approaches highlighted by my Deloitte colleagues Tim Smith, Faruk Muratovic, Bill Briggs, and Diana Kearns-Manolatos (she/her) [https://deloi.tt/44veSOh] on how AI-enabled technologies could be the answer to transforming these older systems:    🟢 Rethinking tech processes: GenAI and AI agents are providing clearer insights from various data sources to better manage complex business processes. For instance, an oil and gas organization could use GenAI for predictive maintenance, reducing downtime.  🟢 Reengineering the digital core: AI-powered tools are transforming data management and systems integration. For example, an investment firm can leverage AI to deliver hyper-personalized portfolio management, drawing from data representing millions of clients.  🟢 Reimagining business capabilities: AI is unlocking innovation across interconnected business systems. A pharmaceutical organization, for instance, can accelerate drug research and discovery using GenAI.    Regardless of your approach, building and maintaining trust with key stakeholders is essential for successful implementation. Even small, strategic steps in AI adoption can spark transformation and drive meaningful change.