Episode 264: AI, Loneliness and the Future of Connection at Work (with Connie Noonan Hadley)
Are we overlooking one of the biggest human consequences of AI at work?
As organisations race to adopt AI, much of the conversation has focused on productivity, efficiency, and redesigning work. But far less attention has been given to how these technologies may reshape something just as important: the relationships people rely on at work.
To unpack this, in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, host David Green speaks with Connie Noonan Hadley, organisational psychologist, Thinkers50 Radar thinker, and Research Associate Professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.
Connie has spent decades studying the social experience of work, including the growing challenge of loneliness in organisations. And drawing on her latest research and conversations with senior HR leaders, Connie shares insights on how AI is beginning to influence not just how work gets done, but how people connect, collaborate, and seek support at work.
So, tune in to learn:
Why loneliness at work remains such a persistent challenge - even in organisations investing heavily in culture
What CHROs are prioritising right now as they navigate AI adoption, organisational redesign, and a rapidly shifting external environment
How employees are already using AI for things they once relied on colleagues for - from career advice to coaching and problem-solving
Why return-to-office mandates may not solve loneliness in the way many leaders expect
Practical ways HR leaders can protect human connection while embracing AI-driven transformation
This episode is sponsored by Hibob.
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Resources:
The Surprising Power of Team Rituals
Institute for Leadership & Work at Boston University Questrom School of Business
Institute for Life at Work, research think tank and laboratory
This episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast is brought to you by HiBob.
[0:00:09] David Green: Over the past couple of years, we've spent a lot of time talking about how AI will change work, how it will reshape roles, automate tasks, force organisations to rethink how work gets done, and transform the HR function itself. But there's another question that doesn't get nearly as much attention. What happens to relationships at work when people start turning to AI for things they once turned to colleagues for? As we have learned from a copious amount of research, work isn't just about getting a job done. It's also where people build relationships, learn from colleagues, and in many cases, develop a sense of belonging. So, as AI becomes more embedded in the workplace, could these technologies help people feel more supported in their day-to-day work? Or could they unintentionally weaken the social connections that make work meaningful and sustainable?
To explore this topic, I'm delighted to welcome Connie Noonan Hadley to the show. Connie is an Organisational Psychologist, a Thinkers50 Radar Thinker, and a Research Associate Professor at Boston University's Questrom School of Business. Connie is also Associate Director of Boston University's Human Resources Policy Institute, where she works closely with CHROs from leading organisations to understand the biggest people challenges they're facing today. In our conversation, Connie and I will discuss what HR leaders are really contemplating when it comes to AI and the future of work, why loneliness at work remains such a stubborn challenge, and what Connie's latest research is revealing about how employees are already using AI in ways many organisations may not yet fully understand. There's a lot to unpack, so with that, let's get the conversation started.
Connie, welcome to the Digital HR Leaders podcast. As an Organisational Psychologist, Thinkers50 Radar Thinker and Research Associate Professor at Boston University Questrom School of Business, who has built a career studying the social experience of work, what was it that drew you towards understanding relationships and their connection to work performance?
[0:02:27] Connie Noonan Hadley: So, I would say that I have the heart of a psychologist and the head of a businessperson. And thank goodness there's a field out there for someone like me, which is organisational behaviour. I had thought about getting my PhD in just psychology, clinical psychology, I thought I wanted to be a therapist, but I really was compelled by this idea of getting stuff done. So, when you talk about performance, I've always been a kind of person that loves to try to achieve goals and hit performance targets. And so, when I went to get my PhD in organisational behaviour, I kind of made that a theme of my work, how can we approach things with a psychological mindset? How can we enable people to be their best selves at work, with the ultimate outcome of better performance? And it didn't take me long to find all those connections in my research.
So, my first study, I tried to get in contact with MBA graduates from seven different business schools in the US and track how they were doing in their career a few years after graduation. And my goal was to understand what made them love their job. So, that set up this whole exploration around that experience. And then, talking with these kinds of people, I realised those who love their job, just partly they perform better. And we know there's a virtuous cycle. But also, there was something about the job that was really connecting to them, that was giving them that feeling of not just satisfaction, but really enjoying and loving and passion. So, I thought, okay, so the MBA group, that's a key factor. And then, for my dissertation, I went to a different type of work population. For that, I went to people who had the kind of jobs that I could never do. That was kind of the theme of people I talked to. And by that, I meant people who did these really tough human-service-oriented jobs, like emergency room physicians or special education teachers or Guardian Ad Litems or social workers or even clergy. And these people are working human service jobs. They're really trying to provide and elevate other people, their clients and customers.
The key question I went into with that was not so much how do you love your job, but how do you stay in this job? How do you not burn out in this job? And there is where I really saw come to life something that was a glimmer in the MBA work, but it was about the relationships they had with other people at work. And essentially, what it came down to is, yes, these are incredibly tough jobs and worthwhile, valuable jobs, but it is emotionally draining. It's really hard to keep them up unless you've got other people to share it with, who you can commiserate with and brainstorm with and get help from along the way. And so, that kind of spawned a couple of decades' worth of investigations on my part about, how do we create that kind of camaraderie and support that seems so essential, not just for the great financial and work outcomes, but also for the impact and the social wellbeing of the people who receive the work.
[0:05:32] David Green: Really good. And you spent time obviously at academia, you've also spent time at McKinsey, I believe, and at General Mills as well. So, you've kind of got that mixture of, as you said, the heart of a psychologist and the head of a businessperson. You spent time on the business side as well.
[0:05:47] Connie Noonan Hadley: And I actually love both those jobs. In General Mills, I was in marketing, managing brands, and that was kind of a mini P&L for me to manage, which was just incredible. I loved that, I loved the whole experience of that. And then, McKinsey, boy, did I learn at McKinsey. And again, this was a great preparatory period for me before I went and got my PhD, because it allowed me to see so many different companies and the kinds of issues they were facing, and the real people behind them. I mean, the travel was tough, but the benefit of where I was living four days a week in the middle of Indiana or upstate New York or all these remote places, is I really got to know the people, the clients that we were working with, and I could see what they were struggling with and what they were really enjoying as well. So, those were foundational experiences, and I've always kind of carried with me that experience of being on the business side as well as this new kind of researcher role.
[0:06:43] David Green: From the conversations that you're having with senior HR leaders, what's really on their minds right now when it comes to people and work? And maybe when you look at those conversations collectively, what themes keep bubbling up for you?
[0:06:57] Connie Noonan Hadley: Well, just to give your listeners a little bit of background. So, the Human Resources Policy Institute is kind of like this hidden gem at Boston University's Business School, and it was founded over 40 years ago. And it's a membership community of CHROs and Chief People Officers from about 50 companies. And I've been involved for a number of years now, I'm the associate director, and our new director is Peter Fasolo, who just stepped down as the CHO of Johnson & Johnson. So, it's been an incredible experience for me, as an academic, to be working and getting to know all these people leaders as the kind of people who are part of your audience.
So, we do summits twice a year for our members. And as part of that process, we call what's on their mind. We send out a quick poll or an email or a phone call. And obviously, there's evolution about AI, but that remains a huge theme, and we'll talk a little bit more about some research I have on that hopefully today. But in the most recent for our October summit, the three main themes that came out were, people were really trying to understand the implementation of AI and how to approach it more scientifically. And music to my ears, as someone who follows science, so that was a big one. I think the field is ready now to stop the sort of rapid learning curve that we all were on, of what is AI; how does it affect; what could it do; to now like, okay, now let's take control and approach this systematically. So, that's one.
Then, following from that, another big theme that came out of our work with our members was, we need to rethink organisational design, we need to rethink work. The whole enterprise of accomplishing tasks in organisations needs to be reassessed. And so, there was a call out, for example, in our summer, people are like, "Who knows a good workforce architect? Give them my number". And so, this is the another thing, it's like the practicality of AI too, how do you implement it in a way while you're also transforming work? And then, the third thing is this, the rapidly changing external environment, the geopolitics, societal changes, policy changes, sort of that whole other stew, especially in the United States, has been, we've really kind of been on a roller coaster ride for the last year or two. And so, that's another big thing on the theme, is how do you continue to uphold your values, protect your people, do good work, while at the same time dealing with all these curveballs that keep coming? So, I would say those very clearly came out from our conversations with leaders, are on their mind.
[0:09:36] David Green: So, the rethinking of organisational design, and I mean obviously, you have a senior HR audience there, this is a huge opportunity for HR as we think about how work changes because of AI. We think about the organisational design that we've had really is a leftover from the 20th century, in many respects. We kind of need a new org design now. I'd love to hear what you're able to share from those conversations, just what some of those CHROs are thinking, what they're doing, what your input would be to that.
[0:10:14] Connie Noonan Hadley: Yeah, well because it's a membership community, we do try to keep things confidential that we discuss. But I will say, I don't think anyone would be opposed to me sharing that broadly, it relates to the first point too about the scientific orientation, I think people are really, truly going back to this idea of nuts and bolts of work, let's disaggregate it. We've already seen the trend towards skill disaggregation, really focusing on skills and what skills we need. But now, I think people are getting down to the task level because that's what AI demands. AI can do so many specific things. And we know about the jagged frontier, of course, which means that there are things that AI can do way better than we ever thought and things that AI still is pretty terrible at. And you don't know until you've really kind of paired up exactly what you need to get done and what the AI is capable of.
So, I think I would say the general approach that we're seeing from these very high-level HR leaders is we need somebody who's really digging in. And this also really is, by the way, how I approach all of my work, which is like, let's start with the data. So, they're, they're going down to that level of saying, "Let's take the positions that we know translate to the most value. Let's start at the top. How can we understand where that value is developed? How much of it can be done with AI? How much of it can be done by AI? And what does apply for where the gaps are, that the people that we don't have that we need, or the skills and training that need to be implemented.
So, I would say it's this really systematic approach that people are doing. But that being said, I wasn't kidding about this, like, call out for a workforce architect. I mean, I think there is an opportunity out there for people who do this already, who do this for a living, who could come out and help a company quickly be able to accomplish that audit, that assessment. So, I would say that that's the main thing that we are seeing that people are doing for the work task aspect. But then, in terms of the organisational design, I have a new study right now that we've been piloting interviews for, and one thing I'm really curious about is, if we go to this world of AI agents, where they are literally like circles on whatever the org chart is, how do people feel about that? How can we wrap our heads around this idea? And so, I'm using the framework that Microsoft has about in their latest work trend index, where the tech with a frontier firm is going to have work charts, not org charts.
So, just to give people some stimuli in these interviews, I have two slides. One slide is a traditional hierarchical chart. And then, we have AI kind of next to each person, like you each have your own little Copilot helping you, which is what people are doing right now. And then, here's this other org chart. It's just a bunch of blobs, essentially around a work stream. Say it's improving, I don't know, like brain recognition, or maybe it's reducing inefficiencies in your manufacturing plants. So, that now becomes a blob. And in the blob, you're going to have independent agents working as employees, plus humans. And you might have cases where people are managing agents and agents are managing humans and so forth. And so, it's been fascinating, just even in the pilot interviews, to see people react to that. For most, it's a stunning sort of view of what the future could be.
So, I think we're so early on that even our elite CHROs are in the infancy stages of figuring out how to make this a reality. I think there's a long road to go to figure out what makes sense operationally from an efficiency standpoint, how to reorganise people. But I think we've got even farther to go in terms of getting people ready mentally and psychologically and emotionally for what that might be.
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We're going to stay with AI. Based on your research, we've kind of looked at the experience, I guess, at work. How is AI actually changing that day-to-day experience at work, based on your studies?
[0:15:19] Connie Noonan Hadley: So, I'll tell you about a new study that I have with my colleague, Sarah Wright. Sarah Wright's a professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. And we wrote an article that at some point I'd love to share more about, that came out in Harvard Business Review last year, looking at loneliness, and it was looking at loneliness separate from AI. But the minute that came out, I said to Sarah, "We've got to focus on AI now. This is the next big thing that's going to affect people's social experience at work in a profound way". So, this research will hopefully come out this spring. So, it's still in the preliminary analysis phases.
But what we've already found that surprised us both is how quickly people are using AI for the very same things they used to go to their coworkers for. And I'm not talking about to get an answer to a query about what the latest data says about something, or to find out a contact point. I'm talking about for friendship, for career advice, for skill-building and coaching. And people are also using it therapeutically, I would say, informally as a therapist during the day. And it really blew me away that so quickly, we've acclimated to that possibility at work. Now, again, that being said, it's still early days, mot everybody's doing this. In our particular sample, we made sure we were talking to people who are using AI regularly at work. So, there's a lot of people who aren't. So, this excludes that set already. But even among those people, you see some variants. And some people are like, "There's no way I'd ever talk to my AI as a friend. It's strictly a computer tool". But there are a lot of people who are, and I forecast that we are going to see that happening more and more. Because first of all, AI is remarkably good at being a buddy at work. It's friendly, it's always available, it learns your stuff know, it gives often reasonably good advice. So, I think that's going to attract people more and more, even the sceptics.
But the other thing that's happening is that as AI pushes into organisations, I fear it's separating people. And so, AI is going to continue, I think, to fill a void. And in our study, what we found is that we looked at loneliness in conjunction with how people were using AI. And we found that the people who are using AI for all these sort of social-support-type functions, not just getting task assistance, but things, like I said, like companionship or career advice, they tend to be less lonely than the people who are not using AI for that. So, it's a small effect, but it's there. So, it's saying to me that, yes, they're getting some kind of reassurance and connection from this experience.
Then, some people actually said that AI was straight up on the other side, making them feel more lonely. So, it's a really mixed effect that AI is having now. I think we need to continue to watch this, and we can talk later about some ideas we have for how employers can manage the process. But what I really just hope everybody listening to this takes in is it's having an effect, and you're probably not watching it closely enough.
[0:18:37] David Green: You mentioned loneliness. Now, obviously, a big strand of your work, you've mentioned the work that you've done with Sarah Wright at the University of Canterbury. And in, We're Still Lonely at Work, you make a compelling case that it's not going away on its own. Why do you think loneliness remains so stubborn, even in organisations that believe they're investing in company culture?
[0:18:59] Connie Noonan Hadley: It is incredibly stubborn. And in looking back, how did we get here, I think some things have changed along the way. I think that if you think about Robert Putnam's famous book, Bowling Alone, and his more recent work, The Upswing, he was one of the first, about 20 years ago, to say we're not engaging socially in any aspect of our life as much as we used to. We're not part of clubs and churches and synagogues and other things that used to really bring people together on a regular basis. So, I think partly what we're seeing is just people are less active socially and in community ways in every aspect of life, including at work. I think people like to blame social media. I'm sure that has had some effect and infiltrated the workplace a bit, certainly in terms of, I hear a lot about people -- you mentioned that article I wrote with Mark Mortensen and Amy Edmondson, that was about psychological safety. I think that as, partly due to social media, things have gotten more polarised, particularly in the United States, I think it's hushed conversations that might have happened at work on a more social level, because people are afraid. They don't know where the other person stands and they don't want to create conflict. So, I think there's some quelling that's indirectly from social media. And perhaps social media has also trained people to be less social as well in face-to-face ways.
But I think the bigger issues are more about what's happened in organisations that have contributed to loneliness. And one of the first things that I would say is, as the expectations have changed in terms of always on and high pace and high performance and global teams, so that people are always working around the clock and rush, rush, rush, and so many meetings all the time, I think that's probably more likely been a culprit for the high levels of loneliness. And when you think about those factors, sort of thinking about, like, external societal trends, you think about the effect of media and politics and organisations, then you think about the way organisations are designed, that's we haven't solved it, because we haven't solved any of those other things either; they haven't changed.
So, what we talked about in our work is that it's not going to just go away unless we change the work environment, we change the norms that people have, and we change the structures of work. So, for example, we tested out different ways that companies commonly try to bond their employees together. Organisational-sponsored social activities, we can call them. So, one of them was having, like, bringing in free lunch and having like a lunch and learn or just an open lunch. Another would be the classic happy hour after work. Or it might be a retreat, or it might be a, some kind of a club that employees can join, like a book club or a running club. Or it might be just having five to ten minutes at the beginning of meetings to do informal chit chat. Well, what we find is that in aggregate, the less lonely people have more of those, like, a really clear finding that these kinds of things do help bridge social connection among employees.
But what happens in the cases where they're not there is that it's crowded out. It's either not a priority from a time standpoint, like, "I can't give up five minutes of this meeting. We'll barely get through our agenda as it is", or, "We don't have the budget to have a retreat", or, "We're not here to make friends, we're here to get the work done", you know, cultural stuff. So, there's lots of reasons that I think some of the more basic, obvious ways to help bridge connections don't happen. So, when you say, "Why is it stubborn, even though companies are working on culture?" I don't know. I think maybe they're just not approaching culture in that kind of targeted, systematic way. I'm not sure what that means that they're working on culture, because it's really, I find, if you think about the needs, it's pretty straightforward on how to increase social connection at work.
[0:23:07] David Green: Just sort of exploring that a little bit further, so I think about Microsoft, that they're not the only company, but they're one that's published. They've sought to understand, with hybrid and more distributed teams, as you talked about, Connie, we're not necessarily all working in the same workplace now. A lot of people are working like we're conducting this interview, where we're doing it remotely. And one of the things that they found was that they need to intentionally bring teams together periodically, as you said, and that is a budget thing to do that. And they're not the only company that's done that. Other companies have told me that they've done that as well, without necessarily publishing it. In your research, does the fact that maybe we're working from home more frequently have an impact on loneliness? Because I know a lot of CEOs would probably quite like that, if that was the case.
[0:23:57] Connie Noonan Hadley: They would indeed. Well, what multiple studies that we've done on this topic have shown is overall, working 100% remotely is a risk factor for loneliness. I do think that in cases where people never meet their colleagues face-to-face, that's a liability. But on the other hand, what we find is that working 100% in person, face-to-face, does not make a material difference to the levels of connection people feel versus working some kind of blended hybrid mode. And I even have a couple of samples that we haven't published yet that would say that people are lonelier when they're 100% in the office than they are when they're 100% remote. So, when we hear about this claim that loneliness is because of remote work or work from home, I have yet to see that evidence.
It's nuanced, of course, yes. Again, as I said, 100% remote might be a liability. But they've sort of taken that nugget and turned it into this mandate of, "Get back to the office, everybody needs to be there". What matters so much more is what happens when people are face-to-face than it does how many times they're walking into that door. And I would say that that one of the ways to make people feel lonely is to completely ignore their needs. And so, when you override employees in a matter, like say they have strong feelings about wanting some flexibility in where they work, you're basically telling them that, "We don't care what you think, we're not listening to you, we're not honouring something important. We're not trying to collaboratively solve this together". And so, again, that's a great way to create loneliness. And I suspect in this new data set that I have, where we see it's the first time I've seen such a strong, consistent pattern of 100% in office related to higher loneliness, I think it's more because of the mandate than it is even the actual number of days in the office. I think there's something going on behind the scenes about how that policy was enacted.
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We obviously talked a little bit earlier about the impact potentially of AI on loneliness, and from some of the new research that you've done, and how it might affect how people feel connected or how isolated people feel at work. Is there anything else from that research that you didn't get a chance to say a few minutes ago that you'd like to add at all?
[0:27:40] Connie Noonan Hadley: Yeah, well, for one thing, nobody in our study mentioned that their leaders were talking to them about the social effect of AI. So, I would say a strong message out there is again, start paying attention to this, but also start talking about it, because we've now had it for a few years, and it's time to really engage on all the complexities involved. So, don't push for adoption without thinking about how it's going to affect people. And so, Sarah and I have some recommendations. One of them is start measuring, not just talking about it, but measuring what's going on with people. I mean, you could start with, we have a free, five-question scale that measures people's work loneliness. You could just implement something like that to at least get a baseline on where people are at right now in terms of their feelings of loneliness, see if there's different pockets that are struggling more than others. And then as you continue to roll out AI, you can keep updating those figures to see if there's a correlation there.
But there's other ways also more directly to talk to people about AI and its impact on their day-to-day life. For example, in this new study, we used a tool where people could voice-record stories. And so, you could implement something like that, that would sort of allow people to say, like, "Tell us a story about how AI is affecting your day-to-day life". And you don't have to have an actual person interviewing them, they could just auto-record it, and then AI can help you analyse it. And on that note, I think our main theme is going to be like, we're not saying get rid of AI, we're saying use AI for human connection. So, take advantage of all the scale and the analytic work that AI can do, but to get on top of this people-related issue.
Another thing that I think, and this is particularly geared towards HR leaders, is I think there should be some guidelines about when do we put AI aside and just engage, human to human, versus not. So, there might be critical moments, like maybe onboarding, or maybe it's when you have even a team kick-off, because we know how important, as Colin was saying in his interview with you, how important team kick-offs, that first meeting is for the team's success. So, maybe that's an AI-free zone. But being thoughtful and intentional in advance about when people can use it and when they can't, and explain to them the relational benefits that you're hoping to achieve. I've been scouring for this article for examples of companies doing that, and I can't find any. So, by the way, if anyone does have, please, when you post about this, I'd love people to add on any recommendations, because I'm surprised. We have now lots of new rules about data privacy and governance of AI that we're seeing companies put out, but nothing about how to actually think about AI versus human, when do we use it, when do we not? So, that's another thing that I would suggest.
The other thing that we can do is going back to this idea about taking advantage of when people are together, how do we build out something meaningful and socially rewarding for them? So, one of the reasons people don't do even a lunch is because of the hassles of logistics involved, right? So, AI can do that. I mean, you can create a bot to figure out RSVPs and order the lunch and book the conference room and schedule the speaker and do the follow-up after, you know what I mean? There's so many ways that we can now automate the background aspects of bringing people together. Same thing for teams. I have a study that I did with Marilyn Zakhour from Cosmic Centaurs in Dubai, and it came out in Harvard Business Review last year, and it was about team rituals. And we found that team rituals are so important for creating that kind of sustained performance and collaboration that you want among teams. Well, AI can help automate those kinds of team rituals, whether it's organising a round-robin prompt that people have to answer at the beginning of a meeting, and then creating some funny kind of Mural board or something else that teams can look out later. I mean, there's just a lot of tools that are available for social purposes or can be used for social purposes, I would say.
Another thing that I would say that we're talking about is how we think it's really going to be important that, going back to this talking about it, that we train people about how to think about AI for their own health and wellbeing. I have another study that I'm doing with some collaborators at Microsoft, where we're looking at AI dependency and problematic use. And again, we've seen this when people are using AI as friends and romantic partners and therapists outside, that that could happen in the work. We could get too attached, in a dysfunctional way, to our Copilots at work as well. And so, I'd love to see more conversations and proactive training and guidance that we could give about how do we know when we're using it in a healthy way versus an unhealthy way at work? So, those are just some ideas that we have for ways that leaders can really, again, not avoid AI, but thoughtfully engage it to protect and preserve the humanity of work.
[0:32:48] David Green: So, as technology reshapes every or most parts of the employee experience, we're seeing CHROs being pulled closer into digital and IT decisions. We've even seen a few companies, Moderna famously with Tracey Franklin and ServiceNow with Jacqui Canney, come immediately to mind, they're the ones that immediately come to my mind anyway, who are combining the CHRO and the CIO role. I wonder, do you believe that CHRO should take on more responsibility for IT digital? Do you think we'll see more of what we've seen at Moderna and ServiceNow?
[0:33:22] Connie Noonan Hadley: Well, it's funny that you mentioned those two leaders in particular, because I had the great pleasure of moderating a panel with both Jacqui and Tracey at our most recent HRPI Summit. So, yeah, I got an up-close-and-personal view of their world, where Jacquie is the Chief AI Enablement Officer, as well as CHRO, and then Tracey is in charge of all of IT, as well as HR. I would say those two companies and those two leaders in particular are incredible, and everyone should be paying attention to what they're doing because of the innovation involved and the courage involved to take on that. Again, without sharing too much of the sort of confidential conversations, I can say that for those companies, it seemed to make a ton of sense. I'm not sure it does for every company. And the reason I would say it may not work for every company is really the span of the job and how difficult it is to be excellent at both of these humongous jobs at the same time. But I would say that what everyone can learn is how there needs to be a complete, close, close contact between the HR and the IT and digital areas, in order to move forward with this AI transformation effort.
I did host another panel at a previous conference, where we had Boston Scientific and we had the CIO, and then we had the CHRO. And so, I think that partnership is crucial right now. And I think it's been welcomed at this point on both sides, because I think originally that those who were in charge of the AI integration sort of sailed on with the technology, and now they've sort of stopped and been like, "Wait, people aren't always following us", or, "This isn't working as well as we thought. Maybe we should figure out somebody who knows how to figure out the employee side of things and engage with that". So, I think they're at that point where their mutual need and dependence is clear, and so I see more of that happening.
But as I said, it's hard to come in without knowing the details of each company. It might make sense in a lot of companies. I do like, by the way, also the way Jacque is, that she's the AI Enablement Officer. So, there's also still other people who are more deep into the tech choices themselves and the tech stack, but her job is to make it possible for the employee base to adopt it. So, maybe some kind of hybrid like that could be something other companies could try.
[0:35:50] David Green: I really like that, because I think there's a danger in HR, I'm sure it's not just in HR actually, that we do tend to jump on bandwagons sometimes. And just because two companies have made a change and combined, as you said, with Moderna, it really is HR and IT; with ServiceNow, it's HR and an element of what you could call IT, which is enablement, which you could actually argue is quite close to learning and development anyway. And everyone says, "Oh, is this going to be the new thing?" And it's probably, as you said, probably not for most companies. But I think that the big thing that you said there, that is a thing for pretty much every company, is HR and IT working closer together than maybe they traditionally have in the past, which I think is an important nuance on that. And from what you've seen, again, from your experience, what gets in the way of HR and digital IT teams working together as genuine collaborators?
[0:36:45] Connie Noonan Hadley: Well, I think just like any other situation, what blocks true collaboration and teamwork starts with the design of that partnership. And I was trained under Richard Hackman at Harvard, who was one of the leading scholars on team effectiveness and team design. And I don't think the rules have changed for what makes a true team versus not a true team. And so, elements such as having a really clear a boundary that brings them together is important. If you continue to view them as two separate functions with a gap in between, this is why I was sort of pushing my hands together if you can see me on the screen, you're not really part of the same team, and that's just right off the bat going to set up some internal competition and misunderstandings. So, that's one of them.
The other is having that shared goal. So, I do think that part of that part of this needs to be an incentive issue that gets aligned to cooperation between the two groups. And that should look like joint targets, joint goals that will help bring those things into alignment. We also talk about just enabling structures. So, around a team, you also have to have the right setup. So, again, say you have IT in one part of the world and HR in another part of the world, that's already just going to present some barriers, so you might think about co-locating people and mixing up the teams, not just at the top, but throughout the organisation to make sure those are connected. Thinking about too, like a shared mindset. I think there's a ton of work that needs to be done on people communicating their world versus my world.
This has been a personal learning journey for me, as I've been working with Microsoft folks in their research lab and in the organisation who do peer research, for the last four years. And boy, I thought I was speaking the same language as they were, because we were oriented on the same topics. And then, over time, I realised, wow, we have such different knowledge bases that we're drawing from, such different definitions of these things. We publish in different journals, we talk to different people. It has taken a while for me to understand. I still don't know all of their worlds, but it's taken me a while to realise just how different we really are, even though on the surface, we seem to have a lot in common. So, I think you need to really investigate at a deeper level, how you're approaching these AI issues and implementation plans, and so that you're not misunderstanding each other along the way. And you're also losing value because you're not harnessing. This is, again, you also need psychological safety here so that people will speak up when they have a totally different perspective or orientation on that.
So, I think it's all comes down to the human side of things, how do you build a good team? Well, we know how to do that. It's just really hard. So, I think that's how we will solve this issue of HR and IT.
[0:39:40] David Green: And, maybe let's give an example, Connie. So, I don't know, if a CHRO was to come to you and say, "We're expanding our AI capabilities", I think that would probably be all of them, "redesigning workflows and modernising our digital stack, but I don't want to lose the human fabric of our organisation", where would you suggest that they start?
[0:40:04] Connie Noonan Hadley: I would start with data, always. And so, going back to this notion of, do you know what's happening right now inside the lives and minds of your employees or not? We know about surreptitious AI, people using it, not reporting it. That's certainly a factor. But I think also just in general, we're at this moment where it's unavoidable that people have a lot of anxiety over AI for their jobs, their identity, their relationships at work, their teams, their future. And so, I would say start by systematically understanding what's going on with them right now, because you will be wrong. I am wrong every time I collect data about something. So, if you understand that whatever you think you're hearing, whatever your engagement scores are telling you, you're missing something. I would do some kind of deeper dive.
I'm doing a project, for example, with one of our member companies at HRPI, in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group. And the whole point of it is co-creation. So, we started with, again, this is not like novel process, but hard to remember to do it and to do it well. But what we started with was, we looked at their pulse check information. That was a good initial baseline. We talked to senior leaders to find out what was going on with the company. But then, we just started talking to employees. We had this really long survey that we had them fill out, that asked all sorts of deep questions about their day-to-day life, down to the microtask level. Then, we did a series of focus groups where we sat and talked in with them in a room for an hour and a half. Then, we did another series of conversations where we picked out recommendations. Then, we implemented some of those recommendations. Now we're back again, collecting more data from the employees. And hopefully, we're going to go back to them one more time to do qualitative check-ins to see how things are going, in focus groups or interviews.
So, that's what I'm saying. Start with the data. There's so much that you can learn by doing this systematically and talking to your employees, and that will guide you. It'll help you see the pain points and the roadblocks, and also get them on board with whatever changes to come.
[0:42:22] David Green: And actually, you mentioned psychological safety, Connie, and you also mentioned the fear, I think, some employees have. They're using AI, but they don't want to say that they're using AI. And obviously, we've all come up with different hypotheses as to why that might be the case. But obviously, if you identify that in your data at a company level, then that makes it really important that you start thinking around, "Well, we want people to be able to say that they're using AI, because if they do, it will help them, it will help their teams, it will help the organisation". So, again, maybe in companies that might be listening to this and saying they've done similar surveys within the company and they're finding this fear to speak up about using AI, what sort of recommendations would you give around that? And I appreciate that this is an evolving topic.
[0:43:13] Connie Noonan Hadley: Well, are you saying asking me how to get people to admit they're using it, or what you do when you find out they're using it but not talking about it?
[0:43:20] David Green: Well, it's probably both, isn't it, really? Because if people aren't saying they're using it and they are, that's one problem. But I suppose the other one is if they're fearful of actually saying it as well. That's arguably even worse.
[0:43:31] Connie Noonan Hadley: Yeah, I can imagine there might be a situation where you do some big anonymous survey and you find out, like other companies and consultants have, that said, "Oh, wow, people are using much more than you think". Let's assume you've figured out some way to get that information. Ideally, you'd get it by actually talking to people and having a conversation. That requires psychological safety. But say you've kind of come in the back door and said, "All right, we're just going to do a big anonymous survey", and we find it out. Then, the next step is going to be more questions. It's going to be, "Why not?" And also, a big thing I have on this whole thing is sometimes leaders forget or mischaracterise employees as irrational or emotional, or they sort of label them as like, "The problem is the employees that they're too scared to admit it, or they're not thoughtful enough, or maybe they're not committed enough to the organisation to do what's right for them". Well, you know what? We are all, at the end of the day, trying to protect ourselves and our families and other people who depend on us.
So, I like to believe that everything they do that frustrates you is rational, there is a reason for it. And so, your job as a leader is to remove that barrier that's making them behave in a way that you don't like. So, on the point of like, why am I hiding AI? Well, you'd probably find out that people are seeing layoffs going on with people getting their jobs replaced. That's such an obvious thing that somehow people still feel like people will continue to work openly with AI, when they've seen a pattern that they believe says this is going to lead to job loss. Why would they talk about that? It's so rational to hide that. But the other reason they might be doing it is because they actually don't think you're doing a good job at AI. I also talked to people who are not doing it necessarily for their own personal benefit from protecting their job, but they're doing it because they can't get their work done if they were following the rules that the company has set. And so, in some ways they're actually acting on behalf of the organisation, but they're just trying to do it in the least frustrating way possible. So, again, the totally different reason, you have to find out what the reasons are, but they imply very different responses.
So, it has to come down to that deeper understanding that companies have to have and stop blaming or coercing employees. This is a case where if you want cooperation, you have to engage with people. If you want strictly compliance and lacklustre effort and probably poor long-term commitment, then great, force compliance.
[0:46:02] David Green: And it's probably a bit like the whole flexible working. CEOs in some companies, not all CEOs, in fact not most CEOs, it's just the outlier CEOs, come out with these big pronouncements that everyone has to be back in the office four or five days a week. And some CEOs from quite big companies are going out and saying, "Actually, we're going to do layoffs because of AI". So, it's not that surprising that employees, both in their company and in other companies, are then fearful of admitting that they're using AI, is it?
[0:46:32] Connie Noonan Hadley: Right, exactly. This is why I love my field, because it's not so much that people have changed over the centuries that we've been studying psychology. Human nature hasn't changed in the three years since ChatGPT came on the scene. But somehow, we keep forgetting the basic principles, and acting in ways that are counter to what's ingrained in us. And so, again, if you're experiencing a problem among your workforce, whether it's that they're lonelier than you expected, or whether they're not using AI the way you want, look to the environment you've created, because it is shaping that response and that behaviour. And we are very attuned to the signals we get from the people around us, from the ways we're rewarded, and the other structures and things that govern and dictate our behaviour. So, you can change those things as a manager and you can change the environment. Stop trying to change the people.
[0:47:30] David Green: Well, it's why the research you and your colleagues are doing is so, so important, because this is an evolving topic and it will evolve over the next few years, Connie. When you think about the next five to ten years, so it's crystal-ball time now, Connie, you've probably got some data to help you with this anyway, what's your biggest hope and your biggest concern about how AI and digital work will shape future connection at work?
[0:47:56] Connie Noonan Hadley: I'll go back to the blob chart that I mentioned, this idea of a work chart where we're working alongside digital employees and maybe being managed by an agent or managing agents. I'm actually fascinated and somewhat optimistic about that possibility. I think it's very science fiction-y, but I think it could be really positive in terms of just a new era of our world. But what I'm really worried about is that we will implement this combined human-AI workforce in a way that fundamentally erodes meaningful work and the ability of people to feel that they are contributing something important to this world. Teresa Amabile was one of my other advisors at Harvard, and they have a book called The Progress Principle. And the idea is that people like to make progress at work. That was the number one thing that made people feel more satisfied and motivated at work, is just they want to move forward, they want to accomplish things, they want to feel valuable. And I just worry that we're not protecting the aspects of work that give people that feeling. And we also need to be more creative about finding new ways to generate that sense of meaningful, rewarding work. But right now, it seems like we're just focused on productivity and efficiency, and I think we're going to inadvertently cut out the good stuff.
[0:49:28] David Green: That's a really good point to make, and let's hope that doesn't happen. But again, as we talked about, the more research that we can do to show if this is happening and the consequences of doing that, then the better. So, Connie, this is the question of the series. So, this is the question we're asking all five guests in this series of the Digital HR Leaders podcast. I think it leans in quite nicely with what we've been speaking about actually. How can HR lead the responsible and ethical adoption of AI, and not just manage it, but actually to be a leader rather than a follower?
[0:50:05] Connie Noonan Hadley: It's funny that this is your question, because we pick a theme, going back to the HRPI summits, every time we do one. And this most recent one was, "AI is transforming how we must lead as HR leaders". And I think that's absolutely right. Your question is right. It is not about managing, it is about stepping out in front and leading. And it is time. We know enough, we have enough of a base of understanding of AI and where it's headed. It absolutely is the moment for the people who are going to preserve exactly what I just described, meaningful work, the sanctity of human existence in organisations. It has to happen now. We are moving so quickly, and there are so many dangers ahead. It has to be stepping up now. And so, I'm really encouraged and inspired by those leaders who are out there doing that already. And for anyone who is still thinking about waiting for direction or hoping a decision is made that will make things clear about which way to go, no. Take the stand now.
Again, if you start with a systematic and scientific approach and use data, as an HR leader I'm talking to, you have the best access of anybody to find out what's really going on with employees. So, harness that opportunity and then speak up, and create your own psychological safety in the C-suite if you need to, to make sure that voice is heard.
[0:51:37] David Green: Can you share with listeners how they can follow you, learn more about your work, and maybe read some of the articles? We'll put some stuff in the show notes, listeners, as well, around links to articles and stuff. But generally, Connie, how can people find out more about your work and follow you?
[0:51:52] Connie Noonan Hadley: Well, first of all, I want to say thank you so much for having me on your show. I've been following your work and you have this incredible LinkedIn feed that pretty much gives me all the things I need to read on a monthly basis. So, thank you for all that you are doing as well to propel these ideas forward. In terms of how people can catch up more with my work, the biggest compilation is found at my research think tank website, the Institute for Life at Work. I also have a LinkedIn, Connie Noonan Hadley, if people want to follow me on that. If they're interested in the Human Resources Policy Institute, we have a website at BU for that as well. So, I really look forward to engaging with your audience more over the coming months and years to learn what's going on and how they're taking some of these ideas and making a better workplace reality.
[0:52:35] David Green: Yeah, and just to confirm to listeners, we'll put all those links in the show notes so you can get access to Connie's work and read some of the studies that we've been talking about in the episode. Connie, thanks again. I hope at some point we'll get to meet each other in person as well, probably likely at a conference at some point, maybe where we'll both be speaking.
[0:52:53] Connie Noonan Hadley: We'll get AI on it!
[0:52:54] David Green: We will, we will!
[0:52:56] Connie Noonan Hadley: Thank you so much.
[0:52:58] David Green: Thank you again, Connie, for joining me today. It really was a pleasure to speak to you and I learned a lot. For those of you listening, I'm curious, what stood out for you the most from today's episode? I'd love to hear your thoughts. So, please head over to LinkedIn, find my post about this episode and let me know what resonated with you. I always read the comments and love reflecting on the different perspectives in the field. And if this conversation got you thinking, please subscribe to the podcast and share it with a colleague or friend who might benefit from hearing it too. It really does help us bring more of these conversations to HR professionals across the world. For listeners who would like to find out what we're working on at Insight222, do follow us on LinkedIn, or head to insight222.com. You can also sign up for our biweekly newsletter at myHRfuture.com, to get the latest thinking on HR, people analytics and everything shaping our field.
Right, that's us for the day. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week with another episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast. Until then, take care and stay well.